Performance, Academic Achievement Archives - Decision Coaching – Ursina Teuscher, PhD

Blog Archives

Attention Span & Productivity – Book Recommendation

My main take-aways from Gloria Mark’s book: “Attention Span”
A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity

In her book “Attention Span“, Gloria Mark explores the impacts of today’s fast-paced technology on our attention spans, productivity, and happiness. She presents a lot of research done both by her own and other teams. Based on that, she offers advice, not only on how to gain more control over our attention, but also on finding balance between productivity and happiness.

Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity by Gloria Mark (2023). [1]

Here are just a few of the findings and insights I found helpful.

Fun facts about attention and productivity
Have our attention spans really decreased?

Maybe you are feeling it yourself? Or maybe you’ve heard humans’

…

ADHD Tools – Part 3: Don’t Do It Alone

Tools and Tricks to Improve Your Executive Functioning
Part 3: Involving Others And Asking for Help

In my last two posts, I have written about practical tools that can improve your executive functioning (here are Part 1 and Part 2. In this third part, I want to emphasize one more strategy: involving other people for help.

This third strategy could also be seen as a part of the other two. Other people can be our external memories, as well as hold us accountable for our choices, make life less boring, and help us make better long-term decisions.

However, I figured the aspect of asking others for help deserved to be addressed on its own, if only because this point might be the hardest for many.

Why is asking for help particularly hard for people with ADHD?…

ADHD Tools – Part 2: Future Time Blindness

Tools and Tricks to Improve Your Executive Functioning
Part 2: Time Blindness and Impulsive Choices

Take care of future self, as Part 2 of ADHD Tools: Future Time Blindness.
In my last post, I wrote about the practice of externalizing memory as an essential part of managing ADHD. Here, I will tackle a different common challenge of ADHD: “time blindness” and impulsive choices.

How Does ADHD Affect Choices About the Future?

ADHD is often associated with difficulties in planning and time management. For example, people with ADHD find it harder than others to estimate time, and to notice how much time passes while they’re doing a task [1, 10, 13].

These practical problems seem to go together with systematic biases in time perspective [8]. For example, one study found adults with ADHD to be more present oriented, and their view of the past as well as the future to be more negative and less positive than that of control participants [2].

…

ADHD Executive Functioning Tools – Part 1

Tools and Tricks to Improve Your Executive Functioning
Part 1: External Memory

Would you like to get better at managing your attention and daily choices?

Tools and Tricks to Improve Your Executive Functioning - Bionic Brain

In this and my next post, I will describe practical tools and tricks that can help you manage your time and tasks better, especially if you have ADHD. I’ll explain why these practices are particularly essential for people who struggle with ADHD symptoms. However, many of these self-regulation tools are also good practice for everyone else.

Some Misunderstandings About ADHD

In order to understand how people with ADHD might benefit from specific tricks and tools, let me first address some common misunderstandings about ADHD.

1. The Scope of ADHD – a Deficit in Executive Functioning

The label “Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder” (ADHD) has long been criticized for being misleading and insufficient at best [47]. It highlights two specific symptoms,

…

Time Management for Mortals – Book Recommendation

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, by Oliver Burkeman (2023).

Four thousand weeks – Burkeman reminds us – is about all we get in life, if we live to be eighty. In the big picture of the universe, this is an “absurdly, insultingly brief” span. Clearly, it is not enough to do everything we want, even if we maximized our productivity with every trick ever invented.

That is the backdrop of this book, which offers guidance on constructing a meaningful life by acknowledging our limits.

I’ve enjoyed reading it, but am having difficulties passing on its advice. I feel a similar ambivalence toward its wisdom as towards the wisdom we sometimes hear from survivors of near-death experiences. Seemingly only having acquired this insight after almost dying, the survivors tell us that life is short and can end even sooner than we think,

…

Temporal Construal Levels: Seeing the Big Picture in Daily Choices

An interesting but not widely known framework for dealing with self-control and daily decisions is the theory of temporal construal levels.

How does knowing about temporal construal levels help us make better choices?

The theory and many subsequent research studies (here’s just one example by Fujita, Trope, Liberman, and Levin-Sagi) suggest that we think quite differently about events depending on how far in the future they are. When we think about a distant event, we represent it in a more abstract and coherent way, and we connect those future events with our goals. This would be a high-level construal. As the event gets closer, we become more concerned about the concrete and incidental details of the events and about the experience itself.

…

Skills coaching group for executive functioning

Would you like to improve your abilities to plan ahead and meet goals, manage your time, stay focused despite distractions, or display self-control more generally? Or do you know someone else who could use help with any of these so-called “executive functioning” skills?

I’m offering a new weekly skills and support group in collaboration with the ADHD-NW Treatment Center. This course is open to all (with or without ADHD)! The group is ideal for adults who struggle with procrastination, time management, and developing and maintaining healthy routines of life organization.

Topics covered in this group include: scheduling strategies, learning how to reward yourself for working toward difficult tasks, techniques towards better focusing abilities, establishing a productive work environment, among others.

Groups will begin with a check in, mutual accountability on progress toward goals from the previous session, and discussion of weekly topics.

…

Effects of sleep deprivation on decision making

How does a lack of sleep affect our judgment? Does it really lead to poorer choices?

"Drowsy drivers use next exit": warning sign on Interstate 15 in Utah Unfortunately, the answer is many times yes. In my research into the topic, I’ve found at least eight ways how a lack of sleep affects different aspects of our judgment and decision making.

Sleep deprivation affects us both physically and mentally, and decision-making is a complex process that requires the orchestration of multiple neural systems, such as emotion, memory, and logical reasoning. It is therefore not too surprising that sleep deprivation would take a toll on many fronts.

Here are eight effects of sleep deprivation on decision making:

1) What’s perhaps best known is that it impairs attention and working memory, leading to slower reaction times, reduced vigilance, and more mistakes.

…

Does Positive Thinking Help You Reach Your Goals?

Can positive thinking help you reach your goals? Picture from: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/539763 (Attribution not required)

Can “positive thinking” really help you change your life for the better and reach your goals? Many motivational speakers and writers seem to believe so, but empirical studies reveal a more complicated picture.

If you want to reach your goals, positive thinking seems to come with some pitfalls.

In particular, in her research spanning decades, Gabriele Oettingen and her colleagues have discovered a powerful link between positive thinking and poor performance [e.g., 1 – 5]. Oettingen’s book “Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation” [6], and her website detail many of these findings. For example, in one study [2] they asked college students who had a crush on someone to engage in future fantasies about them and a person of their romantic interest.

…

How to Monitor Goal Progress

Best Ways to Monitor Goal Progress If you want to achieve goals, one of the most effective things you can do is to measure and track your progress.

There are many ways to monitor goal progress, and it turns out they are all helpful. However, some techniques are more effective than others, as was shown by a large meta-analysis, which included findings of 138 experiments. Three things in particular will make it more likely that you achieve your goals:

1. Measure frequently. The more often you monitor your progress, the greater your chance of success.

2. Share your information. You don’t have to make your information public; even reporting it in private to one other person helps. If you’re really not into sharing though, don’t despair – you’re in good company. This last point is still for you and becomes all the more important:

3.

…

Event Series: Procrastination and ADHD Follow-Through

Free webinar series with Vicki Lind (MS) and Ursina Teuscher (PhD) on Procrastination and ADHD.

Do you procrastinate? Do you have ADHD? Stalled on a project?

Start 2023 with a clear plan and support by joining my colleague Vicki Lind and me in a webinar series and support hub. Do you struggle with procrastination or ADHD, or know someone who does? Learn more about procrastination and how to beat it, and get the support you need to follow through on your plans.

Vicki and I will teach three free interactive webinars together in January. Each week has a different focus:

Tue Jan 10, 9-10am PST: Support from Your Heart & Head
Tue Jan 17, 9-10am PST: Support from Others: Co-working, Bookending & Rewards
Tue Jan 24, 9-10am PST: Support from Your Tools: Your Calendar,

…

Improving your Habits with Choice Architecture

Choice Architecture Coaching to Improve Habits Picture credit: Ben Deavin

What is choice architecture, and how can we use it to improve our own decisions?

Choice architecture is the art and science of how to present choices to decision makers. The way a choice is presented to us has a much bigger influence on our behavior than we may realize. For example, children eat more fruit when fruit is placed in more prominent positions in a school cafeteria. Or, people are more likely to enroll in retirement savings plans if the employer makes that plan the default option – which is the option that happens when you do nothing. Similarly, people eat less when the default serving size is smaller.

Two recent books shine a light on choice architecture, and on how it affects our decisions:

Eric Johnson’s The Elements of Choice (2021) offers a guide to creating effective choice architectures.

…

How to Deal with Regret

Do you have deep regrets about some of your past decisions?

A solid “No!” to this question should be much more concerning than a “Yes”. Regrets make us human, as Daniel Pink argues in his new book The Power of Regret. What’s more, regrets can help us become better humans, if we learn something from them along the way.

Drawing from his own research as well as previous studies, Pink claims that people feel regret quite often. He identifies four core categories of regret:

1. Foundation regrets
“If only I’d done the work.”
These are regrets where we opt for short-term gains over long-term payoffs, like not studying hard enough in school or not saving enough money.

2. Boldness regrets
“If only I’d taken that risk.”
These are regrets of inaction,

…

Performing under Pressure

Have you ever choked when you needed to perform under pressure?

We all know what it feels like: you’ve been building your skill – whether it’s in academics, in your career, in sports, in performing arts – but when the big moment arrives, nothing seems to work. You hit the wrong note, drop the ball, get stumped by a simple question. In other words, you choke under the pressure.

Here, I will review a book by Sian Beilock about this topic, along with additional research, and I’ll highlight some findings that can help you perform at your own very best, even under pressure.

A book review and practical applications

Dr. Sian Beilock, an expert on performance and brain science, examines in her book “Choke” why we sometimes blunder and perform at our worst precisely when the stakes are highest.

…

Workshop: Job Stress Management

Wednesday August 16, 11am-1pm (Portland, OR).

Is your job causing you a lot of unhealthy stress? In my last post, I wrote about the “Sort and Tackle” Technique, and how and why it can improve your stress levels at work. You can now give this technique a try in a guided setting and start sorting out and tackling some of your own biggest challenges at work. In this interactive workshop, I’ll help you prioritize which stressors to tackle first, and design a plan with specific next steps. Find more information and register here.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

…

How to Manage Stress at Work

If your job is causing you a lot of stress, you’re not alone. In a 2014 survey in the US, almost a third (31%) of the workers reported that they typically feel tense or stressed out during the work day. This number is even higher among millenials (18-34 year old workers) than among any of the older generations.

What are the most common causes for stress at work?

So many issues can cause stress at work. The survey lists the following, with the most commonly experienced stressors on top:

Low salaries
Lack of opportunity for growth and development
Uncertain or undefined job expectations
Job insecurity
Long hours
Too heavy of a workload
Unrealistic job expectations
Work interfering during personal or family time
Lack of participation in decision making
Inflexible hours
Problems with my supervisor
Commuting
Physical illnesses and ailments
Problems with my co-workers
Unpleasant or dangerous physical conditions
Personal life interfering during work hours

Does any of this sound familiar when you think or your own job?

…

Productivity Wallpaper

Organize Your Desktop Strategically with this Productivity Wallpaper

Loosely inspired by Eisenhower’s Urgent/Important Principle, I designed a Productivity Wallpaper that you can download here as a template. It is a customized desktop background that helps you stay focused by organizing your tasks in a spatial layout.

The idea is that it gives you room to arrange your documents, folders or apps according to when you want to use them:

In the upper left quadrant of the screen, you would place stuff you need for your most important tasks. By important, I mean tasks that you truly care about, that have long-term significance, and that make your life more meaningful. Typically, those are bigger projects, often without a deadline (because they matter to YOU, more than to other people). They are therefore most in danger of being infringed upon by other people’s more urgent demands.

…

Decision Fatigue: Time for a Break Now?

It turns out that making decisions is tiring and wears us out, more so than other (similarly difficult) mental tasks. At this point, a large body of research shows that whenever we make many choices in a row, the quality of our decisions gets worse over time.

Decisions that are especially taxing are those that involve self-control. For example, when people fended off the temptation to eat M&M’s or freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies, they were then less able to resist other temptations later on.
Nourishment and Recovery
Self-control tasks and decisions also require more glucose in the brain than other mental tasks. Low or hypoglycemic levels of glucose lead to impaired decision making, poor planning, and inflexible thinking. In contrast, simple psychomotor abilities, such as responding quickly to certain cues, seem relatively unaffected by glucose levels.

Rest and Sleep

This pattern is in line with other things we know about impulsive behavior and typical self-control problems.

…

Featured Video: Can You Make Yourself Smarter?

This RSA talk by Dan Hurly is a bit slow (I recommend listening to it while doing something else, rather than watching), but I found the content excellent, well-researched and important.

(The actual talk starts at 1:30 and ends at 27min, the rest is Q&A.)

Here’s why I believe it’s so important:

1. Smartness matters.
Intelligence is often underrated as a geeky and nerdy quality, irrelevant for practical purposes, or even worse, as being a hindrance for emotional and intuitive skills. That’s very wrong: general intelligence is highly related to emotional and social skills, and even to health and longevity.

2. Yes, we can become smarter.
Therefore I think we should make that effort – not just for ourselves, but for the coming generation. Let’s remember that the children who are now in school are the ones that will make decisions for us when we’re old.

…

Top