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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Systems for daily life
At the end of a week, three questions. What went better than I expected. What got in the way. What is the one thing I want to change. Notice where you feel it in your body when something is not working, because the tight chest usually turns up before the thought does. Keep the words flat and neutral. Good and bad turn a review into a sentencing, and nobody looks at themselves clearly while being sentenced.
Say, Lord, increase me in knowledge (Quran 20:114). Wanting to see more clearly is asked for as a good thing, which is a gentler frame for self-examination than judgement is.
طه
فَتَعَٰلَى ٱللَّهُ ٱلۡمَلِكُ ٱلۡحَقُّۗ وَلَا تَعۡجَلۡ بِٱلۡقُرۡءَانِ مِن قَبۡلِ أَن يُقۡضَىٰٓ إِلَيۡكَ وَحۡيُهُۥۖ وَقُل رَّبِّ زِدۡنِي عِلۡمࣰ ا
exalted be God, the one who is truly in control. [Prophet], do not rush to recite before the revelation is fully complete but say, ‘Lord, increase me in knowledge!’
Qur’an 20:114read 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. Reviewing your own weeks is a small private version of that same question. The pooled evidence is limited and not all of it controlled, so what stands here is the habit of checking honestly, rather than any promise about what the checking will show.
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.
You can only see what you are actually doing when looking does not cost you anything.
Some days fill up entirely with things that were urgent for somebody else. Practise saying not now to other people, and to the version of you that opens one more tab.
When a decision is looming, write the options out rather than talking them through. A test is coming: do nothing, make a revision timetable, ask for extra help. Three lines on paper.
Put small obstacles between the urge and the doing. One browser used only for work, tempting apps buried three folders down, notifications off for anything that is not an actual person you love.