Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Systems for daily life
Before you try to prioritise better, check whether there is any order in there at all. Plenty of people who feel stuck cannot say which of their jobs is genuinely required and which is merely wanted.
You can test it in a couple of minutes. Write the things down and mark the ones that carry a real consequence if they do not happen this week. If you cannot separate them, what looks like poor prioritising is really a list with no ranking, and whatever is loudest or most interesting wins each time. Getting the order onto paper is the missing piece.
Qur’an and Sunnah
God has set a due measure for everything (Quran 65:3). Things having their proper size is the assumption, and your job is only to find out what size each one is.
وَيَرۡزُقۡهُ مِنۡ حَيۡثُ لَا يَحۡتَسِبُۚ وَمَن يَتَوَكَّلۡ عَلَى ٱللَّهِ فَهُوَ حَسۡبُهُۥٓۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ بَٰلِغُ أَمۡرِهِۦۚ قَدۡ جَعَلَ ٱللَّهُ لِكُلِّ شَيۡءࣲ قَدۡرࣰ ا
and will provide for them from an unexpected source; God will be enough for those who put their trust in Him. God achieves His purpose; God has set a due measure for everything
Qur’an 65:3read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A clinical review of how treatment response is monitored in adults with ADHD describes disorganisation, poor time management and procrastination as core associated features of the condition rather than as separate personal failings. That is a useful thing to know about yourself before you start blaming your character. It is a review setting out what clinicians should track, not evidence that any particular fix works.
Ramsay JR. (2017). Assessment and monitoring of treatment response in adult ADHD patients: current perspectives.. Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Comparing several jobs in your head at once is hard, and once the order is written down you no longer have to.
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
When you agree to something, agree who follows up. Do you tell them if it slips, or do they check in with you?
Work the deal out with the child instead of handing it to them. Much the same rules, an entirely different feeling.
Start at the moment you have to be there and work backwards, writing each step and how long it takes, until you reach the hour you have to get up.