Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Structure and routine
Rather than arguing that someone ought to get organised, ask one question. Would your life be better if fewer things slipped, fewer people were annoyed with you, and you spent less of the day worrying about what you had forgotten?
The answer is nearly always yes, and it lands differently when the person says it instead of hearing it. Keep the list concrete and drawn from their own week rather than from ideas about being organised. Then stop talking and let them fill in the rest, because the reasons they give themselves are the ones still standing on a bad Tuesday.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Keep up the prayer at both ends of the day, for good things drive bad away (Quran 11:114). A repeated practice is described there by what it slowly clears out of a life.
وَأَقِمِ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ طَرَفَيِ ٱلنَّهَارِ وَزُلَفࣰ ا مِّنَ ٱلَّيۡلِۚ إِنَّ ٱلۡحَسَنَٰتِ يُذۡهِبۡنَ ٱلسَّيِّـَٔاتِۚ ذَٰلِكَ ذِكۡرَىٰ لِلذَّٰكِرِينَ
[Prophet], keep up the prayer at both ends of the day, and during parts of the night, for good things drive bad away- this is a reminder for those who are aware
Qur’an 11:114read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
An updated meta-analysis of randomised trials found behavioural activation, which works by systematically rescheduling what a person does rather than by working on their thoughts, is an effective treatment for depression compared with control conditions and with antidepressants. Changing what happens at which hour really does change how people feel. Those trials are about depression, so the direct claim stops there.
Ekers, D.; Webster, L.; Van Straten, A.; Cuijpers, P.; Richards, D.; Gilbody, S. (2014). Behavioural Activation for Depression; An Update of Meta-Analysis of Effectiveness and Sub Group Analysis. PLoS ONE doi
BA comparable to full CBT protocols.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Reasons a person arrives at themselves hold up far better than reasons handed to them.
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 system survives if it gives back more than it costs. Every time your diary saves you a phone call or a scramble, you have bought yourself a little more willingness to open it tomorrow.
Think of a calendar as memory kept outside your head rather than as a test of discipline. Its whole job is to answer what you should be doing now, so that you do not have to work it out.
A calendar that catches only some of your commitments is more dangerous than no calendar at all. You look at Thursday, see a clear afternoon, say yes, and only later meet the thing that never got written down.