Six Super Skills for Executive Functioning by Lara Honos-Webb

Author:Lara Honos-Webb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Harbinger Publications
Published: 2020-08-25T18:57:25+00:00

One Thing at a Time

You can super boost the superpower of stepping-stones by following the slogan “One thing at a time.” Many people think they’re great at multitasking, but they are fooling themselves. Researchers have found that multitasking increases the amount of time it takes to get something done and also increases mistakes. Try to be honest with yourself. As much as you try to slog through your homework by having Netflix on in the background as a distraction, if you’re honest, you’ll notice it is exactly that—a distraction.

Chunking is an alternative to pointless distraction. You can use a TV show as a reward for completing a chunk that you feel motivated to do. It is likely you will get more done in fifteen minutes of focused work than in a longer time of distracted work. More important are the habits you are forming as you practice chunking. Switching tasks (homework and TV) creates anxiety and brain fog, and can become addictive because the novelty boosts your level of the brain chemical dopamine (Levitin 2015). Multitasking leads to lower quality work and over time depletes working memory.

“One thing at a time” offers a different quality of life. Your life is made up of a sequence of moments that pass by quickly, and when you are present in each moment, you enhance the quality of your life. You can choose to be fully present for your life or to go through life mindlessly.

Christopher’s Story

It was Monday, and Christopher had a paper on The Great Gatsby due the next Monday. He had known about the assignment since the beginning of the semester and hadn’t even bought the book yet. When he realized the paper was due in one week, he took the next step and downloaded the book on his Kindle. Every time he read for forty minutes, he would allow himself to play one game of League of Legends.

As Christopher read, he would sometimes wonder what was going on. He would text his classmates who were also working on their papers and they talked about their respective ideas. They started a group text where they could ask questions, and they supported each other in trying to understand the themes of the book. Not only did he get new perspectives but also the support energized him to keep going. It turned out he wasn’t the only one who had waited to the last week to start this assignment.

Christopher did finish his paper on Sunday evening, but he reflected on how stressful it was to spend his whole weekend doing a project that would have been a lot easier if he had started when he got the assignment, not one week before it was due.

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