Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Your sense of time
When a deadline or a reward sits a long way off, it can feel almost weightless, while the thing in front of you feels enormous. That is not you being shallow. It is a shortened view of time doing what it does.
You can notice it in the gap between what you know and what you feel. You know the report matters more than the tidying, it just does not feel that way at nine on a Monday morning. Where this helps is in choosing where to push: instead of arguing yourself into caring more about Friday, find ways to bring Friday closer, in writing, in the calendar, in one small piece of it done today.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Let every soul consider carefully what it sends ahead for tomorrow (Quran 59:18). The instruction assumes tomorrow needs deliberate attention, because it will not press on you by itself.
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ ٱتَّقُواْ ٱللَّهَ وَلۡتَنظُرۡ نَفۡسࣱ مَّا قَدَّمَتۡ لِغَدࣲۖ وَٱتَّقُواْ ٱللَّهَۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ خَبِيرُۢ بِمَا تَعۡمَلُونَ
You who believe! Be mindful of God, and let every soul consider carefully what it sends ahead for tomorrow; be mindful of God, for God is well aware of everything you do
Qur’an 59:18read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-analytic review of children and adolescents with ADHD found a consistent preference for a smaller reward now over a larger one later, a kind of impulsivity that had been studied less than the quick reaction sort. It describes a pattern across groups rather than any one person, and it says nothing about how much you care. What it does support is treating distance in time as the thing worth working on.
Patros CH, Alderson RM, Kasper LJ, Tarle SJ, Lea SE, Hudec KL. (2016). Choice-impulsivity in children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): A meta-analytic review.. Clinical psychology review doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
The further off something sits, the less it registers as real, so bringing it nearer gives it back some of its weight.
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
When someone has missed the deadline again, the talk about how they always do this changes nothing except how they feel. If you want a different Friday, the conversation belongs on Monday, and it is about the plan rather than the person.
When you are sure something takes ten minutes, do not argue with yourself. Write down the guess, start a timer, and look at both afterwards.
How far ahead a person can hold in mind grows as they get older. A five year old on Monday does not care about Saturday, a fifteen year old should, and by thirty most people can worry about a pension.