When life is busy and you juggle multiple tasks at work or school, your ability to optimize your use of limited time becomes critical both to attaining success and avoiding failure. Today’s world is wired and connected, making it seem ever more possible to acquire and process information, and to produce more work in less time. And yet, we receive increasing numbers of requests for help from parents of children struggling to complete weekly school assignments, from college applicants struggling to balance social, academic and work commitments against writing their admission applications. Harried executives encounter similar struggles to balance responsibilities at work against those at home and with family.

It is common for a high school aged teen to have two, three, or even four screens open while working on school assignments. For a teen with adequate executive functioning, this is possible, though probably not optimal. Similarly, a busy executive monitors her PDA for phone and text messages, while working at a desk or laptop on a project while, at the same time filters e-mail and intra-office communications, not to mention workmates physically dropping by the workstation.

After a couple of sessions at Common Sense Therapy, the client can discover the extent to which limited productivity is rooted in the work setting itself, in the individual’s cognitive style, or a combination of the two.
A deficit in executive functioning, once identified, leads to practical adjustments in workflow, and significant improvements in productivity.