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Why transitions are hard

A transition is the moment between two things: stopping one task, getting ready, and starting the next. It takes more effort than it looks, because part of your attention stays with what you just left. For many neurodivergent people the transition, not the task, is the hardest part of the day.

By Amaan Nizam Published 19 October 2026. Updated 20 October 2026.

Amaan Nizam founded Sailyn and builds it alongside a mechatronics degree at THWS Würzburg-Schweinfurt and work at the university's Center for Robotics. An earlier venture, FluxTation, won first prize at the THWS Campus Startup Day. Who built it and why.

Part of you is still on the last task

Switching between tasks has a measurable cost: people are slower and make more mistakes just after a switch than when they repeat the same task. And when a task is left unfinished, thoughts about it tend to stay around and take attention from the next one, which researchers call attention residue.

That is why stopping in the middle of something absorbing can feel physically hard, and why a day cut into many short pieces is more tiring than the same work in fewer, longer ones.

Monsell, 2003. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7(3)

Leroy, 2009. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 109(2)

Give the change a shape

Transitions go better with warning and with a clear finish. Knowing ten minutes ahead that something is ending lets you find a stopping point. Writing one line about where you stopped lets the old task go, because it no longer has to be held in mind.

Four things to try

  1. Set a warning before you need to stop, not only at the moment you do.
  2. Before you stop, write one sentence about what comes next in that task.
  3. Leave a few minutes between fixed things for the change itself.
  4. Group similar work together, so there are fewer switches in a day.

How Sailyn handles transitions

Sailyn keeps five minutes free before anything fixed and does not suggest work that would run into it. A session warns you ten and five minutes before the next fixed thing, a task can carry steps so you can see where you stopped, and when you finish you choose a break, carrying on with what comes next, or stopping for now.

Sailyn is a planner and a focus timer. It is not a medical device, it treats nothing, and nothing on these pages is advice about a condition.

Know what you need to do, but can't get started? Sailyn gives you one next step, a plan that adapts, and no penalty for difficult days.

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