"One of Those Days" received generally positive reviews from music critics. Sean Daly of
The Washington Post commented that the song was "likably bouncy". Craig Seymour of
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution called the song a "breezy girls'-night-out" cut. Writer for
Blues & Soul wrote that the song "is an excellent slice of soulful mid-beat head nod R&B". They also commended the sampling of "Between the Sheets", noting that it is "effective". Ernest Hardy of
LA Weekly had different opinions of the song. Although he deemed it an "underrated single" at first and wrote that it "leaps beyond its work-sucks-the-rent's-late-I-need-a-date griping into the realm of existential letting", Keysha Davis of
BBC Music called the sampling of "Between the Sheets" as "clever". Writing for
The Boston Globe, Joan Anderman called it a "breezy" track with a "disturbingly trite" theme. Jimmy Draper of
San Francisco Bay Guardian noted that "the song seems so anticlimactic in comparison to the real-life pot". Jon Caramanica of
Rolling Stone called the track "creaky and unconvincing".
Entertainment Weekly gave the remix single a D rating and commented negatively that "this chaotic mess isn't likely to find an enthusiastic audience" as the producer "laid a random Nelly verse and some whistle beats on top of Houston's vocals. It's as if someone opened the door between two rooms and cranked warring stereos". Following Houston's death in 2012,
Entertainment Weekly published a list of Houston's 25 best songs and ranked "One of Those Days" at number 19; they noted that it was "an underrated single off an underrated album". They further commented that "Whitney gave women of the world an instruction manual for pampering themselves in the
Sex and the City era". ==Chart performance==