"Done for today": stopping when resources run out¶

The question: what does research say about guilt, shame and rumination over unfinished tasks when a person has run out of resources (burnout, ADHD, depression, chronic illness)? And what follows for a "Done for today" button that moves today's unfinished tasks, and what waits on them, to the next working day, and switches Sioul to a personal-only mode until then?

Researched on 3 October 2026. "Built", "next" and "not built" say where Sioul stood on 4 October 2026. The feature: tasks.md, rule 11, and quiet time in porch.md. The rules in short: findings 21 to 23 of research.md. Task design in general: tasks.md in this folder.

How evidence is graded:

• meta: meta-analysis or systematic review;
• RCT: randomised trial(s);
• experiment: lab experiment(s), usually with students;
• diary/field: repeated-measures field study (correlational, within-person);
• correlational: cross-sectional survey;
• qualitative: interviews, focus groups, corpus analysis;
• clinical model: a clinician's framework, without trials;
• popular: a book or blog claim without research behind it.

A few sources carry their own kind (review, cohort, guideline). "Reading" lines are design inferences, not findings.

1. Unfinished tasks, intrusive thoughts and plan-making¶

• The memory claim of the Zeigarnik effect does not hold; the urge to resume does. Across 37 publications (Zeigarnik's own excluded), interrupted tasks were recalled as often as finished ones: weighted ratio 0.99; mean effect d_z = 0.15 where computable. Interrupted tasks were resumed about 67 % of the time when the chance arose (20 publications; 50 % is chance). The authors think the old Zeigarnik results needed high task involvement and an authoritative experimenter.
  • Ghibellini R, Meier B (2025). Interruption, recall and resumption: a meta-analysis of the Zeigarnik and Ovsiankina effects. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 12:962. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-05000-w — meta (descriptive, weighted means; narrow search terms, as the authors say).
• Unfinished tasks go with work thoughts after hours, and the harmful kind is affective rumination. Unfinished tasks correlate with work-related thoughts during off-job time: ρ = .38 between persons (k = 17, N = 2,473) and ρ = .25 within persons (k = 14, N = 12,129), strongest for affective rumination. Moderators: how much the goal matters, planning, trait temporal focus, a boss's performance expectations.
  • Wendsche J, Weigelt O, Syrek CJ (2026). Unfinished work tasks and work-related thoughts during off-job time: meta-analysis of the Zeigarnik effect in a work-recovery context. Anxiety, Stress & Coping 39(4):385–407. https://doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2026.2616302 — meta of diary/field studies.
• The path to poor sleep is affective rumination, not problem-solving. 59 employees, 357 Friday–Monday pairs over 12 weeks: more unfinished tasks on Friday → more affective rumination → worse weekend sleep; problem-solving pondering did not carry the harm.
  • Syrek CJ, Weigelt O, Peifer C, Antoni CH (2017). Zeigarnik's sleepless nights: how unfinished tasks at the end of the week impair employee sleep on the weekend through rumination. J Occup Health Psychol 22(2):225–238. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000031 — diary/field.
  • Earlier: Syrek CJ, Antoni CH (2014). Unfinished tasks foster rumination and impair sleeping, particularly if leaders have high performance expectations. J Occup Health Psychol 19(4):490–499. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037127 — diary/field.
• Unfinished tasks hurt through a felt loss of competence. 58 employees, 12 weeks: unfinished tasks at the week's end → lower satisfaction of the need for competence at the weekend → more rumination. Proactive behaviour during the week softened it.
  • Weigelt O, Syrek CJ, Schmitt A, Urbach T (2019). Finding peace of mind when there still is so much left undone. J Occup Health Psychol 24(3):373–386. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000117 — diary/field.
  • Reading: what restores the sense of competence (seeing what was done) belongs with the unfinished list, not after it.
• Weekend work helped only when it made real progress. 83 employees, 14 weeks: unfinished tasks lowered detachment; weekend work itself lowered it too, but progress buffered the harm of unfinished tasks.
  • Weigelt O, Syrek CJ (2017). Ovsiankina's great relief: how supplemental work during the weekend may contribute to recovery in the face of unfinished tasks. IJERPH 14(12):1606. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14121606 — diary/field.
  • Reading: not a licence to nudge evening work; a sense of progress is what calms.
• Writing a specific plan for an unfinished goal removed its intrusions, in the lab. Five studies with undergraduates (Study 1: 73, about 23 per condition; the others 68–174). Writing about two unfinished tasks raised intrusive thoughts during a reading task and lowered comprehension; writing how, when and where each would be done removed the effect, to the level of people who wrote about completed tasks.
  • Masicampo EJ, Baumeister RF (2011). Consider it done! Plan making can eliminate the cognitive effects of unfulfilled goals. J Pers Soc Psychol 101(4):667–683. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024192 (PDF: https://users.wfu.edu/masicaej/MasicampoBaumeister2011JPSP.pdf) — experiment, unreplicated: no direct or registered replication was found; cells are small, several key tests sit near p = .04, and it comes from the lab whose ego-depletion work failed large replications. The field studies below are the better support.
  • Counterpoint, same authors: specific plans can make people less open to alternatives when circumstances change. Masicampo EJ, Baumeister RF (2012). Committed but closed-minded: when making a specific plan for a goal hinders success. Social Cognition 30(1):37–55. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2012.30.1.37 — experiment. Reading: the plan for tomorrow is one first step, easy to change, not a binding script.
• The field version works, best for people who struggle to switch off. 103 employees tracking 1,127 goals: detaching in the evening was harder for incomplete goals than for completed ones, more so when the goal mattered. An experimental arm that wrote, at the end of the work day, where, when and how each unfinished goal would be completed detached better; the plan helped mainly people with high work centrality and, in the companion paper, people low in dispositional self-control; people high in self-control detached anyway.
  • Smit BW (2016). Successfully leaving work at work: the self-regulatory underpinnings of psychological detachment. J Occup Organ Psychol 89(3):493–514. https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12137
  • Smit BW, Barber LK (2016). Psychologically detaching despite high workloads: the role of attentional processes. J Occup Health Psychol 21(4):432–442. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000019
  • Diary/field with an experimental manipulation (one sample, one lab). Low self-control is close to the ADHD profile.
• A one-minute "ready-to-resume" plan reduces attention residue. Four studies (one a field survey of 202 professionals): leaving a task that will be resumed under time pressure keeps attention stuck on it; a brief note on where one stopped and how to resume reduced the residue and restored performance on the next task.
  • Leroy S, Glomb TM (2018). Tasks interrupted: how anticipating time pressure on resumption of an interrupted task causes attention residue and low performance on interrupting tasks and how a "ready-to-resume" plan mitigates the effects. Organization Science 29(3):380–397. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2017.1184 — experiment + field.
• Writing tomorrow's tasks helped people fall asleep; listing what was done did not. 57 healthy young adults, randomised, with polysomnography: 5 minutes writing a to-do list for the next days → asleep about 9 minutes faster than writing about completed activities; the more specific the list, the faster sleep came; the opposite trend for lists of completed activities.
  • Scullin MK, Krueger ML, Ballard HK, Pruett N, Bliwise DL (2018). The effects of bedtime writing on difficulty falling asleep: a polysomnographic study comparing to-do lists and completed activity lists. J Exp Psychol Gen 147(1):139–146. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000374 — RCT, small, single study, healthy students, at bedtime rather than the end of work.
• Synthesis. The worry is not memory ("I'll forget") but an open loop that keeps pulling (Ovsiankina) and feeds affective rumination. What quiets it: a concrete where, when and how for each unfinished item, ideally a first step; and a felt sense of progress. Nothing supports simply hiding the list; giving each unfinished item a specific place is supported.

2. Psychological detachment and recovery after work¶

• Four recovery experiences are measured apart: psychological detachment (not thinking about work), relaxation, mastery (challenging, learning activities), control (deciding what to do with one's free time). Validated on N = 930.
  • Sonnentag S, Fritz C (2007). The Recovery Experience Questionnaire. J Occup Health Psychol 12(3):204–221. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.12.3.204 — psychometric study.
  • The stressor-detachment model: job stressors lower detachment, and low detachment carries their harm to well-being. Sonnentag S, Fritz C (2015). Recovery from job stress: the stressor-detachment model as an integrative framework. J Organ Behav 36(S1):S72–S103. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.1924 — review.
• Detachment goes with less exhaustion and fatigue. 86 publications, 91 samples, N = 38,124: detachment correlated with exhaustion r = −.38 [−.43, −.33], fatigue r = −.43, sleep r = .28, well-being r = .30. Work-related activity during non-work time had a medium negative relation with detachment; heavy work investment (workaholism, overcommitment) too.
  • Wendsche J, Lohmann-Haislah A (2017). A meta-analysis on antecedents and outcomes of detachment from work. Front Psychol 7:2072. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02072 — meta (mostly cross-sectional; heterogeneity moderate to high; little publication bias).
• Each recovery experience does something different. 54 samples, N = 26,592: detachment had the strongest link to lower fatigue; control over leisure the strongest link to vigour.
  • Bennett AA, Bakker AB, Field JG (2018). Recovery from work-related effort: a meta-analysis. J Organ Behav 39(3):262–275. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2217 — meta.
  • Broader, 198 samples: recovery relates to better sleep, less fatigue, well-being and life satisfaction; definitions of "recovery" are only modestly related. Steed LB, Swider BW, Keem S, Liu JT (2021). Leaving work at work: a meta-analysis on employee recovery from work. J Manage 47(4):867–897. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206319864153 — meta.
• The recovery paradox: the most exhausted detach least. 109 employees, 4-week lag: exhaustion predicted a decrease in detachment, strongest under time pressure and among people without pleasurable leisure.
  • Sonnentag S, Arbeus H, Mahn C, Fritz C (2014). Exhaustion and lack of psychological detachment from work during off-job time: moderator effects of time pressure and leisure experiences. J Occup Health Psychol 19(2):206–216. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035760 — prospective field study.
  • Sonnentag S (2018). The recovery paradox: portraying the complex interplay between job stressors, lack of recovery, and poor well-being. Research in Organizational Behavior 38:169–185. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.riob.2018.11.002 — review.
  • Reading: a person in burnout cannot be expected to detach by will; the software has to do part of it (remove the cues), and the personal mode should make pleasant things easy to reach.
• Social weekend activity and positive work reflection predicted less burnout (87 emergency workers, 3 waves). Fritz C, Sonnentag S (2005). Recovery, health, and job performance: effects of weekend experiences. J Occup Health Psychol 10(3):187–199. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.10.3.187 — field, small.
• Detachment can be trained, best by those already impaired. 30 studies, 34 interventions, N = 3,725: d = 0.36 on detachment; longer, higher-dose interventions worked better, with larger effects among participants with health or recovery impairments at the start.
  • Karabinski T, Haun VC, Nübold A, Wendsche J, Wegge J (2021). Interventions for improving psychological detachment from work: a meta-analysis. J Occup Health Psychol 26(3):224–242. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000280 — meta of intervention studies.
• Work cues in the evening.
  • Work-related smartphone use after work lowered same-evening detachment (116 employees, 5 days), whatever the telepressure. Van Laethem M, van Vianen AEM, Derks D (2018). Front Psychol 9:1808. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01808 — diary. Earlier: Derks D, van Mierlo H, Schmitz EB (2014). A diary study on work-related smartphone use, psychological detachment and exhaustion: examining the role of the perceived segmentation norm. J Occup Health Psychol 19(1):74–84. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035076 — diary.
  • 341 adults, 7 days of experience sampling: the affective tone of a work message received in the evening and the time it required both raised anger, which carried them into work-to-nonwork conflict; tone alone also lowered happiness. Butts MM, Becker WJ, Boswell WR (2015). Hot buttons and time sinks: the effects of electronic communication during nonwork time on emotions and work-nonwork conflict. Academy of Management Journal 58(3):763–788. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2014.0170 — experience sampling. Reading: one unpleasant letter seen at 19:00 costs the evening.
  • The expectation of monitoring work e-mail after hours raised anxiety and harmed health and relationship satisfaction, for the employee and the partner, whatever the time actually spent on e-mail (3 studies: 108 ESM, 138 couples, 162 two-wave). Becker WJ, Belkin LY, Conroy SA, Tuskey S (2021). Killing me softly: organizational e-mail monitoring expectations' impact on employee and significant other well-being. J Manage 47(4):1024–1052. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206319890655 — ESM + dyads. Reading: an inbox that may hold something, in the evening, is itself the stressor, even unopened.
  • "Telepressure" (the urge to answer messages fast) predicted burnout, worse sleep and absenteeism. Barber LK, Santuzzi AM (2015). Please respond ASAP: workplace telepressure and employee recovery. J Occup Health Psychol 20(2):172–189. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038278 — correlational, scale validation.
  • Preferring and having a norm of segmenting work and home predicted more detachment, partly through less technology use at home. Park Y, Fritz C, Jex SM (2011). Relationships between work-home segmentation and psychological detachment from work: the role of communication technology use at home. J Occup Health Psychol 16(4):457–467. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023594 — correlational. Reading: for a freelancer, the software is where that norm can live.
• Synthesis. Detachment is the recovery experience most tied to lower exhaustion; the exhausted find it hardest; work cues in the evening (unread counts, a letter with a tone, the mere possibility of them) undo it. Control over leisure matters too, so the personal mode offers and does not prescribe.

3. Self-compassion, self-forgiveness and procrastination¶

• Definition. Self-compassion has three parts, each against its opposite: self-kindness (against self-judgment), common humanity (against isolation: others go through this too), mindfulness (against over-identification).
  • Neff KD (2003). Self-compassion: an alternative conceptualization of a healthy attitude toward oneself. Self and Identity 2(2):85–101. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298860309032
  • Neff KD (2003). The development and validation of a scale to measure self-compassion. Self and Identity 2(3):223–250. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298860309027
• Lower self-compassion goes with more psychopathology: r = −.54 (20 samples, 14 studies, all with Neff's scale).
  • MacBeth A, Gumley A (2012). Exploring compassion: a meta-analysis of the association between self-compassion and psychopathology. Clin Psychol Rev 32(6):545–552. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2012.06.003 — meta of correlational studies.
  • Caveat: half of the scale's items measure the negative side (self-judgment, isolation, over-identification), and those carry much of the link; the positive items protect, but less. Muris P, Petrocchi N (2017). Protection or vulnerability? A meta-analysis of the relations between the positive and negative components of self-compassion and psychopathology. Clin Psychol Psychother 24(2):373–383. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.2005 — meta (18 studies). Reading: removing what triggers self-judgment (red, counts, "overdue") is at least as well supported as adding kind words.
• Self-compassion programmes work. 27 RCTs: rumination g = 1.37, stress 0.67, depression 0.66, self-criticism 0.56, anxiety 0.57; depression gains kept growing at follow-up.
  • Ferrari M, Hunt C, Harrysunker A, Abbott MJ, Beath AP, Einstein DA (2019). Self-compassion interventions and psychosocial outcomes: a meta-analysis of RCTs. Mindfulness 10(8):1455–1473. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-019-01134-6 — meta of RCTs. These are structured programmes; one line of text in an app is far weaker than anything tested there.
• Self-compassion after a failure raised the wish to improve, more than a self-esteem boost. Four experiments: an induced self-compassionate view of a weakness, a moral transgression or a failed test led to more belief that the weakness can change, more wish to make amends, more time studying after a failure, more motivation to change, compared with a self-esteem condition and neutral controls.
  • Breines JG, Chen S (2012). Self-compassion increases self-improvement motivation. Pers Soc Psychol Bull 38(9):1133–1143. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167212445599 — experiments (students); no direct replication found.
  • Related: Zhang JW, Chen S (2016). Self-compassion promotes personal improvement from regret experiences via acceptance. Pers Soc Psychol Bull 42(2):244–258. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167215623271 — experiments.
  • Pooled: 55 studies, 45 articles, N = 13,558: self-compassion correlated r = .25 with self-improvement motivation (intrinsic, not extrinsic), also in the 7 experimental studies. Baillargeon S (2026). Self-compassion and motivation for self-improvement: a meta-analysis. Research Square preprint, https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9408192/v1 — preprint, single author, not peer-reviewed.
  • Answer to the common fear ("if I'm kind to myself I'll stop trying"): the evidence points the other way, moderately.
• Self-compassion lets people own their part without drowning. In Study 5 of five, an induced self-compassionate perspective made people acknowledge their role in negative events without being overwhelmed by negative feelings.
  • Leary MR, Tate EB, Adams CE, Allen AB, Hancock J (2007). Self-compassion and reactions to unpleasant self-relevant events: the implications of treating oneself kindly. J Pers Soc Psychol 92(5):887–904. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.5.887 — correlational + experiment.
• Procrastination is mood repair, and low self-compassion links it to stress. Procrastination puts short-term mood repair before the future self. In four samples (145, 339, 190 students; 94 community adults), procrastinators had lower self-compassion and more stress, and self-compassion explained part of the link.
  • Sirois FM, Pychyl TA (2013). Social and Personality Psychology Compass 7(2):115–127. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12011 — review.
  • Sirois FM (2014). Procrastination and stress: exploring the role of self-compassion. Self and Identity 13(2):128–145. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2013.763404 — correlational, cross-sectional mediation.
• Forgiving oneself for procrastinating predicted less procrastination next time. 119 first-year students across two midterms: those who forgave themselves before the first exam had less negative affect afterwards and procrastinated less before the second, especially heavy procrastinators.
  • Wohl MJA, Pychyl TA, Bennett SH (2010). I forgive myself, now I can study: how self-forgiveness for procrastinating can reduce future procrastination. Pers Individ Dif 48(7):803–808. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.01.029 — prospective correlational, single study.
  • Self-forgiveness correlates r = .45 with psychological well-being (65 samples, N = 17,939) and .32 with physical health. Davis DE et al. (2015). Forgiving the self and physical and mental health correlates: a meta-analytic review. J Couns Psychol 62(2):329–335. https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000063 — meta, correlational.
  • Reading (an inference, not tested): "forgive yourself" presupposes a fault. Stopping because one is exhausted is not a fault; the better frame is that nothing needs forgiving ("the plan was bigger than the day"), and "forgiveness" stays out of the wording.
• ADHD. In 543 adults with ADHD against 313 without, lower self-compassion partly explained the poorer mental health of the ADHD group. 162 adults with ADHD traits described criticism (mostly for inattentive behaviour) as damaging to self-worth; being understood changed whether it was felt as criticism.
  • Beaton DM, Sirois F, Milne E (2022). The role of self-compassion in the mental health of adults with ADHD. J Clin Psychol 78(12):2497–2512. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.23354 — correlational.
  • Beaton DM, Sirois F, Milne E (2022). PLoS ONE 17(2):e0263366. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263366 — qualitative.
• Warning: compassion can feel threatening to the most self-critical. Fears of self-compassion correlate r = .49 with mental-health difficulties, strongest with shame, self-criticism and depression, more strongly in clinical samples (19 studies, 22 samples, N = 4,723).
  • Kirby JN, Day J, Sagar V (2019). The "flow" of compassion: a meta-analysis of the fears of compassion scales and psychological functioning. Clin Psychol Rev 70:26–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2019.03.001 — meta, correlational.
  • The concept's origin: Gilbert P, McEwan K, Matos M, Rivis A (2011). Fears of compassion: development of three self-report measures. Psychol Psychother 84(3):239–255. https://doi.org/10.1348/147608310X526511 — correlational.
  • Reading: warm, emotional lines ("be kind to yourself") can raise resistance in exactly the depressed, self-critical person. Kindness shows mostly in what the app does (moves things, removes cues, gives each task a place), with plain, factual, brief words; any explicitly compassionate line is optional.

4. Guilt against shame, and wording that avoids shame¶

• The distinction. Guilt is about a behaviour ("I did a bad thing") and tends to motivate repair; shame is about the self ("I am bad") and tends to motivate hiding, withdrawal and avoidance. Proneness to shame, not to guilt, goes with psychological symptoms.
  • Tangney JP, Stuewig J, Mashek DJ (2007). Moral emotions and moral behavior. Annu Rev Psychol 58:345–372. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.56.091103.070145 — review (correlational and scenario studies; the distinction goes back to Helen Block Lewis, 1971). Book: Tangney JP, Dearing RL (2002). Shame and Guilt. Guilford Press.
• Shame tracks depression more than guilt, except two kinds of guilt. 108 studies, N = 22,411: shame r = .43 with depressive symptoms, guilt r = .28. But guilt that takes exaggerated responsibility for uncontrollable events ("contextual-maladaptive") r = .39, and free-floating generalised guilt r = .42, were as bad as shame. External shame (the self as seen through others' eyes) r = .56 was worse than internal shame (.42).
  • Kim S, Thibodeau R, Jorgensen RS (2011). Shame, guilt, and depressive symptoms: a meta-analytic review. Psychol Bull 137(1):68–96. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021466 — meta, correlational (causal direction open).
  • Reading: guilt over being too exhausted to finish is guilt for something uncontrollable, the maladaptive kind. A tool that records and displays lapses plays the observer, the source of external shame.
• Procrastination goes with shame, not guilt. Two student studies found procrastination correlated with shame-proneness, not guilt-proneness (Fee RL, Tangney JP (2000). Procrastination: a means of avoiding shame or guilt? J Soc Behav Pers 15(5):167–184; no DOI; the paper was not read, the finding is as reported by Oflazian & Borders). In a later survey, brooding and reflective pondering mediated the link from shame to procrastination; guilt directly predicted less procrastination.
  • Oflazian JS, Borders A (2023). Does rumination mediate the unique effects of shame and guilt on procrastination? J Ration Emot Cogn Behav Ther 41(1):237–246. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10942-022-00466-y — correlational, students.
  • The loop to break: unfinished task → shame → rumination (brooding) → avoidance → more unfinished tasks.
• Shame turns constructive when repair looks possible. Shame was linked to constructive approach (repair, self-improvement) when the failure was framed as reparable, and to avoidance when the damage seemed fixed and the self-image at stake.
  • Leach CW, Cidam A (2015). When is shame linked to constructive approach orientation? A meta-analysis. J Pers Soc Psychol 109(6):983–1002. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000037 — meta.
  • Reading: "the rest has a place tomorrow, here is the first step" signals repair is possible; a red pile with no path is the opposite.
• Feedback that points at the self lowers performance. 607 effect sizes, 23,663 observations: feedback improved performance on average (d = .41), but more than a third of feedback interventions made it worse; effectiveness fell as feedback drew attention from the task to the self.
  • Kluger AN, DeNisi A (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on performance: a historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory. Psychol Bull 119(2):254–284. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.119.2.254 — meta.
  • Reading: summaries about the person ("you completed 40% of your plan", "you stopped early 3 times this week") are feedback on the self; statements about tasks ("the letter is planned for Tuesday 9:00") are about the task.
• Wording rules that follow (derived, not tested as app copy):
  1. Talk about tasks and plans, never about the person's traits or performance.
  2. Put the stop on capacity and the plan, not the person: "Today's plan was bigger than today's energy", not "You didn't finish".
  3. Show that repair is possible: each moved task has a named place.
  4. No observer: no tally, no history of early stops, no comparison with other days.
  5. No moral vocabulary: "late", "overdue", "missed", "failed", "behind", "forgive yourself", "you deserve rest" (the last implies rest is earned).

5. ADHD: time, emotion, initiation, external structure¶

• Time perception is measurably off in ADHD. 824 effect sizes across the lifespan: mean g = 0.69 for time-perception deficits; in children, timing less accurate (g > 0.40) and less precise (g = 0.66), tending to overestimate durations. Adult studies are fewer and less consistent.
  • Metcalfe KB, McFeaters CD, Voyer D (2024). Time-perception deficits in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Dev Neuropsychol 49(1):1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/87565641.2023.2293712 — meta.
  • Zheng Q, Wang X, Chiu KY, Shum KKM (2022). Time perception deficits in children and adolescents with ADHD: a meta-analysis. J Atten Disord 26(2):267–281. https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054720978557 — meta.
  • Mette C (2023). Time perception in adult ADHD: findings from a decade, a review. IJERPH 20(4):3098. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20043098 — review: "very scarce" adult studies, mixed results.
  • "Time blindness" as a felt "now / not now" is Barkley's clinical theory; help must be external and at the point of performance (Barkley RA, fact sheet ADHD, executive functioning and self-regulation, http://www.russellbarkley.org/factsheets/ADHD_EF_and_SR.pdf — clinical model; more in tasks.md).
  • Reading: "tomorrow" is not a place. A moved task needs a concrete window ("Monday, morning window, after coffee"), shown when it applies.
• Emotion dysregulation is large in adult ADHD; "rejection sensitive dysphoria" is not an established construct. 13 studies, N = 2,535: general emotion dysregulation g = 1.17 against controls, emotional lability g = 1.20.
  • Beheshti A, Chavanon ML, Christiansen H (2020). Emotion dysregulation in adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a meta-analysis. BMC Psychiatry 20:120. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-020-2442-7 — meta.
  • "Rejection sensitive dysphoria" (William Dodson) is a clinician's term, not a diagnosis. Research on rejection sensitivity and ADHD symptoms is described as mixed; a 2026 survey of 4,150 students found a positive correlation: de Arellano AB, Rother Y, Canu WH, Flory K (2026). Substance Use & Misuse. https://doi.org/10.1080/10826084.2026.2693052 — correlational. A first qualitative study had five participants: Rowney-Smith A et al. (2026), PLoS ONE 21(1):e0314669, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0314669. Weak; the robust fact is emotional lability plus a long history of criticism (Beaton et al. 2022, section 3).
  • Reading: one critical-sounding line from the app can cost far more than for others; copy is reviewed for implied criticism.
• Task initiation and the Wall of Awful. Inattention, not impulsivity, correlated with general procrastination in 54 students with varying ADHD traits: Niermann HCM, Scheres A (2014). Int J Methods Psychiatr Res 23(4):411–421. https://doi.org/10.1002/mpr.1440 — correlational, small. Brendan Mahan's Wall of Awful: each avoided or failed attempt adds an emotional brick, so a task dodged ten times is harder than the same task new (Overcoming the Wall of Awful, Balance/Hachette, 2026) — clinical model, no trials.
  • Reading: a "Done for today" that silently piles tasks onto tomorrow, every day, would build the wall. Moving needs a smaller, concrete first step for tomorrow and an easy way to drop or rescope tasks that keep moving, without showing the history.
• Excessive mind wandering is common in adult ADHD and adds impairment beyond the core symptoms (a validated scale, MEWS; sensitivity and specificity about .9). Mowlem FD et al. (2019). J Atten Disord 23(6):624–634. https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054716651927 — case-control. Reading: open loops are more likely to intrude, which strengthens the case for a specific plan per unfinished item.
• External structure helps, modestly, in trials.
  • CBT for adults with ADHD (organisation, planning, calendar and task-list systems, plus cognitive work): low-quality evidence of short-term benefit on core symptoms and on depression and anxiety (14 RCTs, 700 participants). Lopez PL et al. (2018). Cognitive-behavioural interventions for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 3:CD010840. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD010840.pub2 — meta of RCTs.
  • Two of the main trials: Safren SA et al. (2010). CBT vs relaxation with educational support for medication-treated adults with ADHD and persistent symptoms. JAMA 304(8):875–880. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2010.1192 (86 adults, 12 sessions; benefit kept at 12 months) — RCT. Solanto MV et al. (2010). Efficacy of meta-cognitive therapy for adult ADHD. Am J Psychiatry 167(8):958–968. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2009.09081123 (88 adults, a 12-week group on time management, organisation and planning) — RCT.
• Implementation intentions ("if or when X, then I do Y"). d = 0.65 on goal attainment across 94 tests: Gollwitzer PM, Sheeran P (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: a meta-analysis of effects and processes. Adv Exp Soc Psychol 38:69–119. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38002-1 — meta. In clinical and analogue samples with mental-health problems, d+ = 0.99 (k = 28, N = 1,636): Toli A, Webb TL, Hardy GE (2016). Br J Clin Psychol 55(1):69–90. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjc.12086 — meta (funnel asymmetry, smaller effects on initiation). In children with ADHD, if-then plans improved response inhibition: Gawrilow C, Gollwitzer PM (2008). Cognit Ther Res 32(2):261–280. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-007-9150-1 — experiment. For adults with ADHD, no trial beyond a small dissertation. Overall: strong in general, weak for adult ADHD.
  • Reading: tomorrow's first step is best written as a cue and an action ("after breakfast, open the form"), the same form as Smit's end-of-day plans.

6. Depression, burnout, chronic fatigue: activation, pacing, boom and bust¶

What an exhausted mind can do when the button is pressed¶

• Depression impairs executive function broadly: 113 studies, d = 0.32 to 0.97 across measures, worse with more severe current symptoms. Snyder HR (2013). Major depressive disorder is associated with broad impairments on neuropsychological measures of executive function: a meta-analysis and review. Psychol Bull 139(1):81–132. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028727 — meta.
• Burnout goes with poorer attention, memory and executive function on objective tests (15 studies, 2005–2013). Deligkaris P, Panagopoulou E, Montgomery AJ, Masoura E (2014). Job burnout and cognitive functioning: a systematic review. Work & Stress 28(2):107–123. https://doi.org/10.1080/02678373.2014.909545 — systematic review.
• Recovery from clinical exhaustion is slow. 217 Swedish patients treated for exhaustion disorder: 7 years later almost half still reported fatigue, 73 % reduced stress tolerance; a third were still clinically exhausted. Glise K, Wiegner L, Jonsdottir IH (2020). Long-term follow-up of residual symptoms in patients treated for stress-related exhaustion. BMC Psychol 8:26. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-020-0395-8 — cohort.
• Excessive or inappropriate guilt is one of the diagnostic criteria of a major depressive episode (DSM-5, American Psychiatric Association 2013). An app must not feed a symptom.
• Reading: the button is pressed at the lowest capacity of the day, so it requires no decision and almost no reading. The software does all the sorting, moving and rescheduling; any optional choice can wait until the next morning, except a real date that would pass before then (recommendation 5).

Behavioural activation: small, valued activities, and the trap of avoidance¶

• Behavioural activation (BA) treats depression by scheduling small, concrete, valued or pleasant activities and acting "from the outside in" (according to plan, not mood); it targets avoidance that brings short-term relief and long-term cost (Martell, Addis & Jacobson's TRAP → TRAC). Martell CR, Addis ME, Jacobson NS (2001). Depression in Context: Strategies for Guided Action. Norton; Martell CR, Dimidjian S, Herman-Dunn R (2010). Behavioral Activation for Depression: A Clinician's Guide. Guilford — clinical manuals.
• Evidence: BA beat inactive controls on depression (g = 0.83), anxiety (0.37) and activation (0.64), but not active controls; adding values work did not help; study quality was generally low, with publication bias (28 RCTs). Stein AT, Carl E, Cuijpers P, Karyotaki E, Smits JAJ (2021). Looking beyond depression: a meta-analysis of the effect of behavioral activation on depression, anxiety, and activation. Psychol Med 51(9):1491–1504. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291720000239 — meta. Earlier: Cuijpers P, van Straten A, Warmerdam L (2007). Behavioral activation treatments of depression: a meta-analysis. Clin Psychol Rev 27(3):318–326. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2006.11.001 — meta.
• BA delivered by junior mental-health workers was non-inferior to CBT, and cheaper (COBRA, 440 adults). Richards DA et al. (2016). Cost and Outcome of Behavioural Activation versus Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Depression (COBRA): a randomised, controlled, non-inferiority trial. Lancet 388(10047):871–880. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31140-0 — RCT.
• Reading:
  • the personal mode makes small, valued, social or pleasant things easy to reach (a call to a friend, a walk, music, cooking), not only removes work: in the BA model, withdrawal and rumination keep depression going;
  • "Done for today" could itself become avoidance of a dreaded task. The protection is not a warning (shame) but a smaller first step for that task tomorrow and, if it keeps moving, a calm offer to split, rescope, hand over or drop it.

Pacing, the energy envelope, boom and bust¶

• Energy envelope theory (Jason): people with ME/CFS function better when the energy they spend stays within the energy they have. In 44 adults, those within their envelope before treatment improved more in physical function and fatigue. Brown M, Khorana N, Jason LA (2011). J Clin Psychol 67(3):253–260. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20744 — cohort, small. Overview: Jason LA et al. (2013). Energy conservation/envelope theory interventions to help patients with ME/CFS. Fatigue: Biomedicine, Health & Behavior 1(1–2):27–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/21641846.2012.733602 — review by the theory's authors. Consensus: Goudsmit EM, Nijs J, Jason LA, Wallman KE (2012). Pacing as a strategy to improve energy management in ME/CFS: a consensus document. Disabil Rehabil 34(13):1140–1147. https://doi.org/10.3109/09638288.2011.635746 — expert consensus.
• Guideline: NICE NG206 (2021) advises people with ME/CFS to stay within their energy limit for activity of any kind and not to push through symptoms to complete tasks; programmes with fixed incremental increases (graded exercise therapy) should not be offered. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng206 — national guideline; its reviews rated the trial evidence for graded exercise and CBT low to very low.
  • Counterpoint: in the one large trial with a pacing arm, adaptive pacing therapy was no better than specialist medical care alone on fatigue or physical function, while CBT and graded exercise did better (641 patients). White PD et al. (2011). Comparison of adaptive pacing therapy, cognitive behaviour therapy, graded exercise therapy, and specialist medical care for chronic fatigue syndrome (PACE): a randomised trial. Lancet 377(9768):823–836. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60096-2 — RCT, heavily contested (unblinded self-report outcomes, changed outcome definitions; NICE 2021 departed from it). Pacing rests on patient surveys, consensus and small cohorts, not on a clean trial; what every camp supports is avoiding the push-and-crash pattern.
• Long COVID: a 6-week structured pacing protocol cut post-exertional symptom exacerbations from 3.4 to 1.1 a week and improved EQ-5D (31 completers, no control group). Parker M et al. (2023). J Med Virol 95(1):e28373. https://doi.org/10.1002/jmv.28373 — uncontrolled cohort. Exertion that triggered symptoms was physical, cognitive and emotional: admin counts.
• Chronic pain: activity avoidance and overactivity (pushing until symptoms flare) were both linked to worse outcomes; pacing was linked to better psychological functioning but, cross-sectionally, to more pain and disability (41 studies). Andrews NE, Strong J, Meredith PJ (2012). Activity pacing, avoidance, endurance, and associations with patient functioning in chronic pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 93(11):2109–2121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2012.05.029 — meta, correlational. A 2026 review of quota-based ("operant") pacing interventions found very low confidence in their effectiveness: Antcliff D et al. (2026). Clin J Pain 42(9). https://doi.org/10.1097/AJP.0000000000001393 — systematic review.
• Boom and bust is named by patients themselves ("task fluctuation"), beside avoidance, persistence and pacing. Antcliff D, Keeley P, Campbell M, Woby S, McGowan L (2016). Physiotherapy 102(3):300–307. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physio.2015.08.001 — qualitative. Habitual overactivity proved hard to change with education alone: Andrews NE et al. (2015). "It's very hard to change yourself". Pain 156(7):1215–1231. https://doi.org/10.1097/j.pain.0000000000000161 — qualitative.
• Spoon theory (Christine Miserandino's 2003 essay) uses spoons as units of a limited daily energy budget; widely used in chronic-illness and neurodivergent communities; no trials: a metaphor, not a model with evidence. Popular. Accessibility work with chronically ill people stresses fluctuating capacity and the energy cost of using a tool: Mack K, McDonnell EJ, Findlater L, Evans HD (2022). Chronically under-addressed: considerations for HCI accessibility practice with chronically ill people. ASSETS '22. https://doi.org/10.1145/3517428.3544803 — review/position (only its metadata was read).
  • Caution: spoons are not explained with "willpower runs out"; the ego-depletion account failed large replications: Hagger MS et al. (2016). A multilab preregistered replication of the ego-depletion effect. Perspect Psychol Sci 11(4):546–573. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616652873; Vohs KD et al. (2021). A multisite preregistered paradigmatic test of the ego-depletion effect. Psychol Sci 32(10):1566–1581. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797621989733. Fatigue in these conditions is clinical, not a willpower tank.
• Synthesis.
  • Stopping before a crash is the recommended behaviour in energy-limiting conditions: "Done for today" is pacing, not quitting. The software says so through what it does, without a lecture.
  • The day after an early stop is the boom-and-bust risk: if every moved task lands on top of tomorrow's plan, tomorrow is overfull and the next crash is scheduled. Moved tasks are planned within tomorrow's room, the overflow to later days.
  • Tomorrow's room stays what the person set (Sioul infers nothing from behaviour, rule 7 of tasks.md); the morning's weather question can shrink it without a word about yesterday.

7. Done lists, progress, gratitude, savouring, end-of-day rituals¶

Progress and the done list¶

• The progress principle. In about 12,000 daily diary entries from over 200 knowledge workers in 7 companies, the days rated best were most often days of progress in meaningful work, even small steps; setbacks weighed heavily on the worst days. Amabile TM, Kramer SJ (2011). The power of small wins. Harvard Business Review, May 2011, https://hbr.org/2011/05/the-power-of-small-wins ; book The Progress Principle, Harvard Business Review Press, 2011 — diary study, correlational, not an intervention trial.
• Depressed mood biases memory toward the negative. Matt GE, Vázquez C, Campbell WK (1992). Mood-congruent recall of affectively toned stimuli: a meta-analytic review. Clin Psychol Rev 12(2):227–255. https://doi.org/10.1016/0272-7358(92)90116-P — meta. Reading (inference): a depressed person at noon will under-remember what they did; an external, factual list of what got done corrects the record without asking them to feel anything.
• But listing completed tasks did not calm the mind at bedtime (Scullin et al. 2018, section 1: the completed list was the control that did worse). Reading: the done list is a glance (a few lines the software already knows), not a writing exercise; the calming part is the specific plan for what remains.
• Positive reflection at the end of the work day: mixed but promising.
  • Writing what went well at the end of the workday lowered evening stress and improved health in a 3-week field study with an experimental intervention. Bono JE, Glomb TM, Shen W, Kim E, Koch AJ (2013). Building positive resources: effects of positive events and positive reflection on work stress and health. Academy of Management Journal 56(6):1601–1627. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2011.0272 — field experiment.
  • A daily positive work reflection reduced emotional exhaustion and fatigue in caregivers (46 against 44 on a waitlist), mainly in those with a high need for recovery. Clauss E et al. (2018). Promoting personal resources and reducing exhaustion through positive work reflection among caregivers. J Occup Health Psychol 23(1):127–140. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000063 — controlled trial, waitlist, small.
  • Positive work reflection during leisure went with better mood in three diary studies, but the randomised intervention to increase it had no effect. Meier LL, Cho E, Dumani S (2016). The effect of positive work reflection during leisure time on affective well-being: results from three diary studies. J Organ Behav 37(2):255–278. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2039 — diary + null RCT.

Gratitude and savouring¶

• Positive psychology interventions are small once small-study bias is removed: about r = .10 on well-being; effects on depression variable and generally not significant. White CA, Uttl B, Holder MD (2019). Meta-analyses of positive psychology interventions: the effects are much smaller than previously reported. PLoS ONE 14(5):e0216588. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216588 — meta re-analysis.
• "Three good things", replicated: happiness rose, but equally with a positive placebo; no advantage on depression. Mongrain M, Anselmo-Matthews T (2012). Do positive psychology exercises work? A replication of Seligman et al. (2005). J Clin Psychol 68(4):382–389. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.21839 — RCT replication.
• Gratitude interventions beat measurement-only controls on well-being (d = .31), only marginally beat matched activities (d = .14), and did not beat psychologically active comparisons (d = −.03). Davis DE et al. (2016). Thankful for the little things: a meta-analysis of gratitude interventions. J Couns Psychol 63(1):20–31. https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000107 — meta. On depression and anxiety: small effects (27 studies, N = 3,675), and the authors would not recommend them as treatment. Cregg DR, Cheavens JS (2021). Gratitude interventions: effective self-help? A meta-analysis of the impact on symptoms of depression and anxiety. J Happiness Stud 22(1):413–445. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00236-6 — meta.
• Savouring interventions: 20 RCTs, N = 4,805, pooled g = 0.51, little sign of publication bias; larger against passive than active controls. Chen PH, Tung HH, Wu YC, Sie J (2026). Effectiveness of savoring interventions: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Appl Psychol Health Well Being 18(2):e70134. https://doi.org/10.1111/aphw.70134 — meta (recent, not yet scrutinised).
• Reading: a gratitude prompt at "Done for today" is weakly supported and adds a demand at the worst moment. Savouring belongs, if anywhere, in the personal mode, by making pleasant things easy to do, not as a form to fill.

End-of-day rituals¶

• The popular claim: Cal Newport's shutdown ritual: review every open task, make sure each has a trusted plan, check the calendar, then say "schedule shutdown, complete". Newport C, Drastically Reduce Stress with a Work Shutdown Ritual (2009), https://calnewport.com/drastically-reduce-stress-with-a-work-shutdown-ritual/ ; Deep Work (Grand Central, 2016) — popular; no study of the ritual as a package was found.
• What its parts have behind them:
  • end-of-day plans for unfinished goals → more evening detachment: Smit 2016 (field experiment, section 1);
  • a specific to-do list before sleep → faster sleep: Scullin et al. 2018 (small RCT);
  • a ready-to-resume note → less attention residue: Leroy & Glomb 2018 (experiments);
  • a structured end-of-day and start-of-day dialogue with a chatbot (evening: "What did you work on today? What do you want to work on tomorrow?"; morning: "Do you still want to work on …? What's the first step you can take?"): 34 information workers, one baseline week and one week with the bot → fewer work e-mails sent after hours; the morning dialogue was rated very helpful (4.7/5) and people felt more productive and engaged in the first hour, but also less relaxed; the emotion-centred variant helped detachment for people without a ritual of their own. Williams AC, Kaur H, Mark G, Thompson AL, Iqbal ST, Teevan J (2018). Supporting workplace detachment and reattachment with conversational intelligence. CHI '18, paper 88. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173662 (PDF: https://ics.uci.edu/~gmark/Home_page/Publications_files/CHI2018-SwitchBot.pdf) — field study, small, two weeks;
  • boundary theory: transitions between roles are eased by rites and markers. Ashforth BE, Kreiner GE, Fugate M (2000). All in a day's work: boundaries and micro role transitions. Acad Manage Rev 25(3):472–491. https://doi.org/10.2307/259305 — theory. People manage the border between work and home with temporal, physical, behavioural and communicative tactics, technology settings included. Kreiner GE, Hollensbe EC, Sheep ML (2009). Balancing borders and bridges: negotiating the work-home interface via boundary work tactics. Academy of Management Journal 52(4):704–730. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2009.43669916 — qualitative.
• "A ritual calms you" is unproven. A review proposes that rituals regulate emotion, goal states and social connection (Hobson NM, Schroeder J, Risen JL, Xygalatas D, Inzlicht M (2018). Pers Soc Psychol Rev 22(3):260–284. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868317734944 — review/framework), but the flagship experiment, Don't stop believing: rituals improve performance by decreasing anxiety (Brooks AW et al., OBHDP 137:71–85, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2016.07.004), was retracted in 2024 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2024.104377). Several other ritual and commuting-transition papers share Francesca Gino as co-author and are under the Many Co-Authors data audit (https://manycoauthors.org/gino/papers).
• Verdict: a shutdown ritual is unsupported; a shutdown plan is supported. What has evidence: a specific next place and first step for each unfinished item, kept brief, then the work cues removed. A spoken phrase or ceremony adds nothing proven.

8. Notifications, e-mail, interruptions, counters, red labels, streaks¶

• Checking e-mail less often lowered daily stress. 124 adults (two-thirds students), one week limited to three checks a day against one week unlimited, in random order: lower daily stress in the limited week, and lower stress predicted higher well-being. Kushlev K, Dunn EW (2015). Checking email less frequently reduces stress. Comput Human Behav 43:220–228. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.11.005 — randomised within-person field experiment.
• Predictable batches beat both constant and zero notifications. 237 participants randomised: notifications batched three times a day → happier, more attentive, more productive, less stressed, more in control; hourly batches did nothing; no notifications at all made people more anxious than usual (fear of missing out). Fitz N, Kushlev K, Jagannathan R, Lewis T, Paliwal D, Ariely D (2019). Batching smartphone notifications can improve well-being. Comput Human Behav 101:84–94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.07.016 — RCT, field. Similar: 30 volunteers without notifications for 24 h felt less distracted and more productive, but some felt anxious about responsiveness and less connected. Pielot M, Rello L (2017). Productive, anxious, lonely: 24 hours without push notifications. MobileHCI '17. https://doi.org/10.1145/3098279.3098526 — within-person, small.
  • Reading: the personal mode must not make work vanish without a word. It says when work comes back and what still gets through, so the silence is predictable rather than worrying.
• Time on e-mail goes with stress; batching alone is not proven. 40 information workers, 12 days of logs and heart-rate sensors: more daily time on e-mail → lower perceived productivity and higher measured stress; no evidence that batching lowered stress. Mark G, Iqbal ST, Czerwinski M, Johns P, Sano A, Lutchyn Y (2016). Email duration, batching and self-interruption: patterns of email use on productivity and stress. CHI '16:1717–1728. https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858262 — field, sensors. Five days without e-mail (13 workers) gave longer focus and lower stress by heart-rate variability: Mark G, Voida S, Cardello A (2012). "A pace not dictated by electrons": an empirical study of work without email. CHI '12:555–564. https://doi.org/10.1145/2207676.2207754 — field, very small.
• Interruptions are paid for in stress. People made up for interruptions by working faster, at the cost of more stress, frustration, time pressure and effort (48 participants): Mark G, Gudith D, Klocke U (2008). The cost of interrupted work: more speed and stress. CHI '08:107–110. https://doi.org/10.1145/1357054.1357072 — experiment. A notification alone, unanswered, disrupted an attention task as much as using the phone: Stothart C, Mitchum A, Yehnert C (2015). The attentional cost of receiving a cell phone notification. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 41(4):893–897. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000100 — experiment.
• E-mail as a symbol of overload. The more time people spent on e-mail, the more overloaded they felt; e-mail became the cultural symbol of overload and drew attention away from its other sources. Barley SR, Meyerson DE, Grodal S (2011). E-mail as a source and symbol of stress. Organization Science 22(4):887–906. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1100.0573 — mixed methods. Reading: an unread count is a symbol of the same kind; seen in the evening, it stands for everything unfinished.
• Counters and "overdue" labels: no controlled study of "overdue" labels, red due dates or unread badges was found. The case against them is indirect: feedback on the self (Kluger & DeNisi 1996), external shame (Kim et al. 2011), repair (Leach & Cidam 2015), e-mail as a symbol (Barley et al. 2011), and users' complaints (tasks.md, anti-patterns). Inference from adjacent evidence + popular complaint.
  • Red itself: the claim that seeing red impairs performance did not hold up: no effect on anagram or knowledge tests, a small effect on reasoning tests only (d = −0.34), close replications failed. Gnambs T (2020). Limited evidence for the effect of red color on cognitive performance: a meta-analysis. Psychon Bull Rev 27(6):1374–1382. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-020-01772-1 — meta. So the problem with an "overdue" red is its meaning (alarm, failure, judgement), not the hue.
• Broken streaks reduce engagement, more so with self-blame. Seven studies: showing an intact streak in a log increased later engagement relative to a broken one, whatever the actual behaviour; the drop was larger when people blamed themselves for the break, smaller when the streak could be "repaired". Silverman J, Barasch A (2023). On or off track: how (broken) streaks affect consumer decisions. J Consum Res 49(6):1095–1117. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucac029 — experiments. Reading: a record of "days stopped early" is a streak by another name.
• Self-tracking is work, and emotionally loaded, for the chronically ill. 22 patients with several chronic conditions: tracking felt like work, and personal data were "not simply objective facts" but provoked strong emotions and value judgements; the title's quote: "You get reminded you're a sick person". Ancker JS, Witteman HO, Hafeez B, Provencher T, Van de Graaf M, Wei E (2015). J Med Internet Res 17(8):e202. https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.4209 — qualitative. Reading: no statistics about how often "Done for today" is used, not even private ones.

9. Tone of voice: positivity, validation, autonomy, concreteness¶

• Positive self-statements backfire for those who need them most. Repeating "I'm a lovable person" made people with low self-esteem feel worse; people with high self-esteem gained a little. Wood JV, Perunovic WQE, Lee JW (2009). Positive self-statements: power for some, peril for others. Psychol Sci 20(7):860–866. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02370.x — experiments (2) + survey. Reading: no affirmations ("You're doing amazing!").
• Feeling expected not to be sad makes sadness worse. Four studies (Australia, Japan; two experimental): perceived social expectations not to feel negative emotions led to more frequent and intense negative emotion, through negative self-evaluation. Bastian B, Kuppens P, Hornsey MJ, Park J, Koval P, Uchida Y (2012). Feeling bad about being sad: the role of social expectancies in amplifying negative mood. Emotion 12(1):69–80. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024755 — correlational + experiments. Reading: a cheerful voice at the moment of collapse is an expectation of cheerfulness; the app neither cheers nor consoles, it acknowledges.
• Accepting negative feelings predicts better mental health, through less negative emotion under stress (N = 1,003; lab N = 156; 6-month longitudinal N = 222). Ford BQ, Lam P, John OP, Mauss IB (2018). The psychological health benefits of accepting negative emotions and thoughts: laboratory, diary, and longitudinal evidence. J Pers Soc Psychol 115(6):1075–1092. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000157 — correlational + longitudinal.
• Validation calms; invalidation arouses. During a stressful math task, invalidating responses raised negative affect, heart rate and skin conductance; validating ones did not (heart rate fell). Shenk CE, Fruzzetti AE (2011). The impact of validating and invalidating responses on emotional reactivity. J Soc Clin Psychol 30(2):163–183. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2011.30.2.163 — experiment, students. Reading: the screen after pressing treats the stop as reasonable on its face, and nothing questions it ("Are you sure?").
• Controlling language provokes reactance. Commands and "must/should" in health messages raised reactance, which is anger plus counter-arguing (meta-analysis, k = 20, N = 4,942). Miller CH, Lane LT, Deatrick LM, Young AM, Potts KA (2007). Psychological reactance and promotional health messages: the effects of controlling language, lexical concreteness, and the restoration of freedom. Hum Commun Res 33(2):219–240. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2007.00297.x — experiment. Rains SA (2013). The nature of psychological reactance revisited: a meta-analytic review. Hum Commun Res 39(1):47–73. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2012.01443.x — meta. With demand avoidance in autistic and anxious adults (tasks.md), this argues for descriptions, not instructions: "Tomorrow starts with …", not "Start tomorrow with …"; no "take care of yourself", "you should rest".
• Concrete beats abstract for repetitive thought. Repetitive thinking is constructive when concrete and specific (how, what next) and harmful when abstract and evaluative (why, what it says about me). Watkins ER (2008). Constructive and unconstructive repetitive thought. Psychol Bull 134(2):163–206. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.134.2.163 — review. Concreteness training reduced depressive symptoms, rumination and overgeneralisation against usual care in 121 depressed primary-care patients (no better than relaxation on symptoms, better on rumination). Watkins ER et al. (2012). Psychol Med 42(7):1359–1371. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291711002480 — RCT, phase II. Reading: the text after stopping is concrete and about things ("The letter → Monday 9:00, first step: open the form"), never abstract or evaluative ("You're behind on admin").
• Leisure seen as wasteful is enjoyed less. People who believed leisure is wasteful enjoyed it less and reported more depression, anxiety and stress; framing a leisure activity as serving a goal helped them. Tonietto GN, Malkoc SA, Reczek RW, Norton MI (2021). Viewing leisure as wasteful undermines enjoyment. J Exp Soc Psychol 97:104198. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2021.104198 — correlational + experiments. Reading: the personal mode is presented as part of the plan (in pacing, rest is scheduled, not earned), without calling rest "productive".
• Infantilising speech provokes rejection (a weak analogue). In hospital dementia care, elderspeak was nearly universal, and less of it went with much lower odds of care being rejected (88 encounters). Shaw CA, Ward C, Gordon J, Williams KN, Herr K (2022). J Am Geriatr Soc 70(8):2258–2268. https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.17910 — observational, dementia; the transfer to a competent adult is only by analogy. Reading: no diminutives, no "little" wins, no emoji hearts, no exclamation marks, no first names; adult, plain, brief.
• Postponing worry by instruction alone did not work online. 996 enrolled, 361 completed: an online instruction to postpone worry to a 30-minute evening slot did not reduce worry or health complaints against registration only. Versluis A, Verkuil B, Brosschot JF (2016). Br J Health Psychol 21(2):318–335. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjhp.12170 — RCT, null, high attrition. Reading: "think about it tomorrow" is not enough; what helps is a concrete place for each item, made by the software, not by the person's effort.
• "Don't think about it" backfires, more so under load. Trying to suppress a thought makes it come back afterwards (rebound, reliable), and under cognitive load it also intrudes during suppression (k = 31). Wang DC, Hagger MS, Chatzisarantis NLD (2020). Ironic effects of thought suppression: a meta-analysis. Perspect Psychol Sci 15(3):778–793. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691619898795 — meta. Theory: Wegner DM (1994). Ironic processes of mental control. Psychol Rev 101(1):34–52. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.101.1.34. Reading: never "Don't worry", "Don't feel guilty", "Forget about work" (« Ne culpabilisez pas », « N'y pensez plus »): they name the very thought, to a person under maximal load. Say where things are instead.

10. The next morning¶

• Fresh starts motivate. Goal-directed behaviour rises after temporal landmarks (a new week, month, a birthday). Dai H, Milkman KL, Riis J (2014). The fresh start effect: temporal landmarks motivate aspirational behavior. Manage Sci 60(10):2563–2582. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1901 — archival field data. A new working day is a weak landmark, but "a new day, not the rest of yesterday" follows the same logic (inference).
• Start-of-day mood colours the whole day. In a call centre, employees' mood at the start of the workday shaped how they perceived later events, their affect afterwards, and objective performance, more than events during the day. Rothbard NP, Wilk SL (2011). Waking up on the right or wrong side of the bed: start-of-workday mood, work events, employee affect, and performance. Academy of Management Journal 54(5):959–980. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2007.0056 — experience sampling + performance data. Reading: the first screen of the next working day matters out of proportion; it must not open on yesterday's leftovers.
• A short reattachment dialogue helped. The morning confirmation of yesterday's plan and "What's the first step?" were rated very positively and raised felt productivity and engagement in the first hour, at some cost in relaxation (Williams et al. 2018, section 7) — field, small.
• Daily planning helps engagement; planning for interruptions holds up. Two weeks of experience sampling: planning time (lists, priorities, when) raised engagement and performance unless the day had many interruptions; planning for likely interruptions helped regardless. Parke MR, Weinhardt JM, Brodsky A, Tangirala S, DeVoe SE (2018). When daily planning improves employee performance: the importance of planning type, engagement, and interruptions. J Appl Psychol 103(3):300–312. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000278 — experience sampling.
• Reading: the next morning (1) opens on the day as planned, which already holds yesterday's moved tasks, unmarked; (2) shows one first step, the one named last night; (3) asks nothing about yesterday; (4) leaves yesterday's stop unmentioned. What moved is one click away, worded neutrally, for whoever wants to see it.

11. Studies of task tools, rest and collapse¶

• Adults with ADHD on rest days, debriefs and being watched. 22 interviews, then 13 AI concepts shown to 20 more adults with ADHD. Most preferred: a "brain weather" view (one participant found "mild haze" more comforting than "red overdue tasks"), an AI social presence, and "emotionally aware pause days" (rest framed as care, not failure; participants asked for transparency and control over when they are suggested). Mixed: an "emotional debrief after task collapse" (supportive for some; others "worried about revisiting failure too directly"). Disliked: nudges based on patterns ("Even if I know it's trying to help, it feels like it's watching me"), emotional check-ins before committing, ambient transition cues. Dual goals ("ideal" and "baseline") "stopped them from hating themselves for not completing everything". Self-blame persists despite knowing the cause: "I know it's ADHD, but I still feel like I should just try harder."
  • Chen J, Meng Y, Nie K (2026). "Not just me and my to-do list": understanding challenges of task management for adults with ADHD and the need for AI-augmented social scaffolds. CSCW 2026 (accepted); preprint https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.17258 — qualitative + design probes.
• Tools fail exactly when needed. Kamsin A, Blandford A, Cox AL (2012). Personal task management: my tools fall apart when I'm very busy! CHI '12 Extended Abstracts:1369–1374. https://doi.org/10.1145/2212776.2212457 — interview study (only its title and venue were checked). Reading: the stop costs nothing to perform: no sorting, rescheduling or typing at that moment.
• Fluctuating capacity is the norm for chronically ill users, and the energy cost of using the tool counts (Mack et al. 2022, section 6).
• Structured end-of-day and start-of-day dialogues (Williams et al. 2018, section 7): fewer after-hours e-mails; morning reattachment valued.

12. What the evidence does not settle¶

• Plans made by software. Every plan-making study (Masicampo & Baumeister; Smit; Leroy & Glomb; Scullin) had people write their own plan. Whether a plan proposed by software quiets the mind as well is untested. A plausible condition is trust: having seen, many times, that moved tasks come back at the stated time (Newport's "trusted system" is a popular claim, not a finding). One look at the first step, or one tap to accept or change it, may give the minimal ownership the studies had, at little cost.
• A done list or not. End-of-day positive reflection helped in one field experiment and one small trial, failed as an intervention in another, and a list of completed activities did worse than a to-do list for sleep. A short factual list is the cautious middle.
• Self-compassion text in apps. No trial tests one-line self-compassion messages in productivity software; the evidence comes from structured programmes and lab inductions, and the fears of compassion and the backfire of positive self-statements argue for restraint.
• Shutdown rituals as packages are untested; the claim that rituals reduce anxiety rests partly on a retracted paper.
• Adults with ADHD: little direct evidence on implementation intentions, end-of-day plans or detachment in this group.
• Avoidance: whether an easy early stop increases avoidance of dreaded tasks over time (the BA concern) or prevents crashes (the promise of pacing) has not been studied for software. The design below aims for the second without the first.

Design recommendations, and where they stand¶

They follow the rules already in tasks.md: nothing is ever overdue, "Not now" is honoured without argument, the day's weather sets its room, nothing counts what was not done, and the plan is recomputed from today, never written into the tasks. French strings use "vous", like the rest of Sioul's French, or impersonal phrasing, which also keeps the text about the plan.

The button¶

1. One action closes the day, every day. The same button ends the day at the normal end and at noon on a bad day, so stopping early is not a separate failure path. EN "Done for today", FR « Fini pour aujourd'hui »; never "Give up", "Quit", "Pause", "I can't", « J'abandonne ». Same place always, one click. Evidence: end-of-day plans help detachment on ordinary days too (Smit 2016; Williams et al. 2018); shame comes from framings about the self (Tangney et al. 2007; Kluger & DeNisi 1996); executive function is at its lowest then (Snyder 2013; Deligkaris et al. 2014). Built: on the Now page and in the focus window (tasks.md, rule 11).
2. No confirmation and no question; an undo instead. Pressing acts at once; "Undo" sits in the status line, and "Back to today's plan" in the quiet-time menu, both without comment. Never "Are you sure?", a reason field or a mood check. Evidence: validation lowers arousal, invalidation raises it (Shenk & Fruzzetti 2011); controlling language provokes reactance (Miller et al. 2007; Rains 2013); control is a recovery experience (Bennett et al. 2018); emotional check-ins were among the least liked concepts (Chen, Meng & Nie 2026). Built.

What the software does¶

1. Close today's room and let the plan flow. Today's remaining room becomes zero; unfinished steps and what waits on them move, in order, into the first days with room, never above a day's room, the overflow to later days. Nothing is written into the tasks. A running focus session stops, keeping its "next time, start by…" line. Evidence: pacing guidance warns against boom and bust and pushing through (NICE NG206; Andrews et al. 2012; Antcliff et al. 2016); the energy envelope (Brown, Khorana & Jason 2011); ready-to-resume notes (Leroy & Glomb 2018); started tasks pull people back (Ghibellini & Meier 2025). Built: from the focus window, "Done for today" stops the session with its line. Pre-filling that line from the last action: not built.
2. Name tomorrow's first step, concretely, with its cue. One step, the smallest useful one, with when and how long ("Monday, 9:00 window: open the form (2 min)"), from the stopped task's line if any, else from the plan. One tap changes it; nothing is required. Evidence: specific plans remove intrusions (Masicampo & Baumeister 2011) and raise evening detachment, most for people low in self-control (Smit 2016; Smit & Barber 2016); if-then plans (Gollwitzer & Sheeran 2006; Toli et al. 2016); concrete beats abstract (Watkins 2008, 2012); a plan stays easy to change (Masicampo & Baumeister 2012); plans made by software are untested (section 12), hence the one-tap ownership. Built: the line left when a session stopped, else the plan's first step, with "Change" and the hint "A cue and an action: 'After breakfast, open the form'". Offering the smallest sub-step of a task that already moved: not built.
3. A real date asked is said once, and only if it falls before work comes back. One factual line with the smallest protective action and an equal way to leave it ("The date asked for the form is today." · "Ask for more time" · "Leave it for Monday"). Never blocks the stop. Evidence: shame turns constructive when repair is possible (Leach & Cidam 2015); uncertainty feeds avoidance (tasks.md); hiding a real consequence would be a false kindness. Built.

The screen after pressing (read in ten seconds)¶

1. Content, in this order, and nothing else: what happened, about things ("Work is put away until Monday, 9:00."); what got done or worked on, only if something was, a few lines at most ("Done today: the form sent. Worked on: the tax letter (25 min)."), never "0" or "nothing"; where the rest is, without a number ("Everything else has its place, from Monday, in the usual order."); the first step ("Monday starts with: open the form (2 min)."); what rests and what still gets through ("Mail and tasks are resting. One-time codes still arrive, and messages from the people you marked as close."); one plain line about the plan ("Stopping before you run out is part of the plan."); one button, "Close". Evidence: progress and felt competence calm rumination (Amabile & Kramer 2011; Weigelt et al. 2019); depressed recall under-counts what was done (Matt et al. 1992); a done list is short, not an exercise (Scullin et al. 2018; Meier et al. 2016); repair (Leach & Cidam 2015); counts act as symbols of overload (Barley et al. 2011); a predictable silence calms, total silence worries (Fitz et al. 2019; Pielot & Rello 2017; Becker et al. 2021); stopping before exhaustion is the pacing advice (section 6). Built, in English and French.
2. Never shown: counts or percentages of undone work; "overdue", "late", "missed", "behind", red; streaks, "days in a row", comparisons with other days or with the plan; any history of early stops; motivational quotes; exclamation marks; emoji; "Are you sure?"; "Don't worry", "Don't feel guilty", "Forget about work" (« Ne vous inquiétez pas », « Ne culpabilisez pas », « N'y pensez plus »); "You deserve a rest"; "productive rest"; diminutives ("little wins", « petites victoires »); the person's first name. Evidence: external shame and maladaptive guilt (Kim et al. 2011); feedback on the self (Kluger & DeNisi 1996); broken streaks with self-blame (Silverman & Barasch 2023); ironic rebound under load (Wang et al. 2020); positive self-statements and expected cheerfulness backfire (Wood et al. 2009; Bastian et al. 2012); leisure framed as earned or wasteful (Tonietto et al. 2021); infantilising speech (Shaw et al. 2022). Built (none of these appear).

The personal mode¶

1. Remove work cues until the next working day starts. Only what is yours stays in view, the people marked as close still reach you, and one sentence says when work comes back: "Work comes back Monday at 9:00." Evidence: detachment goes with less exhaustion and fatigue (Wendsche & Lohmann-Haislah 2017; Bennett et al. 2018); evening work cues lower detachment, and one unpleasant message costs the evening (Van Laethem et al. 2018; Derks et al. 2014; Butts et al. 2015); the mere expectation of checking harms (Becker et al. 2021); segmentation helps detachment (Park, Fritz & Jex 2011; Kreiner et al. 2009); the exhausted detach least, unless leisure is pleasant (Sonnentag et al. 2014). Built: quiet time. The Porch shows only one-time codes and mail from safe senders; work addresses fold without their marks; work sites keep their notifications for later; budgets show only leisure money; Projects and Tasks show only yours (porch.md, "Working hours, and quiet time").
2. Offer, never prescribe; quiet rest is as valid as company. No "Call a friend!", no activity goals: pleasant and social things are reachable, quiet ones just as much. Evidence: control over leisure goes with vigour (Bennett et al. 2018); small valued and social activities help in depression (Stein et al. 2021; Richards et al. 2016); socialising costs energy for many autistic people (Raymaker et al. 2020); reactance (section 9). Built: quiet time shows what is yours and proposes nothing.
3. Part of the plan, not a reward. The header is EN "Rest of the day", FR « Le reste de la journée ». Evidence: leisure seen as wasteful is enjoyed less, and a goal framing helps (Tonietto et al. 2021); in pacing, rest is scheduled, not earned (NICE NG206; Goudsmit et al. 2012). Built.
4. A place for the work thoughts that still come. One line drops a thought into the next working time without opening anything else ("Note for when work comes back"). Evidence: suppressed thoughts rebound (Wang et al. 2020); writing specific to-dos helps sleep (Scullin et al. 2018); a specific place quiets intrusions (Masicampo & Baumeister 2011); instructions to postpone worry alone failed (Versluis et al. 2016). Built: the thought waits, out of sight, for work to come back.
5. Going back to work stays possible, quietly. "Back to today's plan" in the status line's menu; no comment either way; never suggested. Evidence: autonomy and reactance (section 9); weekend work calmed only when it made progress, and it lowered detachment (Weigelt & Syrek 2017). Built (porch.md: "The way back is never suggested").

The next morning¶

1. Open on the day, not on yesterday. The first screen of the next working day: the plan starting with the named step; then the usual weather question, not preset from yesterday. No "Welcome back", no "Yesterday you stopped at…", no debrief, no list of moved tasks unless asked. Moved tasks look like any other; the first step offers the usual two-minute start. Evidence: start-of-day mood colours the day (Rothbard & Wilk 2011); morning reattachment with a first step (Williams et al. 2018); debriefs after a collapse were mixed (Chen, Meng & Nie 2026); plans quiet the mind when carried out (Masicampo & Baumeister 2011), so the step must be easy to start; fresh starts (Dai et al. 2014). Built: the next working day opens on that step, never on yesterday. A neutral "what moved" view, one click away: not built.

Repeated use¶

1. No statistics, no counter, no inference. The stop leaves no visible trace: no log, no weekly summary of stops, no nudge from patterns, no suggestion triggered by how often it is used. Evidence: broken streaks with self-blame (Silverman & Barasch 2023); tracking reminds people they are ill (Ancker et al. 2015); external shame (Kim et al. 2011); "it feels like it's watching me" (Chen, Meng & Nie 2026); rules 7 and 9 of tasks.md. Built.
2. "The plan never fits" is handled by structure, not by feedback. Static help beside the daily room setting: "If days often end early, a smaller room lets the plan fit; you can change it any time." Tasks that keep sliding get, at a window and never at stop time, the offer to make them smaller, hand them over or drop them, without saying how often they slid. Evidence: the energy envelope (section 6); the Wall of Awful and the avoidance trap of BA (sections 5, 6); feedback on the self (section 4). Built: the help line in the settings, and a date that cannot fit said once with "doing it sooner, making it smaller, handing it over" (tasks.md, "The plan"). The pass over tasks that keep sliding: next ("still relevant?").
3. Static help, never triggered. A help page reachable from the settings on when tiredness may be more than tiredness (a doctor, occupational health, crisis lines), never shown because of how the button is used. Evidence: clinical exhaustion can last years (Glise et al. 2020); excessive guilt is a criterion of depression (DSM-5); no inference (rule 7). Not built.

Optional lines (a setting, off by default; one at random; impersonal; no imperative)¶

1. Lines that acknowledge and locate, with common humanity, never affirmations:
   • EN "Today held less than planned. The plan adjusts; that is what it is for." / FR « La journée a tenu moins que prévu. Le plan s'ajuste : il est fait pour ça. »
   • EN "Energy runs out at different hours on different days. The work will keep." / FR « L'énergie ne s'épuise pas à la même heure chaque jour. Le travail attendra. »
   • EN "Running out of energy before the day ends is common with exhaustion and illness. Nothing here is lost." / FR « Manquer d'énergie avant la fin de la journée est courant avec l'épuisement ou la maladie. Rien n'est perdu ici. »
   • EN "What got done today counts. The rest has its place." / FR « Ce qui a été fait aujourd'hui compte. Le reste a sa place. »
   • EN "Rest is part of the plan, not a reward for finishing it." / FR « Le repos fait partie du plan ; ce n'est pas une récompense. »
   • Avoided: "Great job!" / « Bravo ! »; "You deserve it" / « Vous l'avez bien mérité »; "Be kind to yourself" / « Soyez bienveillant envers vous-même »; "Take care of yourself ❤️" / « Prenez soin de vous ❤️ »; "You're doing your best" / « Vous faites de votre mieux »; "Tomorrow is another day!" / « Demain est un autre jour ! »; "It's okay not to be okay"; "Recharge your batteries 🔋" / « Rechargez vos batteries »; "spoons" (a popular metaphor; the day's weather is used instead).
   • Evidence: compassion threatens the most self-critical (Kirby et al. 2019; Gilbert et al. 2011); positive self-statements backfire (Wood et al. 2009); expected cheerfulness amplifies sadness (Bastian et al. 2012); common humanity is part of self-compassion (Neff 2003); self-compassion raises the wish to improve (Breines & Chen 2012); removing self-judgment cues matters at least as much as adding kind words (Muris & Petrocchi 2017); spoon theory has no evidence (section 6). Not built: the screen has its one plain line about the plan, and no optional lines.

A copy check for every string of this flow¶

1. Before a string ships: about tasks, not the person? No number about undone work? No imperative? No evaluation ("great", "only", "still")? No negation naming the feared thought? Readable in ten seconds? Says where each thing went and when work comes back? Evidence: sections 4, 8 and 9. In use: the closing screen's strings above pass it.