Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Bringing the future closer
Most time strategies are doing one of three jobs: showing you time passing, interrupting you when a moment arrives, or laying the days out ahead of you. When something is not working, ask which of the three is missing rather than hunting for a new app.
Have a look at what you already use. A clock in view and a timer running are the first job. An alarm that cuts through whatever you are absorbed in is the second. A written plan for the week is the third. People often stack three tools that all do the same job and then wonder why the same thing keeps going wrong. Fill the empty slot instead.
Qur’an and Sunnah
'Let every soul consider carefully what it sends ahead for tomorrow' (Quran 59:18). Tomorrow is asked for inside today's thinking, and a tool that keeps it in front of you is a fair way to answer that.
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
Imaging meta-analyses found substantial overlap between the brain regions supporting working memory and those supporting choices about delayed rewards, following an earlier finding that working memory training reduced discounting in stimulant users. That is about shared machinery rather than a test of any particular planner or alarm. Take it as a reason why holding time in your head is effortful and worth putting outside yourself, not as proof that one system beats another.
Wesley MJ, Bickel WK. (2014). Remember the future II: meta-analyses and functional overlap of working memory and delay discounting.. Biological psychiatry doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Each of the three does a different piece of work, so a gap in one cannot be covered by doubling up on another.
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 reminder system is not a crutch you should be aiming to throw away. It is closer to a pair of glasses. You wear them because they work, and nobody expects your eyes to improve because you wore them for a year.
There are two ways to make something get noticed: make it louder, or quieten everything around it. The second is usually the one nobody has tried.
Put the stake outside your own head. Tell a colleague that if you are late to the meeting, lunch is on you.