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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Systems for daily life
Write down the smallest possible version of the day: the two things that still happen, everything else forgiven until tomorrow. Have somewhere for the wave to go, a walk, cold water on the wrists, one person you can text, and give it the twenty minutes it usually needs before you decide anything or send anything. Learning to sit through a strong feeling without acting on it belongs in the same plan as learning to keep a diary, and it is usually the part left out.
If you are on a journey, and cannot find a scribe, something should be handed over as security (Quran 2:283). Even when the usual arrangement is out of reach, a smaller one is provided, not nothing at all.
البقرة
۞وَإِن كُنتُمۡ عَلَىٰ سَفَرࣲ وَلَمۡ تَجِدُواْ كَاتِبࣰ ا فَرِهَٰنࣱ مَّقۡبُوضَةࣱۖ فَإِنۡ أَمِنَ بَعۡضُكُم بَعۡضࣰ ا فَلۡيُؤَدِّ ٱلَّذِي ٱؤۡتُمِنَ أَمَٰنَتَهُۥ وَلۡيَتَّقِ ٱللَّهَ رَبَّهُۥۗ وَلَا تَكۡتُمُواْ ٱلشَّهَٰدَةَۚ وَمَن يَكۡتُمۡهَا فَإِنَّهُۥٓ ءَاثِمࣱ قَلۡبُهُۥۗ وَٱللَّهُ بِمَا تَعۡمَلُونَ عَلِيمࣱ
If you are on a journey, and cannot find a scribe, something should be handed over as security, but if you decide to trust one another, then let the one who is trusted fulfil his trust; let him be mindful of God, his Lord. Do not conceal evidence: anyone who does so has a sinful heart, and God is fully aware of everything you do
Qur’an 2:283read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A meta-analytic review pooled nine randomised and three uncontrolled trials to ask whether the gains from psychological treatment for adults with ADHD are still there at longer follow-up. That is the question underneath this tip: does the thing hold once the support has ended and life gets hard again. The pooled trials are few and not all controlled, so the answer it gives is an early one rather than a firm one.
López-Pinar C, Martínez-Sanchís S, Carbonell-Vayá E, Fenollar-Cortés J, Sánchez-Meca J. (2018). Long-Term Efficacy of Psychosocial Treatments for Adults With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Meta-Analytic Review.. Frontiers in psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Strong feeling uses the same machinery as planning, so while it floods, the plan simply will not run.
If the waves bring thoughts of harming yourself, this is not a planning problem and is worth bringing to your doctor or a crisis line the same day.
Some of what feels like a flaw in your character is really a job that can be handed to something outside your head: a calendar, a list on the wall, a person who helps you lay out the week.
If everything came apart the moment school ended, it may be that the structure was never yours. It belonged to the timetable, and the timetable stopped.
A task with no time attached has nothing to bring it back to you. Give it an hour, Friday two until three, and the diary carries it instead of your memory.