Tool 80 · Develop yourself
Start with sleep, money and time before anything deeper.
A guided 10 to 14 minute conversation using ChatGPT. Free, no account, nothing to sign up to.
01
Copy
Take the TAIU prompt.
02
Paste
Open ChatGPT.
03
Talk
One question at a time.
Copies the TAIU prompt. Paste it into ChatGPT.
You don't need ChatGPT Plus. The free version is fine.
Sleep first, meaning later.
What is in your gift this week?
What you'll explore
A note from Mark
When somebody asks a big question in a bad week, the big question usually isn't the problem.
So I start low. Sleep. Money. Food. An hour that belongs to you.
If any of those are missing, everything above them reads worse than it is.
And most people, when asked what they need, describe what their family needs. Worth noticing.
What you'll get
01
The need
02
The basics
03
What is yours
04
This week
+
Your TAIU handover — a portable summary of everything the conversation established.
What now?
01 · Save it
What you said you need.
02 · Test it
Sleep properly for three nights before deciding anything.
What I would do
Check the basics before looking for anything deeper.
Write your needs and other people's in separate columns.
Pick the one that is in your gift.
Work out what has to be dropped for it to happen.
Do that one thing this week.
Test it
When did you last sleep properly?
What are other people needing from you?
What is in your gift this week?
The alternative
The usual reading is that somebody who feels flat or frantic needs a change of direction. Often the fortnight shows four hours of sleep a night and no time alone, and the direction is fine. The reverse also happens. Somebody has slept and rested and still cannot settle, and the need is genuinely about how they are living rather than how tired they are.
Think about this
Take this to Ask Mark
Interpretation, not another copy-and-paste exercise.
Take this to Ask Mark →What helped you?
If you've read, watched, listened to or tried something that helped you think about this differently, we'd like to hear about it.
We review recommendations before sharing them with the community.
Finished the exercise?
Tell us whether it helped and what you discovered. It takes less than a minute.
Further thinking
Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function
Anandi Mani, Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir and Jiaying Zhao
Why We Sleep
Matthew Walker
Why We Do What We Do
Edward L. Deci with Richard Flaste
Article
Anandi Mani, Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir and Jiaying Zhao
Evidence that financial pressure itself consumes attention and judgement. Worth reading before concluding that anybody under money pressure is simply making poor decisions.
Book
Matthew Walker
The most widely read case for treating sleep as structural rather than optional. Some of its stronger claims have been challenged, so read it for the questions it raises about your own week rather than for its warnings.
Book
Edward L. Deci with Richard Flaste
The readable account of self-determination theory, written by the man who spent forty years testing it. The finding that matters here is that rewards and approval reliably change why people do things, and that behaviour which survives without either is telling you something the rest is not. It gives you a usable test rather than a feeling.
Article
Sabine Sonnentag and Charlotte Fritz
The clearest evidence that recovery depends on psychological detachment rather than on hours away from work. It explains why an evening spent not working can still leave somebody unrecovered.
Book
Nedra Glover Tawwab
Practical thinking for relationships that need clearer limits rather than simply more effort.