Understanding the ADD syndrome is the first step to understand why you do what you do and how to get on with your goals in life.  Remember this: Executive function means the job of managing behavior and thoughts. This job is multi-layered and multi-faceted. It’s really quite complex. Your brain is amazing! In today’s blog post I will describe the Activation Cluster of executive functions and how to get around the deficit.

 

Activation: Organizing, prioritizing and activating to work. Activation includes the motivation to start a task that you know you need to get done. Activation also includes the process of figuring out what is a priority then mapping out a process and the pieces needed to get things done.

 

Procrastination

Procrastination can become a major problem. You know what you need to do. You might even have a step by step plan. But somehow you just can’t seem to get started until things become an emergency. Individuals with ADD syndrome chronically delay starting a task until faced with an immediate dire consequence or deadline. Experts call this a chronic problem with cognitive activation. The reward for getting the task done might be clear as well as the penalty for not getting the job done. The consequence could be unclear or simply further down the road. The problem of procrastination brings up the study of motivation.

 

There is no magic wand I can wave over you to get you motivated to write your 10-page research paper or get your house work done. Sorry to break the bad news to you. In my work with college students with ADHD or adults with ADHD, I have found that David Allen’s approach to Getting Things Done  really helps! Here’s my version of David Allen’s Getting Things Done.

 

Ruth’s Hacks for Getting Your stuff Done in College and Life

 Step 1 Throw up

Think about all the things you gotta get done or must get done or should get done or wanna get done.  Imagine them as airplanes flying around the control tower  looking for a place to land. It’s hard to figure out which one is more important. Or which one you should focus on first.

Now write them down.  In no particular order. No categories. Big or small. Treat it like throwing up. Don’t hold anything back.  No prioritizing or organizing. Just write down all  the stuff you gotta get done. You might have a list of 20+ things you gotta get done.

Step 2  Look at your list

Look at your list.  Is there anything you can do in 3 minutes? Like pay the electric bill online. Or turn in your essay on line. Feed the dog. You might have 5 things that are do-able in 3 minutes. Set the timer for 15 minutes and do them now.

Look at your list. Is there anything that needs to be done much later? Put that on your calendar. Like register for classes for next semester but the registration doesn’t open for another 30 days.  Call grandmother on her birthday and her birthday is in three months. Clean out rain gutters when the weather cools down in October (I’m in Texas and writing this blog in July. We won’t need our rain gutters during the summer and it’s way too hot to get on the roof).  All these are things you need to get done but just not yet. Get them on you calendar.

Look at what is left on your list. Is there anything you really don’t need to do? Can you just say “no?” If so, cross those things off your list altogether. The experience of facing something and saying “no” to it  can be very liberating. Deciding what things you can say “no” to is for another blog post.

Step 3 Next step

Look at what is left on your list. Choose your top three things. Ask yourself what is the very next step for each task. For example you might need to make decisions about which curriculum to use this upcoming semester for your homeschool. But before you do that you need to discuss with your children how they did last year in school based on a standardized test they took last semester. But before you can have this discussion with your kids, you got to print the report and read it. But before you print the report you must find it. So the very next step for the task of curriculum decisions is to find the standardized testing report on your computer.

Usually going through these three steps is enough to motivate my coaching clients and get beyond the P word (procrastination).

Step 4 Tell me about it

At the end of every coaching session, I  ask these three questions. What will you do? When will you do it? How will I know?  This is more than accountability which normally feels like you are being called on the carpet and asked for an explanation for your failures.  On the contrary, these three questions creates a framework to hang your good intentions on. Just knowing that your academic/ADHD coach is sitting here in Texas wondering about you and how you are doing lights a fire under you.

I usually get a text message, email or a face to face update from my clients letting me know they reached their next step and gained momentum to continue getting their stuff done.

This 4-step process is a meeting with yourself and your calendar. This meeting could happen once a day or once a week depending of the demands on your life.

If I get my own executive function manager to keep up the good work, my next blog post will be about Focus: Focusing, sustaining and shifting attention to tasks.