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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1067 practices

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The parts of this that look like lifestyle, meaning sleep, driving, drinking, appointments that get missed, are the parts carrying the most risk across a lifetime. They are also the most changeable parts.

You may have met a striking figure quoted about untreated ADHD and years of life lost. Take the point underneath rather than the number: risk from…

LongerShame and stigmaADHD skillsQur’an 17:70One line of research

No food in the house means eating out late, which means a late night, which means a late start, which means no time to shop. It is not a character flaw. It is a loop.

The parts that feel most like personal failure, the takeaways, the extra coffee, the money going nowhere, are mostly downstream of a plan that never…

LongerShame and stigmaADHD skillsQur’an 2:286One line of research

Getting your ordinary life a bit calmer is worth doing for its own sake. More sleep, a little more structure, food that is not all improvised. Not perfect, just good enough to work with.

It will not give you more capacity than you have. What it does is let you use more of what you already have, more of the time, which is usually the…

LongerShame and stigmaADHD skillsQur’an 3:135One line of research

You do not have to use it perfectly for it to help. Using it half the time makes your week roughly half better, and that is a real gain rather than a consolation prize.

Watch for the all or nothing turn, because it is what usually ends these attempts. One missed entry, then the whole thing gets declared broken and…

A minuteStructure and routineADHD skillsQur’an 2:185

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

Rather than arguing that someone ought to get organised, ask one question. Would your life be better if fewer things slipped, fewer people were annoyed with you, and you spent less of the day worrying about what you had forgotten?

The answer is nearly always yes, and it lands differently when the person says it instead of hearing it. Keep the list concrete and drawn from their…

A minuteStructure and routineADHD skillsQur’an 11:114One line of research

Writing Tuesday at two in your diary is not a vow. If Tuesday comes and something else matters more, move it. At least it had a chance of happening.

A surprising number of people avoid writing anything down because it feels binding, as though the ink made it a promise. Left unsaid, that quietly…

A minuteStructure and routineADHD skillsQur’an 4:28One line of research

Whatever you estimate, add to it. Fifteen minutes is the figure you get at midnight with empty roads; at midday the same trip takes twenty five.

Do not try to estimate better, since accurate estimating is the thing that is hard. Use a rule you can apply without judgement instead: take your…

A minuteStructure and routineADHD skillsQur’an 31:19One line of research

When you book something, put everything into the entry there and then: the address, the phone number, what you have to bring. You will never have that information more easily to hand than at the moment of booking.

The alternative is standing on the pavement at ten to one, searching for which branch it was, with the insurance card at home. Booking is already a…

A minuteStructure and routineADHD skillsQur’an 2:238One line of research

Think of a calendar as memory kept outside your head rather than as a test of discipline. Its whole job is to answer what you should be doing now, so that you do not have to work it out.

That framing matters if planners have ever felt like a judgement on you. Nobody expects anyone to hold a phone number in their head any more. The…

A minuteStructure and routineADHD skillsQur’an 6:96One line of research

The benefit comes from how often you touch it. Writing something in is a rehearsal, looking it up is a reminder, and by the time the day arrives you have met it so many times that nothing takes you by surprise.

Which is why a scruffy system used constantly beats an elegant one opened weekly. Give yourself a couple of fixed moments to look, first thing and…

A minuteStructure and routineADHD skillsQur’an 33:35One line of research

If you are the sort who leaves at the last possible second, the entry has to hold everything you need in order to walk out of the door. Address, door code, what to bring, who to ring if you get stuck.

At five minutes to, you cannot search well and you cannot think of what you have forgotten. That is the wrong moment to be finding anything out. Get…

A minuteStructure and routineADHD skillsQur’an 24:36One line of research

A three o'clock appointment half an hour away is a half past two appointment. Put the true start time in and let the calendar hold it, rather than asking yourself to work it out on the day.

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…

A minuteStructure and routineADHD skillsQur’an 36:40One line of research

Putting something in the calendar does not sign you up for life. If Wednesday turns out wrong, drag it to Thursday. The entry is a plan, and plans are allowed to change.

People who fear being locked in tend to end up with an empty calendar and a full head, which is the worse of the two problems. Say the permission out…

A minuteStructure and routineADHD skillsQur’an 25:62One line of research

A child who cannot yet catch their own drifting needs somebody close enough to catch it for them. Where they sit does a lot of that work quietly.

From nearby a teacher sees attention go before the work is lost, and can bring the child back without stopping the lesson for everyone. Proximity…

A minuteStructure and routineADHD skillsQur’an 24:36One line of research

Bring a child back with the smallest signal that does the job. A tap on the desk, a hand on the shoulder, or simply standing beside them will usually be enough.

Say a child's name across a room and everyone turns to look. Do that twenty times a day and the child learns something about themselves in front of…

A minuteStructure and routineADHD skillsQur’an 31:19One line of research

Get the child's eyes first, then give one instruction. The page, how much, and by when, and then stop.

An instruction thrown at a busy room never reaches the child who most needs it, so the name and the eye contact come before any content at all. Then…

A minuteStructure and routineADHD skillsQur’an 73:4One line of research

The long reason why is doing less than you hope. Give the instruction, give one short line of why if it helps, and let that be the end of it.

When the explanation runs on, the instruction gets buried somewhere in the middle of it and comes out the other side lost. A long justification also…

A minuteStructure and routineADHD skillsQur’an 17:110One line of research

Attach a new habit to one you already do: after wudu, I read one page.

Let an existing routine carry the new thing. You are borrowing momentum you already have.

A minuteStructure and routineADHD skillsQur’an 31:19One line of research

Do the task at the same time and place each day, so the setting starts to do the reminding.

Novelty costs a mind like yours energy. Sameness of time and place buys that energy back.

A minuteStructure and routineADHD skillsQur’an 87:8One line of research

By your teens you need some way, any way, of answering one question: given that it is this time on this day, what should I be doing? A plain system that answers it beats a beautiful one that does not.

Paper, phone, whiteboard on the fridge, the format is not the point. If the answer depends on remembering, it depends on luck. Pick the thing you…

Five minutesStructure and routineADHD skillsQur’an 4:103One line of research