Keeping Time — To Be On time

Dec 042017
 

  • Are you frequently late for meetings or appointments in spite of your best intentions?

  • Have you ever waited for someone who never seems to be on time?

  • Whether you spend time waiting for someone who is always late or you’re the person who can’t be on time, the result is frustration on both sides.

People who can never manage to be on time rarely plan to be late.  Most people who are chronically late have difficulty in time management: one could say their clocks are broken.

Children rely on parents and teachers to keep them on time.  This scaffolding sometimes extends into the teenage years.  As adults, personal management of one’s time is an assumed skill.  However, as with organization and prioritization, time management for some individuals remains a struggle, sometimes a lifetime challenge.
 
Time management is an important skill within the larger domain of executive function skills.  Executive functioning represents a set of processes that govern how one manages oneself and one’s resources to achieve a goal. These cognitive, behavioral skills impact on mental control and self-regulation. 
 
Individuals who find it hard to organize themselves often have trouble managing their time.  From small things, forgetting keys or a wallet, paying bills on time, to completing a task like finishing a report, these behaviors fall into the larger skill set of executive functioning.  For some people, the difficulty of managing one’s time is closely linked to other important skills like prioritization and self regulation.
 
The person who has a problem with timeliness may often be challenged by predicting the amount of time he or she needs, usually underestimating or failing to anticipate obstacles that will make them late.  Lack of focusing and remaining on task can further sabotage the goal of being on time.
 
To further complicate matters, prioritizing, the ability to evaluate goals or tasks and decide on the order to accomplish these tasks can also make someone misjudge time.  The person who gets side-tracked because of poor prioritizing may find it necessary to spend more time finishing a task, underestimate the time he or she needs, and arrive late.  If this scenario sounds like a domino effect, in many cases, that’s the way it happens.

  •  Is this a hopeless chain of events?

The “broken clock,” effective time management, can be improved by developing a set of executive function skills that include: organization and planning, prioritization, focus, and self regulation.  While these skills are closely linked, fortunately some people have difficulties in some areas, but not all.  

Working with a professional who can unravel your problems in executive functioning and develop the necessary skills can lead to better time management and self regulation: fixing the broken clock.

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Check back soon for more articles on executive functioning, communications, speech pathology and writing.

 

ADD & ADHD: Childhood or Life Problems?

Dec 152016
 
  • Do children outgrow difficulties with inattention, focus & hyperactivity?
  • Is medication the cure for these problems in childhood?

When a child is diagnosed with inattention, distractibility, with or without hyperactivity,  parents are often faced with a series of concerns.  Will these problems interfere with academic performance?  Will medication help?  Is another treatment needed besides medicine?

The answer to all 3 questions is yes, but in differing degrees.  

Attention Deficit Disorder, with or without hyperactivity, is documented to interfere with learning.  Children who suffer from ADD but exhibit no hyperactivity may go undiagnosed for several years because they suffer quietly and often “fall off the radar” in a classroom where behavior problems claim more of the teacher’s attention.  Well-behaved students may look as if they’re focusing but may have problems following directions, making transitions in activities and switching between topics.

Medication to treat these problems needs to be a parental decision after consultation with professionals and often includes examination of a student’s cognitive functioning and language skills.  Many students have been helped by medication that reduces their distractibility.  However, in my experience medication alone is not the panacea that parents and students would like to believe.

The most effective way to treat ADD & ADHD is to raise the child or adolescent’s awareness of his thinking and focus, and provide strategies to re-direct attention to the task of the moment.  Becoming aware of one’s thinking is called “metacognition” and provides a critical tool for self regulation and self modification.  Metacognition remains a cornerstone to developing executive function skills, which are essential for organization, planning, prioritization and focus.  The current practice of “mindfulness” intersects with metacognition in the goal of “being in the moment” and reducing distractions.  Even young children can be taught to become aware of their distracting thoughts and refocus their thinking.  

Poor executive function skills resulting from ADD and ADHD can affect academic performance throughout formal schooling, including college and graduate school.  Unfortunately most children and teenagers don’t “grow” out of their problems with cognitive functioning.  The most successful ones either receive support services or therapy to develop the skills to keep themselves on task and focused.

Adults, whether diagnosed or not, can find these problems impacting on their careers throughout their lives, often resulting in unfilled potential and goals.  Medication can assist adults in focus and attention, but does not “cure” problems that result in poor organization, time management and distractibility.  At the adult level it remains essential (as for younger individuals) to develop metacognitive strategies and effective executive function skills.  Speech pathologists trained in this area are frequently the professionals who provide therapy to assist children and adults with ADD and ADHD.  Intervention at any age can make a profound change in a person’s life.

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Check back soon for more articles on executive function, speech pathology, effective speaking skills and writing.

 

 

Why Is Time Never On My Side?

Dec 052013
 

“I never seem to finish what I start.”

“I run out of time so often.”

“Everyone gets there early or on time, but I’m usually late.”

These are a few of the concerns I’ve heard from clients who have difficulty managing their time, who may be stressed because they can’t accomplish what’s expected of them.  Being able to organize one’s work, prioritize tasks and budget time are the cornerstone of cognitive processes called “executive function.”  As one develops through childhood, adolescence and into the adult years, mastery of these skills becomes a necessary ingredient for success in school and work.  Not being able to complete tasks, missing appointments or arriving late often sidetracks individuals who are otherwise intelligent, talented people.  What lies underneath these functions that makes it so hard for some people?

I’ve written about these skills in some of my previous blog articles: “Why Is My ‘To Do’ List Like Chasing The Impossible Dream?” and “It Seems Everyone Can Multitask, Why Can’t I?”  I invite you to read these articles as well.  But there are some key points I’d like to explore  further in this entry.

As we mature, the direct instruction we receive in terms of managing our time fades out:  we don’t have parents or teachers who tell us where to be and when to have things completed.  However, we have social, personal and employment guidelines that govern our behavior, sometimes rules more unspoken than those of earlier years but nevertheless important, even more critical in our lives.

Why do some people have so much trouble with time management?  Underlying the ability to manage one’s time are important skills: being able to prioritize tasks, set realistic time frames, and make predictions based on past experience.   The person who has difficulty with executive functioning falters on planning and using the skills I’ve just mentioned.   Too many times poor skills in this area leads family, friends and bosses to think that an individual is lazy or inconsiderate, which is often the exact opposite of reality.  The person who doesn’t manage his/her time well usually wants to be successful but doesn’t have the tools to do so.

On a positive note, these skills can be developed at any age and need to be part of every successful individual’s life.  The “broken clock” can be fixed by cognitive therapy that focuses on prioritization, realistic predictability of time required for tasks, and organizational skills.  Murphy’s Law, “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong,” holds true for issues of time.  Sometimes it’s not so bad being early, not cutting so close to the clock — when the unpredictable happens.  But knowing how to function in order to survive Murphy’s Law remains a challenge for people with executive function difficulties.  The first step is recognizing the problem, then acquiring strategies to solve it.

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Check back next week for more thoughts on executive function, speech and language and communication skills.

The Scattered Student: Is the Mess on the Floor the Real Problem?

Aug 082013
 

Books, papers, electronics strewn across the desk, clothes on the floor, room like a danger zone…  Does it mean anything?

If your middle school or high school student lives in a state of disarray, frequently forgetting papers or textbooks in the school locker, or the finished assignment on the kitchen table, disorganization might be indicative of a problem that’s more than adolescent carelessness.

Executive functioning involves the management of oneself or one’s resources to achieve a goal.  It consists of behavioral skills that impact on mental control and self regulation.  To some degree the external organization of our possessions can reflect the internal management of our thinking.

When a student has difficulty keeping track of his or her belongings — books, papers, clothes, money, keys, cell phone, clothing — the cause may not be solely adolescent sloppiness.   For some students, just getting through the day may be a reflection of a larger problem of self monitoring and self regulation.

Is this always the case?  Not necessarily.  Some students, some adults for that matter, aren’t neat and organized.  But when a student has difficulty in planning tasks, allocating sufficient time for assignments, organizing his or her life to achieve required goals, the external disorganization might be a clue to what’s going on mentally.

Dealing effectively with deadlines, time requirements, and mental transitions requires a set of skills that must begin during childhood and mature with age.  The development of strong executive functioning carries over for success later in life.

Can a parent fix the problem?  Assisting with organization and planning skills can be valuable but parents often end up doing too much and the student may not develop the skills required for independent thinking.   Intervention with a professional skilled in cognitive training may be a more effective way to help your student develop a set of critical life skills.

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Check back next week for more thoughts on executive function skills, speech and communications