Loading practices
Loading practices
Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Systems for daily life
A live class hands you three things for nothing: a time, other people present, and someone who notices you are missing. A recorded course strips all three out and leaves the two hardest parts, getting started and keeping track of time. Check the format before enrolling rather than in week five. If both versions of a module exist, the live one is usually worth an awkward timetable or a longer journey.
Help one another to do what is right and good (Quran 5:2). Being carried along by other people doing the same thing at the same hour is an ordinary form of that help.
المائدة
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ لَا تُحِلُّواْ شَعَٰٓئِرَ ٱللَّهِ وَلَا ٱلشَّهۡرَ ٱلۡحَرَامَ وَلَا ٱلۡهَدۡيَ وَلَا ٱلۡقَلَٰٓئِدَ وَلَآ ءَآمِّينَ ٱلۡبَيۡتَ ٱلۡحَرَامَ يَبۡتَغُونَ فَضۡلࣰ ا مِّن رَّبِّهِمۡ وَرِضۡوَٰنࣰ اۚ وَإِذَا حَلَلۡتُمۡ فَٱصۡطَادُواْۚ وَلَا يَجۡرِمَنَّكُمۡ شَنَـَٔانُ قَوۡمٍ أَن صَدُّوكُمۡ عَنِ ٱلۡمَسۡجِدِ ٱلۡحَرَامِ أَن تَعۡتَدُواْۘ وَتَعَاوَنُواْ عَلَى ٱلۡبِرِّ وَٱلتَّقۡوَىٰۖ وَلَا تَعَاوَنُواْ عَلَى ٱلۡإِثۡمِ وَٱلۡعُدۡوَٰنِۚ وَٱتَّقُواْ ٱللَّهَۖ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ شَدِيدُ ٱلۡعِقَابِ
so, you who believe, do not violate the sanctity of God’s rites, the Sacred Month, the offerings, their garlands, nor those going to the Sacred House to seek the bounty and pleasure of their Lord––but when you have completed the rites of pilgrimage you may hunt. Do not let your hatred for the people who barred you from the Sacred Mosque induce you to break the law: help one another to do what is right and good; do not help one another towards sin and hostility. Be mindful of God, for His punishment is severe
Qur’an 5:2read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A meta-analysis of mind wandering found that attention drifts more as a task becomes more demanding, and that how much people drift differs reliably between them. That is part of why outside structure matters: it carries load that attention on its own cannot. The studies used laboratory tasks rather than university modules, so applying this to how you pick a course is an argument rather than a result.
Randall JG, Oswald FL, Beier ME. (2014). Mind-wandering, cognition, and performance: a theory-driven meta-analysis of attention regulation.. Psychological bulletin doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A fixed hour with people in it carries the structure on your behalf, so less of it has to be generated from inside.
Keeping your own prescription going is a skill like any other: when to reorder, who to ring, what to do when the pharmacy has none. Better learned before the week you need it.
If everything you do is both urgent and important, you are living in the emergency corner. It is exhausting, and the exhaustion is real even though the week looks thin from outside.
Read down a long to-do list and you will find things belonging to a person you were three years ago. Some of them were never good ideas. They got written down anyway.