Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Bringing the future closer
You get three goes at thinking about something: before it starts, somewhere in the middle, and once it is over. Most of us only ever use the last one, which is the least useful of them.
Before is a pause to look at the options. In the middle is a quick check on how it is actually going and whether anything needs changing. Afterwards is where the lesson gets pulled out, if anyone bothers to pull it. The middle one is the cheapest and the most neglected, and it is the only one that can still alter the outcome.
Qur’an and Sunnah
'Take action! God will see your actions' (Quran 9:105). Doing and being seen sit together, which is a fair description of working with one eye on how it is going.
وَقُلِ ٱعۡمَلُواْ فَسَيَرَى ٱللَّهُ عَمَلَكُمۡ وَرَسُولُهُۥ وَٱلۡمُؤۡمِنُونَۖ وَسَتُرَدُّونَ إِلَىٰ عَٰلِمِ ٱلۡغَيۡبِ وَٱلشَّهَٰدَةِ فَيُنَبِّئُكُم بِمَا كُنتُمۡ تَعۡمَلُونَ
Say [Prophet], ‘Take action! God will see your actions- as will His Messenger and the believers- and then you will be returned to Him who knows what is seen and unseen, and He will tell you what you have been doing
Qur’an 9:105read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A review of how episodic foresight develops in children separates it carefully from planning, from delay of gratification and from remembering to do things later, treating them as related but distinct. That supports spreading your attention across different moments rather than expecting one habit to cover everything. It is a developmental review, so it describes the abilities rather than testing a routine built on them.
Hudson JA, Mayhew EM, Prabhakar J. (2011). The development of episodic foresight: emerging concepts and methods.. Advances in child development and behavior doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A check made while something is still running is the only kind that can change 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
If the only real deadline is the fortnightly meeting, invent some smaller ones. A couple of short catch-ups a week will do more for the work than the formal review ever does.
A report due Friday puts a little pressure on somebody else's Monday. For you Monday feels like nothing at all, and then Thursday evening arrives carrying the whole of it.
Whatever the record is, do it the same day, every time. The salesman writes his notes in the car outside the client's office. Not that evening, not on Friday.