Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Bringing the future closer
Your ability to hold off a distraction is at its worst near the end of a work block, not at the start. Set the room up for the tired version of you, because that is the one who will be sitting in it.
In practice the hard removals happen in advance, while you still feel capable. Phone away before you begin, water and food already to hand, the next step written down so you are not deciding it at half past four. Late in a session you want to be running on rails you laid earlier rather than on judgement.
Qur’an and Sunnah
'Provide well for yourselves: the best provision is to be mindful of God' (Quran 2:197). It is said to people setting out on a journey, and preparing before you set off is the whole point of it.
ٱلۡحَجُّ أَشۡهُرࣱ مَّعۡلُومَٰتࣱۚ فَمَن فَرَضَ فِيهِنَّ ٱلۡحَجَّ فَلَا رَفَثَ وَلَا فُسُوقَ وَلَا جِدَالَ فِي ٱلۡحَجِّۗ وَمَا تَفۡعَلُواْ مِنۡ خَيۡرࣲ يَعۡلَمۡهُ ٱللَّهُۗ وَتَزَوَّدُواْ فَإِنَّ خَيۡرَ ٱلزَّادِ ٱلتَّقۡوَىٰۖ وَٱتَّقُونِ يَٰٓأُوْلِي ٱلۡأَلۡبَٰبِ
The pilgrimage takes place during the prescribed months. There should be no indecent speech, misbehaviour, or quarrelling for anyone undertaking the pilgrimage- whatever good you do, God is well aware of it. Provide well for yourselves: the best provision is to be mindful of God- always be mindful of Me, you who have understanding
Qur’an 2:197read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A careful analysis of intertemporal choice tasks argues that preferring the sooner reward can reflect motivation rather than impatience, so findings from these tasks should be read with caution. Applied here, an afternoon slump may be as much about the work losing its pull as about any reserve draining away. Either way the practical move is the same, which is to settle the difficult things earlier.
Paglieri F, Addessi E, Sbaffi A, Tasselli MI, Delfino A. (2015). Is it patience or motivation? On motivational confounds in intertemporal choice tasks.. Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Decisions made while you are fresh get to protect the hours when you are not.
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
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.
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.
Running late is one thing. Running late with no message is two things. If it is the text that keeps going missing, put a small cost on the text specifically: no message, you do the washing up.