Practices

Every practice in the library, in one list. Narrow it by how long you have, who it is written for, and where you are right now.

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664 practices

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Anything that comes round every month should be leaving your account without you. Direct debits and standing orders take the remembering out of the job altogether, which beats any reminder you could set.

It is worth an afternoon. List what recurs, automate what can be automated, and put one calendar note to check the statement each month instead of…

Twenty minutesRemembering to do itADHD skillsQur’an 23:8One line of research

Every extra step in a task is another place to lose it. Three clicks and done beats a process with a form, an envelope and a walk to the postbox, even when the second one saves a little money.

Before you commit to a routine, count its steps, then take some out. Bin bags stored next to the bin, stamps kept with the envelopes, paying on the…

Twenty minutesRemembering to do itADHD skillsQur’an 16:91One line of research

A ping about a parcel and a ping about your mother's health feel identical in the second before you look. Give that feeling a name, false urgency, and you get a little room.

The buzz carries no information about importance. It borrows the feeling of importance and lends it to whatever happened to arrive. Naming it in the…

A minuteScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 62:11One line of research

Gaming for an hour before you start the work almost never costs an hour. Do the thing that has to be done first, then the thing you want.

Once something enjoyable is running, whatever you were meant to do afterwards looks duller than it already did, and the hour quietly becomes three.…

A minuteScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 62:9

There is more about focus, starting, and adhd than the practices: the focus, starting, and adhd area has the themes and the courses too.

One line of research

Charge the phone in another room overnight and use a proper alarm clock. Small change, and it takes the decision away from you completely.

In bed the phone is right there, and stopping is left to you at the hour you have the least left. Out of the room, there is nothing to resist. Buy…

A minuteScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 13:28One line of research

Taking the phone away leaves a hole the exact size of the phone. Something has to go into it, or the evening just becomes an argument you both lose.

Part of why scrolling is so hard to drop is that the reward arrives at unpredictable intervals, which is the pattern that keeps behaviour alive…

Five minutesScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 13:28One line of research

Quiet room, clear desk, phone in a drawer, and you are still nowhere near the work. When the outside distractions go, the restlessness does not leave with them. It moves inside.

Headphones and a tidy desk handle half the problem. The other half is a mind looking for something to do, which will supply its own if nothing else…

Five minutesScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 3:191One line of research

Plenty of people now describe attention that fails, memory that slips and a day sliced into fragments. That description on its own is not ADHD, and it is worth being careful before anyone hands over a label.

The environment is producing a version of these symptoms in people who do not have the condition, and calling that a diagnosis does two things badly.…

Five minutesScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 102:1One line of research

A screen is a privilege, not something a person is owed. Food, clothes, a warm home, medical care, school, being loved: those are owed, and a phone is not on that list.

Saying this plainly gives a household something firmer than mood to stand on when limits are set. It also keeps two things apart. The care and the…

Five minutesScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 7:31One line of research

Who pays the bill does give a household some say. That argument weakens every year a child gets older, and it runs out entirely once they are an adult sitting in front of you asking for help.

With a sixteen year old at home on the family plan, parents setting terms is reasonable and worth saying out loud. With an adult, the same move…

Five minutesScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 28:77One line of research

When someone misuses a device, sending explicit messages or piling on to someone or going where they should not, the useful read is that they were not ready for that much freedom yet. Not that they are a bad person.

Readiness gives you somewhere to go. You can name the skill that was missing, hand back a smaller amount of access, and set out what would show they…

Five minutesScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 96:6One line of research

Screens are easy to start and have no natural end. So the part worth planning is not the getting on, it is the getting off.

Decide in advance what happens at the finish, and make sure something appealing is waiting on the other side. A timer that only tells you to stop…

Five minutesScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 6:68One line of research

Some people are in this far enough that an hour a week will not reach them, and the places that could help are expensive or full. Saying so out loud is part of the work, not a failure of it.

Being honest early does two things. It stops you quietly concluding that you are not good enough, when what is actually happening is that the…

Five minutesScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 2:286One line of research

Tell someone their phone is wrecking their sleep and you have handed them something to argue with. Ask instead what they notice on the mornings after a late scroll, and let them say it.

This is the difference between a conclusion arriving from outside and one a person reaches themselves, which they then have to take seriously because…

Five minutesScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 17:36One line of research

What you are on there for matters more than how long you are on. Scrolling to keep up with people you love is a different activity from posting and then watching to see who approved.

Use aimed at status, at likes, at managing how you come across tends to sit alongside feeling worse. Use aimed at staying in touch and sharing what…

Five minutesScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 57:20One line of research

Online you can draft, delete, reply an hour later or simply leave. None of that exists in a kitchen, and plenty of people now find real conversation unbearably fast.

So the ordinary friction of talking to someone in person, the pause you fill badly, the thing that comes out wrong, gets read as proof that you are…

Five minutesScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 18:28One line of research

Spend long enough in comment sections and cruelty starts to look like the normal way people speak. It is not. You are reading a very odd sample.

Rudeness online is loud, cheap and rewarded, so it fills the space out of all proportion to how common it is. The trouble is that we generalise.…

Five minutesScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 4:140One line of research

Check, feel the small relief, put it down, feel the pull again a minute later. If your phone use has that shape, it is running like a compulsion, whatever else it is.

The structure matters more here than the label. An urge rises, checking brings it down, and every check teaches the urge to come back sooner. Which…

Twenty minutesScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 6:68One line of research

Sitting with one long unrewarding task has got harder for almost everyone. If you are planning work for yourself, or setting it for someone else, build the variety in rather than hoping for stamina.

In practice that means breaking a long stretch into shorter ones with something marking the end of each, changing what the work looks like part way…

Twenty minutesScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 24:37One line of research

Ask two questions and then sit with the difference. How much time on this would you like? And how much do you think is actually good for you?

Almost nobody gives the same answer twice, and the gap between the numbers is more persuasive than anything you could have told them, because they…

Twenty minutesScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 18:46One line of research