Ask AltoTRY · 8 MIN
What Actually Restores Me?
TAIU
What you call rest, held against what leaves you better afterwards.
Try it →
Was this useful?
Back to conversations
Tool 80 · Develop yourself
What do I actually need right now, and how much of it is actually up to me?
A guided 10 to 14 minutes conversation, here in TAIU. Start with sleep, money and time before anything deeper.
Whose needs did you just describe?
Sleep first, meaning later.
What is actually up to you this week?
What you'll look at
- 01The stated need
- 02The fortnight
- 03Other people
- 04This week
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
This will not sort you into a personality type.It will give you answers about your own life that you can test.
01
The need
02
The basics
03
What is yours
04
This week
+
Your TAIU handover: a summary of what the conversation found, written so you can take it with you.
See everything included ↓
- 01What you said you need
- 02What the evidence says you need
- 03What is a want rather than a need
- 04What somebody else needs from you
- 05What is in your gift this week
- 06What is not
- 07The rival reading
- 08What deserves protecting
- 09Where this goes next
When you finish
Bring it back to your tree.
Your tree is where TAIU keeps a picture of your whole life, in parts like work, money and health.
This session works on the whole of you, not one part of your life. Nothing is scored. At the end, you are asked once which part of your life this touched most. You can answer none.
The conversation writes this summary for you. Keep the sheet, print it or paste it into My Tree. Nothing from the conversation is stored by TAIU.
- Session
- Date
- The part of life this belongs to
- What we found
- The alternative we tested
- What deserves protecting
- What should change, if anything
- Next actions
- What to notice or find out
- What remains unresolved
What now?
01 · Save it
What you said you need.
02 · Test it
Sleep properly for three nights before deciding anything.
See more ↓
What I would do
- 01
Check the basics before looking for anything deeper.
- 02
Write your needs and other people's in separate columns.
- 03
Pick the one that is up to you.
- 04
Work out what has to be dropped for it to happen.
- 05
Do that one thing this week.
Test it
- 01
When did you last sleep properly?
- 02
What are other people needing from you?
- 03
What is actually up to you 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
- What you would say you need.
- What the last fortnight has been like.
- Sleep, food, money, an hour alone.
- What other people are asking of you.
- What is actually up to you this week.
Take this to Ask Mark
You have done the exercise. Now look again at what it found.
This looks at what you found and helps you understand it. It is not another exercise to repeat.
Take this to Ask Mark →Want to go further?
Recommended by the TAIU community
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?
What did this uncover?
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
See the thinking ↓
Article
Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function
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
Why We Sleep
Matthew Walker
The most widely read case for treating sleep as structural rather than optional. Some of its stronger claims have been challenged. Read it for the questions it raises about your own week, not for its warnings.
Book
Why We Do What We Do
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
Recovery from Job Stress: The Stressor Detachment Model
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
Set Boundaries, Find Peace
Nedra Glover Tawwab
Practical thinking for relationships that need clearer limits rather than simply more effort.