Circles in Time | Week One Review
Week one recap, slidedeck access, key take-outs and looking forward to week two
Content Recap
In week one, our focus was very much on understanding the challenges that this programme is aiming to solve.
We spent time exploring the value of self-improvement and why it is worth taking seriously. The focus then shifted to understanding the underlying influences that may be shaping the intentions to improve certain aspects of our lives. We may want to start, stop, dial-up or slow down a particular activity, but often we don't pay much attention to where these desires, drives and decisions come from.
We then explored the gap between our intentions and actions, and why willpower isn't necessarily the best tool for closing the gap.
Understanding these challenges provided a useful foundation for introducing self-applied behavioural science as an alternative approach to closing our personal intention-action gaps and integrating these intentional actions into the complexities of our everyday lives.
Access the workshop slidedeck here
Feedback on Week One
Please take a moment to share your week one feedback with me. I’d love to learn from you, and I’m motivated to make improvements to your experience as we move through the programme.
Five Ideas to Remember
Information access and third party support are both necessary, but neither is sufficiently effective enough to make significant ongoing improvements to the lives of individuals. At the end of the day, the responsibility is on you.
Willpower is much less effective than people typically predict it to be. It's a blunt tool, especially in a modern world where temptations exist around every corner.
We need to take control, but not of ourselves, we're much too complex to attempt a thing like that. What we can do is take control of the situations we put ourselves in and tinker with our mental representations from the outside in.
The way to do this is by putting the tools of behavioural science in the hands of the individuals. The approach supports individual liberty, encourages responsibility, and acknowledges the uncomfortable realities of human fallibility, while still offering a practical way forward.
The self-applied behavioural science toolkit can be implemented using a seven-step process: Action identification; systemisation, factor analysis, intervention selection, behavioural scaffolding, self-experimentation and data-driven decision-making.
Moving into Week Two
This week we are going to get a lot more practical. There are still pre-readings (which will be released later today), but the core focus is on activity selection, system creation and self-tracking. It's one of the most exciting parts of the programme for me, and hopefully, it will be the same for you.
Housekeeping
Just a bit of housekeeping, to make sure everyone is up to speed and onboard. You will find it tricky to catch up if you start falling behind from this point onwards.
Have you set up a Notion account and can you access the pre-reading content? If not, get in contact with me.
Have you set up a Slack account and are currently part of the programme working group? If not get in contact with me.
I'll be setting up the WhatsApp workshop group noticeboards today. Let me know if you don't get access.
Take care,
David