Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Your sense of time
Getting going is a separate expense from working slowly. Plenty of people move quickly once they are in and still lose forty minutes in the gap between deciding and starting.
It is worth knowing which of the two you are paying, because the answers differ. If the work itself is slow, you want fewer interruptions and simpler tools. If it is the on ramp, you want the first step made small and physical: open the document and type the date, lay the kit out on the table the night before, agree to begin when somebody else does.
Qur’an and Sunnah
When the prayer has ended, disperse in the land and seek out God's bounty (Quran 62:10). One thing closes and the next begins, with a clear handover between them.
فَإِذَا قُضِيَتِ ٱلصَّلَوٰةُ فَٱنتَشِرُواْ فِي ٱلۡأَرۡضِ وَٱبۡتَغُواْ مِن فَضۡلِ ٱللَّهِ وَٱذۡكُرُواْ ٱللَّهَ كَثِيرࣰ ا لَّعَلَّكُمۡ تُفۡلِحُونَ
then when the prayer has ended, disperse in the land and seek out God’s bounty. Remember God often so that you may prosper
Qur’an 62:10read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A case control study found that dislike of waiting contributed to ADHD independently of executive difficulties, variable reaction times and emotional factors. So trouble with the delay itself is not simply a knock on effect of poor planning. The study compares groups at a single point in time and does not tell you what to do about it.
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
The moment before starting carries its own resistance, and shrinking that first step is what gets you past it.
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
Knowing that leaving it until Thursday went badly last month does not change what Monday feels like. The memory is there, but it turns up flat, with none of the pressure still attached to it.
Here is a short way to hold the whole difficulty: the now in front of you is too big and the later is too small. It fits in your head at the moment you need it, which longer explanations do not.
If the internal clock is not there, put clocks in the room. Somewhere the child can see without turning round, a timer on the desk, one on the wall by where they work.