Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Bringing the future closer
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.
This matters most for how you talk to yourself while using one. 'I shouldn't need an alarm for this' is the sentence that gets tools abandoned, usually just as they were starting to help. Expect to keep using it. Expect to replace it when it wears out. The effort goes into choosing the right lens, not into practising seeing without one.
Qur’an and Sunnah
'God has set a due measure for everything' (Quran 65:3). You are working with the measure you were given, and a tool that fits it is not a confession of failure.
وَيَرۡزُقۡهُ مِنۡ حَيۡثُ لَا يَحۡتَسِبُۚ وَمَن يَتَوَكَّلۡ عَلَى ٱللَّهِ فَهُوَ حَسۡبُهُۥٓۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ بَٰلِغُ أَمۡرِهِۦۚ قَدۡ جَعَلَ ٱللَّهُ لِكُلِّ شَيۡءࣲ قَدۡرࣰ ا
and will provide for them from an unexpected source; God will be enough for those who put their trust in Him. God achieves His purpose; God has set a due measure for everything
Qur’an 65:3read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
One study looked at preschoolers who did not have ADHD themselves but had a close relative who did, and found they already showed more delay aversion and weaker inhibitory control. That points to something present early rather than a habit picked up through slack living. It compared groups of young children, so it says nothing about what any one adult should use day to day.
Pauli-Pott U, Roller A, Heinzel-Gutenbrunner M, Mingebach T, Dalir S, Becker K. (2014). Inhibitory control and delay aversion in unaffected preschoolers with a positive family history of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.. 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
Treating a support as temporary makes you drop it as soon as things go well, which is exactly when it was working.
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
Ask people how it went. How was that meeting, how am I doing, what did you make of it. Nobody enjoys asking, and the information is not available any other way.
Say the plan out loud to somebody. A manager, a colleague, your wife, a coach. Hearing yourself explain it does something that turning it over privately does not.
Bring the cost forward into today. No screen until the hour of work is done, rather than a poor grade three months from now.