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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Systems for daily life
Worth knowing before you build anything, because when the first week goes by with the boxes filled and half of them untouched, the honest conclusion is not that systems do not work for you. A calendar solves one problem, which is knowing what and when. Getting yourself moving once the hour arrives is a separate problem and it needs its own thinking.
Consult with them about matters, then, when you have decided on a course of action, put your trust in God (Quran 3:159). Deciding and then moving are named as two steps, not one.
آل عمران
فَبِمَا رَحۡمَةࣲ مِّنَ ٱللَّهِ لِنتَ لَهُمۡۖ وَلَوۡ كُنتَ فَظًّا غَلِيظَ ٱلۡقَلۡبِ لَٱنفَضُّواْ مِنۡ حَوۡلِكَۖ فَٱعۡفُ عَنۡهُمۡ وَٱسۡتَغۡفِرۡ لَهُمۡ وَشَاوِرۡهُمۡ فِي ٱلۡأَمۡرِۖ فَإِذَا عَزَمۡتَ فَتَوَكَّلۡ عَلَى ٱللَّهِۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يُحِبُّ ٱلۡمُتَوَكِّلِينَ
By an act of mercy from God, you [Prophet] were gentle in your dealings with them- had you been harsh, or hard-hearted, they would have dispersed and left you- so pardon them and ask forgiveness for them. Consult with them about matters, then, when you have decided on a course of action, put your trust in God: God loves those who put their trust in Him
Qur’an 3:159read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a randomised trial with 88 adults with ADHD, the therapy tested was twelve manualised group sessions plus individual coaching, run both alongside medication and without it. The coaching is there for a reason: the programmes that get studied do not hand people a planner and stop. It was a modest trial, so read it as support for the shape of the help rather than a precise figure.
Cherkasova MV, French LR, Syer CA, Cousins L, Galina H, Ahmadi-Kashani Y, Hechtman L. (2020). Efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy With and Without Medication for Adults With ADHD: A Randomized Clinical Trial.. Journal of attention disorders doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Knowing what to do and being able to start are two different things, and only the first one is fixed by writing it down.
A pile is mostly decisions you have not made. You did not know what to do with the thing, so you put it down there to sort out later, and later has not arrived.
When something has become impossible, start far below it. Sitting in the parked car with the engine off is a real first step, and it is the one that gets somewhere.
An hour exists somewhere in the week for almost anything. That is what makes yes so easy, and it is not the same as having an hour.