Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Bringing the future closer
Once a week, both calendars open on the table. Who is doing scouts, who has football, what is happening on Thursday. Twice a week if the house is busy.
The point is finding the collisions while there is still time to sort them out, rather than at eight on Thursday morning with coats half on. Keep it short, and keep it in the same slot each week so it never has to be arranged. Plenty of households do it on a Sunday evening with a cup of tea, which is about as painless as this gets.
Qur’an and Sunnah
'After that will come seven years of hardship which will consume all but a little of what you stored up' (Quran 12:48). Knowing what is coming is what makes it possible to arrange for it together.
ثُمَّ يَأۡتِي مِنۢ بَعۡدِ ذَٰلِكَ سَبۡعࣱ شِدَادࣱ يَأۡكُلۡنَ مَا قَدَّمۡتُمۡ لَهُنَّ إِلَّا قَلِيلࣰ ا مِّمَّا تُحۡصِنُونَ
After that will come seven years of hardship which will consume all but a little of what you stored up for them
Qur’an 12:48read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A cluster randomised trial in ten schools tested whether an intervention grounded in self determination theory changed pupils' physical activity intentions and behaviour over five weeks. It suggests deliberately structured arrangements can move what people actually do, which is the general point. It was short, in schools, and about exercise, so treat it as background rather than as evidence for a family diary session.
Nikos L. D. Chatzisarantis; Martin S. Hagger (2008). Effects of an intervention based on self-determination theory on self-reported leisure-time physical activity participation. Psychology and Health doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Two people cannot hold one schedule between them unless it is written somewhere they both see.
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 long project gives you no feedback until it is too late to use any. Put checkpoints in yourself: with the people involved, or just with you and a Monday morning.
Someone who will tell you the part that was not good is someone whose 'that was fine' you can believe. That is what settles the doubt, not reassurance.
Thursday night goes badly, you swear at yourself, and you mean every word. Next quarter the same thing happens. That is not you failing to learn. It is a lesson that cannot survive the distance.