Loading practices
Loading practices
Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Structure and routine
Lateness usually comes from anchoring on the time printed on the letter and treating the journey as though it cost nothing. Writing the leaving time as the start takes the estimating out of the moment when you are least able to do it. Then the alarm is for leaving, not for arriving.
The sun cannot overtake the moon, nor can the night outrun the day: each floats in its own orbit (Quran 36:40). Everything is given its own room to move in, and a journey needs the same.
يس
لَا ٱلشَّمۡسُ يَنۢبَغِي لَهَآ أَن تُدۡرِكَ ٱلۡقَمَرَ وَلَا ٱلَّيۡلُ سَابِقُ ٱلنَّهَارِۚ وَكُلࣱّ فِي فَلَكࣲ يَسۡبَحُونَ
The sun cannot overtake the moon, nor can the night outrun the day: each floats in [its own] orbit
Qur’an 36:40read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A randomised trial with 557 young adults found that explicitly linking a situation to an action changed daily eating more than a general untethered plan did. When the cue is a when rather than a what, it is much more likely to fire. The trial was about fruit and vegetables, so the principle carries over better than the size of the effect does.
Chapman J, Armitage CJ, Norman P. (2009). Comparing implementation intention interventions in relation to young adults' intake of fruit and vegetables.. Psychology & health doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
If the calendar holds the real start time, you never have to calculate it while getting ready.
Before planning anything, work out which date is actually true. Does Thursday mean Thursday, or does everybody know it means Friday, and is Thursday even possible?
If a calendar feels like something parents and teachers made you carry, it stays theirs and you keep putting it down. The question worth answering is whose life gets easier when it works.
Do the task at the same time and place each day, so the setting starts to do the reminding.