Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Systems for daily life
Some people genuinely do not feel time passing. There is now, and there is not now, and the hour in between goes missing. That is a difference in perception rather than a comment on how much someone cares.
Worth saying plainly in a family where lateness has turned into a moral argument. A person who is never on time may be honestly surprised each occasion, and being told they are disrespectful only adds shame to a problem that shame does not touch. What does help is putting time outside the body where it can be seen and heard: an alarm for leaving rather than for starting, and a clock in view of the room where the time keeps disappearing.
Qur’an and Sunnah
They show the times appointed for people, and for the pilgrimage (Quran 2:189). Time is marked out where everyone can see it, in the sky, rather than left to each person to sense on their own.
۞يَسۡـَٔلُونَكَ عَنِ ٱلۡأَهِلَّةِۖ قُلۡ هِيَ مَوَٰقِيتُ لِلنَّاسِ وَٱلۡحَجِّۗ وَلَيۡسَ ٱلۡبِرُّ بِأَن تَأۡتُواْ ٱلۡبُيُوتَ مِن ظُهُورِهَا وَلَٰكِنَّ ٱلۡبِرَّ مَنِ ٱتَّقَىٰۗ وَأۡتُواْ ٱلۡبُيُوتَ مِنۡ أَبۡوَٰبِهَاۚ وَٱتَّقُواْ ٱللَّهَ لَعَلَّكُمۡ تُفۡلِحُونَ
They ask you [Prophet] about crescent moons. Say, ‘They show the times appointed for people, and for the pilgrimage.’ Goodness does not consist of entering houses by the back [door]; the truly good person is the one who is mindful of God. So enter your houses by their [main] doors and be mindful of God so that you may prosper
Qur’an 2:189read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A clinical review of adult ADHD describes disorganisation, poor time management and putting things off as core features that go with the condition and that treatment should keep track of. It is a review rather than an experiment on how time is perceived, so the now and not now picture stays a way of describing the experience rather than a finding. What it does support is that this difficulty belongs to the condition rather than to someone's character.
Ramsay JR. (2017). Assessment and monitoring of treatment response in adult ADHD patients: current perspectives.. Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
If the felt sense of duration is missing, trying harder will not supply it, but a cue in the room will.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
A calendar holds things that happen at a time. A list holds things that must get done but not at any particular hour. Put both in one place and you break both.
When something has sat undone for weeks, ask what next month's version of you would say about it. Relieved it is finished, or honestly indifferent?
Print the agreement out and stick it up where the child will see it. In a drawer it may as well not exist.