Find a sustainable middle ground

Henri Poincaré, the father of chaos theory and the co-discoverer of special relativity, relates his own discovery. "the idea came to me, without anything in my former thoughts seeming to have paved the way for it.”

The Irish mathematician, Sir William Rowan Hamilton, had a similar epiphany while strolling by the Brougham Bridge. He was so delighted that he stopped and carved the defining algebraic equation into the bridge.

The first phase of solving can be described as “worrying” about a problem or idea. It evokes anxiety and gives the impression of productivity.

But, overthinking can lead to a dead end. The key to solving the problem is to take a break from worrying. Focus your attention on some other activity. Take a long hike or a long drive, to give your mind the space to have a good idea.

GYLIO is a way for students to approach their problems with juggling so many opportunities colleges offer, from sport and culture to volunteering and leadership.
A week to 'take a breath' and get things done is essential. The list will look different for everyone. When parts of your life that you are usually on top of begin to fall apart, it is time to take a day or week out and attend to the little things.

Having multiple tasks on your mind splits your attention and that can reduce overall performance. This is known as "attention residue."
While we can't eliminate distractions from our lives, we can create a "ready to resume list" and plan a return to the task.

While procrastination might have some advantages, it certainly has proven drawbacks. Individuals who procrastinate tend to be more stressed and, therefore, suffer from stress-related illnesses. Furthermore, students who procrastinate have lower GPAs than the ones who don't. So you would better think twice before postponing an action next time.

Whenever somebody decides to procrastinate, this happens whether because the task seems too unpleasant or because the planning wasn't done properly and, therefore, the need to delay. 

Intentional or not, procrastination ends up having the same effects on your everyday life. And these are not always good.

People take a break or procrastinate because they don't want to decide anything and let their brains drift away wherever it is comfortable, enjoyable and easy.

If someone is tired, the mind naturally moves away from what we perceive as work.

It is a way to be aware of what is sucking you into habits that are not rewarding to you.

Example: Facebook is designed to be easy to check, and one can find interesting things in it quickly, leading to procrastination and time-wasting to someone who is not aware.

"Our brains evolved to learn by doing things, not by hearing about them. This is one of the reasons that, for a lot of skills, it’s much better to spend about two thirds of your time testing yourself on it rather than absorbing it."

It can keep you accountable, but it can also lead to a false sense of completeness. One way to avoid sabotaging yourself is to state your goal as a commitment rather than progress towards the finished product.

• We’re (sometimes) stupid: irrational, tired or distracted;
• We have the wrong information;
• We use the wrong model;
• We fail to learn;
• We go with what's easy over what's right. 

Bad habits don’t go away overnight. But, you can use strategies to give you that extra boost of self-confidence and self-control required to change.

Understand that sometimes you will fail and sometimes you’ll succeed. But no matter how long it takes to fail and get back up again, your patience and perseverance will soon pay off.

It gives you an automatic response to react to your cravings and makes it easier to replace a bad habit with a good one: 

• Identify the scenario that usually triggers your bad habit.
• Specify a different response to the trigger. Ideally, this should be a good habit that would replace and prevent you from falling into the temptation.
• Combine steps 1 and 2 into an “if-then” format.

It’s hard to feel peaceful if you punish yourself for making mistakes. You may even end up avoiding risks and new experiences to escape the pain of your own self-judgment. But trying new things not only opens up avenues for you, but also brings a sense of fulfillment in life.

They assume that couples need to make an effort to overcome challenges in order to be successful and that happy relationships are the gradual result of teamwork.

Studies suggest that people who hold growth beliefs demonstrate a greater level of commitment to their relationship, and are more optimistic when it comes to repairing damage following an argument.

It isn’t reasonable to expect your partner to be a mind-reader, even if they have known you for a long time. Besides, it makes the other feel uncertain and needlessly prolongs and increases the conflict.

Healthy communication does still entail making your needs and preferences explicit.