Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Get started
You are allowed to decide not to write things down. What you cannot do is choose that and then be upset with yourself when you forget.
Straddling is the expensive bit: taking the easy option in the moment and the guilt afterwards. Pick one honestly. Either the note gets written, or forgetting is part of the deal you made and you meet it without the self-pity. Most people, once they say it that plainly, quietly start writing things down, and the ones who do not at least stop paying twice.
Qur’an and Sunnah
God will reward them according to the best of their actions (Quran 16:97). What follows is tied to what was actually done, which is a clean way of thinking about your own choices too.
مَنۡ عَمِلَ صَٰلِحࣰ ا مِّن ذَكَرٍ أَوۡ أُنثَىٰ وَهُوَ مُؤۡمِنࣱ فَلَنُحۡيِيَنَّهُۥ حَيَوٰةࣰ طَيِّبَةࣰۖ وَلَنَجۡزِيَنَّهُمۡ أَجۡرَهُم بِأَحۡسَنِ مَا كَانُواْ يَعۡمَلُونَ
To whoever, male or female, does good deeds and has faith, We shall give a good life and reward them according to the best of their actions
Qur’an 16:97read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-analysis of trait self-control across a wide range of behaviours found that it seems to work mostly through steady habits rather than through heroic moments of restraint. Consistency between what you decide and how you set yourself up is the sort of thing that shows up there. It is correlational, describing how people who cope well tend to be arranged rather than proving what to change.
de Ridder DT, Lensvelt-Mulders G, Finkenauer C, Stok FM, Baumeister RF. (2012). Taking stock of self-control: a meta-analysis of how trait self-control relates to a wide range of behaviors.. Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Owning the choice removes the second cost, which was the one that hurt.
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
Shrink the first step until it takes two minutes, and do only that.
If nothing starts until the deadline is close enough to hurt, the missing piece is starting, not caring. The deadline is doing a job your own switch has not learned to do yet.
Two kinds of pressure get things done: the kind that comes from outside you, like deadlines and someone waiting, and the kind you generate yourself. Both are legitimate.