Loading practices
Loading practices
Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Systems for daily life
Two words is plenty: phone, hungry, that noise, the thought about Saturday. The writing itself breaks the drift, so some of the benefit arrives before you have read a single line back. At the end of the week look at your own list and change one thing. Only one. It matters that the list is yours, because someone else's opinion about your attention is easy to argue with, and your own handwriting is not.
Whatever work you are doing, We witness you when you are engaged in it (Quran 10:61). Things are recorded as they happen rather than reconstructed afterwards, and your own notes work the same way.
يونس
وَمَا تَكُونُ فِي شَأۡنࣲ وَمَا تَتۡلُواْ مِنۡهُ مِن قُرۡءَانࣲ وَلَا تَعۡمَلُونَ مِنۡ عَمَلٍ إِلَّا كُنَّا عَلَيۡكُمۡ شُهُودًا إِذۡ تُفِيضُونَ فِيهِۚ وَمَا يَعۡزُبُ عَن رَّبِّكَ مِن مِّثۡقَالِ ذَرَّةࣲ فِي ٱلۡأَرۡضِ وَلَا فِي ٱلسَّمَآءِ وَلَآ أَصۡغَرَ مِن ذَٰلِكَ وَلَآ أَكۡبَرَ إِلَّا فِي كِتَٰبࣲ مُّبِينٍ
In whatever matter you [Prophet] may be engaged and whatever part of the Quran you are reciting, whatever work you [people] are doing, We witness you when you are engaged in it. Not even the weight of a speck of dust in the earth or sky escapes your Lord, nor anything lesser or greater: it is all written in a clear record
Qur’an 10:61read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A systematic review with meta-regression compared lifestyle programmes to identify which behaviour change techniques separated the ones that worked from the ones that did not. The finding that carries is that specific components make the difference, rather than general effort or enthusiasm. Which means it is worth knowing precisely what takes you off task, since that is the level at which anything changes.
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.
Noticing something as it happens both records it and interrupts it, and a finding you made yourself is much harder to wave away.
With attention difficulties the organising side often runs a few years behind the birthday. A nineteen year old may be running life more like a sixteen year old, and that is a lag rather than a verdict.
Choose one person and tell them you will send the finished thing by a set time. Not a conversation about how it is going, just the file, the photo, or the word done.
Every small snag in a task is an exit. The forgotten password, the missing form, the bit where you are not sure what happens next: each one is a chance to say forget it, I will do this later.