Loading practices
Loading practices
Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Systems for daily life
Overwhelm often comes from the sheer volume of contact rather than from the work: lectures, housemates, group chats, the phone going all evening. Mark one clear stretch a week as yours and say in advance what it is for, even if the answer is nothing in particular. If being alone unnerves you, start with twenty minutes somewhere public, a cafe or a bench, rather than an empty flat and a long afternoon.
Do not be tight-fisted, nor so open-handed that you end up blamed and overwhelmed with regret (Quran 17:29). Both failures are named, and giving away every hour of yourself is the second one.
الإسراء
وَلَا تَجۡعَلۡ يَدَكَ مَغۡلُولَةً إِلَىٰ عُنُقِكَ وَلَا تَبۡسُطۡهَا كُلَّ ٱلۡبَسۡطِ فَتَقۡعُدَ مَلُومࣰ ا مَّحۡسُورًا
Do not be tight-fisted, nor so open-handed that you end up blamed and overwhelmed with regret
Qur’an 17:29read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A systematic review with meta-regression looked across lifestyle programmes to work out which behaviour change techniques separated the ones that succeeded from the ones that did not. The finding is that the specific components matter, not just the general intention. That is about health behaviour rather than about solitude, so the transfer is only this: an actual slot in the week is a different thing from meaning to rest more.
Samdal GB, Eide GE, Barth T, Williams G, Meland E. (2017). Effective behaviour change techniques for physical activity and healthy eating in overweight and obese adults; systematic review and meta-regression analyses.. The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Time on your own is what lets the noise settle, and it only happens if it has been given a place in the week.
Put behaviours on the report, not grades. Finished the class work, followed the rules, got on with the others, handed the homework in.
A task needs smoothing at both ends. If it looks big and horrible you will not begin it, and if the middle is full of snags you will not see it through.
Make handed-in homework one of the tracked targets. It is the thing that goes wrong most and the thing worth most when it goes right.