Recently, I attended the Learning and the Brain Conference in Boston where I listened to many wise people talk about how our society is under siege from “information overload.” Daniel Goleman, author of  several books including “Focus” and “Emotional Intelligence” mentioned that we process 5 times as more information today than just 20 years ago.       Multi-tasking contributes directly to this sense of being overwhelmed and over-extended. How many of us can relate to the following scenario? We are in the kitchen at 6 p.m. trying to prepare dinner while we are talking on the phone and looking at our texts when the Beep comes in. Meanwhile, our teenage son is watching television while doing his math homework and checking Facebook. We are all hijacked by our devices into thinking that we can do all of these tasks simultaneously. However, our brains are not fooled. While we seem to be over-activated and addicted to the constant stimulation, our stress hormones rise with every text or email alert, exhaust the connections between different parts of our brain and increase our susceptibility to illness, accidents and inattentiveness. What can we do about this unhealthy trend that promotes disconnection from ourselves and from each other? Reduce your own multi-tasking and help your kids cut back too. Here are a few suggestions: 1. Make a conscious effort to do one thing at a time. First, this means noticing when you are multi-tasking and pausing to stop engaging in one of your activities. Examples would be NO texting while driving (a cause of over 300,000 accidents last year) and NO texting or taking phone calls during family meals. Recently I saw someone talking on his cell phone when he was biking–YIKES! How about using the time when you are doing chores or helping your kids with homework to connect with each other and take a technology break? It’s not easy to do but the pay-offs will be increased sanity and calm for you, for them and for your household. (By the way, listening to music while doing something, interestingly enough, didn’t seem to be included in the multi-tasking/information overload processes.) 2. Teach your children to turn off or put away their cell phones when they are doing homework. Set up a tech-free study period followed by a time-limited break that could include checking for texts, Snapchats, Facebook messages, etc. I recommend starting with 45 minutes for middle and high school teens for working and 10 minutes for the break. Use a timer for the break to mark its beginning and ending. For elementary school children, 20-30 minutes for studying and 15 minutes for a break seems to work well. Also, help your kids navigate fewer open tabs on their browser too so that the study period is really productive. 3. Create some time for conversations with your children when you are not distracted by your phone. It doesn’t feel good to anyone to have someone turn their attention away from you to their buzzing phone (texts, calls, emails, etc.) while you are in the middle of saying something that you think is important. This may look like multi-tasking but it’s really more like dismissing: you turn away from the person next to you towards the digital universe. Talk to your kids about the benefits of doing fewer things simultaneously, even if it feels weird to try it. When you model this change in behavior for them and stick by the guidelines yourself that you want them to follow, you decrease the information overload and build cognitive strengths like improved attention and memory. It takes fortitude and persistence, so start slowly but don’t give up!!

Happy new year! As we welcome 2014, many of us are thinking about how to make this year as good as or better than the last. What changes do we want to see for ourselves and for our children? Usually, people with ADHD/ADD can quickly create a list of several things about themselves that they don’t like and would like to improve. But several is too many. This year, 2014, let’s pick just ONE thing to focus on and do it really well! First, look around your life–your house, your job, your relationships, your habits and start of list of things you want to change, brainstorming up to 5 items. You can do this with your child or teen too but keep the limit to 3 items because we don’t want to overwhelm them with negativity or what’s wrong with them. It’s important to emphasize changing behaviors not personal flaws. This can be a useful family exercise too as you model for your child or teen that everyone has aspects of his or her life that can benefit from some tinkering. Secondly, examine your list closely. Rule out items that are just pure fantasy. Look at the ones that are general or vague and make them more specific. For example, being more organized is a great goal but it isn’t precise enough to lead you or your child to do anything differently. Being more organized with my homework; being more organized about my bills; being more organized with my clothes: these are all more exact and will likely result in more success. You can create a program for something specific and actually accomplish it. Thirdly, pick ONE thing from your list and have your son or daughter do the same. This could be the item that is screaming “Arrggh, don’t pick me” or “I hate this so I am not going to pick it” or “Yes, I have been putting this off for months (or years) so now is the time to go for it.” Examine this item closely. Is it do-able? Do you need help or support to accomplish it? Who could assist you? If your teen wants to be more organized about his notebook, how could you or someone he knows help him with making a plan for this? What does ONGOING support look like? If you want to clean up your basement, do you need a friend to aide you in deciding what to keep and what to give or throw away? Can you make an accurate schedule to tackle one area at a time? Finally, the key to being successful with your ONE new year’s resolution is to STICK WITH IT. Create a time frame for yourself or your child and rely on it. Use technology for reminders such as making a repeating calendar item to check up on that notebook or spend 2 hours in the basement. Don’t give up when it becomes hard or you forget to do it. Recalibrate and start again. You have the whole year.

As the days grow shorter and we face turning our clocks back an hour, it seems like a great ‘time’ to talk about the benefits of working backwards in the service of moving forwards. Backwards design means planning in reverse so that you can get to where you want to be in the future. Most people with ADHD have a great deal of trouble managing their time: they are often late, lose track of time or can’t estimate how long a task will take. These problems can be very frustrating to them and to the other people in their lives. The following tips for backwards design can improve time management painlessly and successfully! 1. Stop trying to plan your time from the front end. What this means is that you can’t begin thinking about how to arrive at an event from your current starting point. If it is 6:45 a.m. and you have to leave for school or work until 7:45 a.m., don’t think about how much you can do from now until then. “Oh, I have 30 minutes to get dressed, eat breakfast, brush my teeth, feed the cat and get my backpack (or briefcase) together. I have plenty of time to watch some tv first.” When you think about time in a forward manner, inevitably you underestimate how long things take and then run late. 2. In a calm moment, not in the midst of rushing around but likely afterwards, think about your targeted time for arriving at or departing from an event or completing a task. Then, starting with THAT time, work backwards, assigning increments of time to the various steps that you have to do. If we use the example from Step 1, this would look like: “Ok, I need to leave by 7:45 and before that I have to pack my backpack (or briefcase) which takes about 5 minutes, feed the cat which takes about 5 minutes, brush my teeth which takes about 5 minutes, make and eat breakfast which takes about 15 minutes, get dressed which takes 20 minutes (including my hair and make-up) so that totals 50 minutes. That means that I have 10 extra minutes if I wake up at 6:45. Is that enough? If so, what should I do with those 10 minutes? Do I need those 10 minutes for unpredictable things or returning phone calls or checking my email or Facebook or twitter?” Using backwards design requires an honest assessment of how long tasks actually take, not how long you think they should take. 3. Create a list or chart to remind you to use the steps that you have created.  Once you have tried this plan, you can alter it in any way that would make it more effective for you. You can also set an alarm on your phone to remind you when you have 5, 10 or 15 minutes to keep you on track. Remember, things often take longer than we anticipate so leave yourself some ‘just in case’ time to deal with the unexpected. When you have succeeded at doing this with one thing in your life, then you can apply it to others such as getting to the dentist’s office on time, arriving at a concert before it starts or showing up for soccer practice when you are supposed to arrive. Being on time (or close to it) can be hard work and yet quite rewarding. Be sure to take pride in your accomplishment or to praise the success of a loved one with ADHD who is trying this. Next week, when you lose an hour to Daylight Saving Time, you can really ‘fall back to spring forward’ as the adage commands by using backwards design!!