Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Bringing the future closer
If you lose track of how long you have been at something, a clock you can see is the fix. If you get pulled under and surface far too late, what you need is an interruption, not a clock.
Alarms and schedules are doing different jobs again. An alarm is there because noticing the time yourself is the bit that fails when you are absorbed. A written plan is there because picturing next Tuesday is the bit that fails when someone asks you to commit to it. Name the failure first, then choose. Otherwise you end up with a beautiful planner for a problem that was really about not hearing the afternoon go by.
Qur’an and Sunnah
'Man was created hasty' (Quran 21:37). Impatience is spoken of as part of the make-up, so it is something to build around rather than something to be ashamed of.
خُلِقَ ٱلۡإِنسَٰنُ مِنۡ عَجَلࣲۚ سَأُوْرِيكُمۡ ءَايَٰتِي فَلَا تَسۡتَعۡجِلُونِ
Man was created hasty: I will show you My signs soon, so do not ask Me to hasten them
Qur’an 21:37read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In one case control study, delay aversion contributed to the ADHD picture independently of executive difficulties, reaction time variability and emotional ones. Difficulty waiting therefore sits alongside the other problems rather than being produced by them, which is a decent argument for matching a tool to the particular thing that is failing. It was a single study comparing groups, so hold the detail lightly.
Sjöwall D, Roth L, Lindqvist S, Thorell LB. (2013). Multiple deficits in ADHD: executive dysfunction, delay aversion, reaction time variability, and emotional deficits.. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A support only helps if it stands in for the exact thing that is not happening on its own.
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
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.
You are allowed to build the consequence rather than waiting for life to deliver one. Waiting is not more honest, it is only slower, and often it never arrives at all.
Mindfulness practice is good for most people, and may help a little more if you have ADHD. Treat it as something supportive rather than as the treatment itself.