Behavioral Activation Planner
Low mood says “wait until you feel like it.” Behavioral activation does the opposite: schedule the action first, in pieces too small to fail, and let motivation follow. It is one of the best-evidenced self-help techniques for depression — plan your week below.
Plan this week
Pick a day, add one small activity. Small enough to be almost impossible to fail is the right size — a 10-minute walk counts. Afterward, rate Pleasure (how enjoyable) and Mastery (sense of accomplishment), each 0–10.
Your plan is stored only in this browser. Past snapshots appear under My Results — today: Oct 14, 2026.
Why acting first works
Depression and burnout shrink life: fewer activities, less pleasure, less sense of accomplishment — which deepens the low mood, which shrinks life further. Behavioral activation (BA) breaks the loop at the behavior end. You schedule activities that historically gave you pleasure (enjoyment, connection) or mastery (a sense of getting something done), do them whether or not you feel like it, and rate both afterward. The ratings are the diagnostic gold: many people discover their pleasure predictions were far gloomier than reality.
Keep activities small and scheduled — “walk around the block after lunch Tuesday” beats “exercise more.” If everything feels like too much, that itself is information: pair this with the PHQ-9 self-check and consider professional support.
Behavioral activation is a self-help practice drawn from CBT. It supports everyday low mood and slumps; it is not a treatment for severe depression, which deserves in-person professional care.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as an activity?
Anything with a time and a place that takes under an hour to start: a short walk, texting a friend, cooking one meal, tidying one drawer, sitting in daylight with coffee. Errands count for mastery; anything enjoyable counts for pleasure. The smaller and more concrete, the more likely it happens.
Why rate pleasure and mastery separately?
Because they feed mood through different channels, and people are often deficient in only one. A week full of mastery and no pleasure feels like grinding; all pleasure and no mastery can feel empty. The ratings show which channel your week is missing.
What if I don't do the activity?
Shrink it. The method's rule is that a missed activity was too big, not that you failed: 'walk 30 minutes' becomes 'walk to the corner'. Reschedule the smaller version rather than abandoning the plan.
Is my plan private?
Yes. The plan and its snapshots are stored only in your browser's local storage on this device. Nothing is uploaded.
Keep going
Your results from every tool are saved only in this browser — see them together on My Results.