I was in the middle of something in another room and it occurred to me that this familiar expression could be adapted for ADHD: A watched pot never catches fire. Good reminder to exercise a little extra caution in the everyday tasks that get boring but are still dangerous if you get complacent. Driving, cooking, poking around in a running computer with screwdriver even though you know you should shut it off, that sort of thing.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I should get back to cooking breakfast before the “food is done” alarms start going off throughout the building.
“A watched pot never boils … over”. Everyone omits the last word. Because if you have the pot on sufficient heat, it doesn’t matter if you watch it, physics gonna physics.
I see some results for that and, as it turns out, a similar version that I’ve probably heard before but forgotten: “A watched pot never boils but an unwatched pot boils over”.
I don’t think “A watched pot never boils” was ever meant to be taken literally. The way I see it its more in the sense that if you just stand there looking at it the time it takes to boil will feel like forever.