Category: Time Management

How to make what’s hard, easy! Stop PROCRASTINATING

Parents, this is for students. Learning how to make hard things easy is ESSENTIAL if you want to learn to get through procrastination and get into action so you can build towards a great future. This video explains how if you struggle with Executive Function, you can use this tip to help you do the things that need to get done for your own well-being.


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✏️ EF101: Here’s my jumpstart course for parents and teachers.
🙏 Thanks! — Seth


Video Transcript: Click here to download the transcript PDF.

Hey students, what’s up? It’s me, Seth, and welcome to my backyard. Not literally my backyard, but this is the town that I live in and this is my happy place. And what I want to talk about in this video is one little trick that I do for myself to do things. So there is this thing that goes, “Make what’s easy, hard. Make what’s hard, easy.” And basically, what was hard for me today was to get up and go out for a hike. Now I knew that if I went for a hike, I’d be taking care of my health, investing in Seth, I would feel good in my body, I would feel awake, alert, strong, that I would enjoy it. And I love being out here. But when I was at home, before I came out here, I did not want to get up off the couch. And come here, I wanted to sit there and watch my Netflix movie and play around on the computer, make some food, whatever, call some people, whatever. And I knew that it was important to me to get out in nature today. And for me, for my mental health, I’ve got to move my body I’ve got to exercise somehow. I don’t like gyms, I like being in nature in some way, shape, or form. Whether it’s mountain biking, climbing, hiking, whatever, I like to be out in nature. And I like to experience this. This is just one of the things that is one of my favorite things in my whole entire life, it has always been getting outside.

Here’s the trick. The trick is for me to not think of myself as going on a two hour hike. The trick is to just tell myself to get to the trailhead. Just drive to the trailhead. I know many of you are not driving, but you get the point, and I do work out of the gym sometimes. But I don’t think “Oh, I’m gonna go do a big workout.” I think, “Seth just get to the door of the gym. If I want to go on a run, Seth, don’t go on a run, just get your running shoes on and stand outside.” And then I will run. For you, think “Okay, I got to do homework. And I don’t do homework because I’m not in school right now. But if I have to do work…” and trust me, I do a lot of work that I don’t like, just like you might not like some of your homework. If I got to do this work, then it’s not, “How do I do all this work? It’s how do I just start? How do I just make a plan? And then I can start the work? How do I just pull out the papers?” I open up the tabs I need or find the phone number of the person I need to call. So it’s how can we just take a baby step to do the thing that we need to do? Instead of imagining, “Oh, my gosh, I have all of these big things, all these big things to do. It’s overwhelming. Where do I even start?” The question is what do I have to do to get started? That’s all that I want to do. I want to make it seem small, not overwhelming, manageable, doable. And that’s what it has been one of my biggest keys to success, trust me students, and most of your middle, high school, or college. Look, I am legit ADD, or I have ADHD, or I have symptoms of ADHD that impact my life negatively. It holds me back in my life. I struggle with these things I always have, I always will. But I’m okay with that because I have learned workarounds. I’ve learned tools and tips and tricks and ways to work with this stuff so that I can take action that’s going to help me invest in my life, rather than staying and procrastinating or doing actions that hold me back, like gaming all day long or doing things that are distracting that get me nowhere in life. So that’s the tip for today.

But again, when I was at home, I didn’t feel like leaving today. And I often feel that resistance. And if you’ve been watching my stuff for a while, you know that the number one problem that I talk about for people who struggle with executive function is resistance. We are resistant, we have excuses. We don’t want to do things, we don’t want to take action. And we have so many mechanisms to keep us from doing the thing that would actually be good for us. In this case, it’s going on the hike or whatever, so here is the trick. What I do for to trick myself, so that I can take action on the things I really want to do is what I tend to do. And what many of us tend to do is what’s called ‘catastrophize.’ Catastrophize means we make mountains out of molehills, we make things seem bigger and worse than they are. So like I’m at home and I’m thinking “Oh hike, I gotta get over to the trail. I’m gonna be out there for two hours. What if I have other things I need to be doing,” blah, blah. So we tend to make it seem very big. And then we stay in procrastination, we stay unmotivated. It just seems too big. We do this with homework, we do this with our chores, we do this with our responsibilities. We do this in all sorts of ways. In our lives, we do this, and it holds us back in life. If you become an adult who never figures it out, you’re going to be an adult who is very stuck, and who cannot achieve their goals and dreams in life.

I hope you’re well, I hope you’re safe, I hope you’re happy. Have some peace in your heart today. And I hope that you can try to apply this. Don’t think about the big overwhelming thing, think about one little thing that’s going to get you to do that thing. Make what’s hard, easy. Make what’s easy, hard. What was hard today was to get to the trail. I made what’s hard, easy by not thinking, I’m going to do a two-hour hike. But by thinking “I just need to get to the trail and make what’s easy, hard.” So if sitting by the TV and watching something is easy, or gaming is easy, make it hard for yourself to find your passwords to the gaming or to find the links to the gaming or to whatever the thing is, whether it’s gaming or whatever, it is that you don’t want to be doing as much. Make it harder to get to those things. Be well take care. I will see you soon. Take care.

Executive Function & PROCRASTINATION. A breakdown.

By the end of this vlog, you’ll get 2 things:
  1. Understand exactly how procrastination fits into Executive Function and how it impacts students
  2. Know my #1 key strategy for what to do about it
I also cover:
  • EF aspects
  • Two sides of the same coin
  • Self-starting, task initiation, get the train going
  • Procrastination, unmotivated, undisciplined, stuck
  • Do not have skills to self-start
  • The impacts and consequences of procrastination
  • Grades
  • Relationships
  • Emotional overwhelm, avoidance
  • Mindset
  • Energy depletion
  • Strategy, chunking, 2 types
  • Abstract vs concrete
  • Plan chunks
  • Timer

đź’š Give: Love my work and want to donate? 🎦 YouTube: Visit my official YouTube channel here. Please subscribe, like & comment to support my work. 👉 Share: To support me, please *CLICK* at the bottom to share on FB or Pinterest. ✏️ EF101: Here’s my jumpstart course for parents and teachers. 🙏 Thanks! — Seth

Video transcript:

Parents and teachers, what’s up? In this video I’m going to talk about procrastination and by the end of this video you’re going to have two things one. (1) You’re going to understand how executive function and procrastination go together, how they’re related, how procrastination fits into executive function now that impact students. (2) You’re going to know my number one key strategy for working with students who struggle with procrastination and why I use that strategy, and I’ll break that down for you. So my name is Seth Perler, I’m an executive function coach based out of Boulder, Colorado and I help struggling students navigate this thing called education. I’m going to start off by telling you that procrastination you can think of as an aspect of executive function, or poor executive function. Here’s what I mean. You can look at many experts out there who talk about executive function, you’ll find that different experts breakdown executive function into different aspects. Some experts may say there are three aspects to executive function, there can be five, there are eight, etc… When I’m doing speaking presentations, I have anywhere between fifteen and twenty. I do not fit in the box and don’t really care to have the exact number. I do not care to give you a perfect recipe for how things are done. I care to communicate things in a meaningful and useful way so that you can better help kids. When I look at the aspects, there are different ways to look at it. Now, I will tell you what you will often see in terms of procrastination as an aspect of executive function. So basically, first of all, let me explain the many aspects to executive function. Some of the common ones that you might see would be: focus, attention, concentration, organization time management, planning, prioritization, etc… Aspects of executive function are any of the things the brain needs to do in order to execute a complex task. So for example, when I painted this room and put all the posters up that required planning, that required time management, that required task initiation, that required task persistence in order to complete this project which took me a day or two. It required a lot of executive function. I had to execute, I had to do different things. My brain had to do different things to make the goal and to accomplish the goal. So I wanted to mention the aspects really quick because what I’m going to tell you now is specifically looking at procrastination as an aspect or a part of an aspect of executive function. How do we do that? Alright, so we have procrastination. Procrastination is basically two sides of the same coin. So when you are thinking, if you are listening to somebody speak about executive function and they’re speaking about the other side of this procrastination coin, what they are going to say in clinical speak is they’re going to the term ‘task initiation.’ Task initiation is to initiate a task. Well, that just means self-starting, it just means getting started, it just means getting the train rolling. So one side of the coin, one aspect of executive function on one side that is task initiation, self-starting or getting the train going, or starting your work, or starting your homework; we’re getting started. Getting started in and of itself is a difficult thing when you don’t want to do it, when it is a non-preferred activity. Obviously your kids don’t procrastinate when it comes to doing something that they’re interested in, something they care about, something that matters to them, something that’s fun for them. But if it comes to something that is a non-preferred activity task initiation, self-starting, getting train going, getting started on your work is not easy for them. So what’s the other side of the coin? The other side of the coin of self-starting or task initiation is not initiating the task, and we use the word procrastination to describe the many ways that we avoid starting. Procrastination is not starting. People will often use other words interchangeably with procrastination and sort of lumping them under these different categories, not really interested in that part of executive function, which doesn’t help the kid. For example, an adult might say,  “Oh, yeah, the kid is just unmotivated,” or “the kid is just not motivated,” or “the kid just needed to get motivated,” or “this student is not disciplined. This student needs more disciplined. This student just needs to work harder, the student just needs to care more.” But essentially we have the words lumped together: procrastination, unmotivated, undisciplined, and stuck. So those are sort of the common ones that we see. So on the one side of the coin, we have task initiation and self-starting. On the other side of the coin, we have a lack of motivation or we have procrastination. Either way, whatever way you look at it, the problem that adults, teachers, and parents often encounter is that the way that they approach this does not work. It may work in the short-term through shaming the kid or putting a lot of pressure on a kid, but it doesn’t work in the long term to help the kid learn what they need to learn. So, what is the right way to do this? The right way to help a child overcome procrastination, so to speak, or lack of motivation or lack of discipline or however you phrase it. The right way to really look at this in my opinion and I work with a lot of kids who struggle with this stuff and I have for many years, the right way to approach this isn’t to use those terms, but is to say, “Hey kid, how do we help you learn skills to help you self start, even when it’s a non-preferred task.” Obviously, I wouldn’t use those words with the student, but the essence of this is how do we empower you, the student, to have skills, to have tips, tricks, strategies? How do we help you have a way to self-start on a task that is an important task for you to get done for your life. Homework, responsibilities, things that lead to a bigger goal. Even though the big goal is fun, the steps to getting there may not be as fun. For example, you may want to go to college but doing a college application is a massive, massive job. Just doing a college application takes a lot of executive function. So if you want to go to college you have to do a lot of things get there. If a student wants a car and they want to buy a car, well all of the work that it takes to get the car, there’s a lot of work to that, or even just getting a driver’s license, there’s a lot of executive function that’s required the one big goal. So basically the question is how do we empower these students? I’m going to say this again, to have some strategies to help them self-start even when they don’t feel like it? So I’m not trying to motivate my students as a coach. I don’t tell my students, “I want you to be motivated.” I tell them, “How do we trick you? How do you learn to trick yourself into starting even if you don’t feel motivated?,” because if I’m looking to help them figure out how to feel motivated, that is a losing game as far as I am concerned. I want to give them practical tools and tips and strategies on how to self-start. I told you in this video that I would help you understand how I do that. Before I do that I wanted to talk about the impacts and consequences of procrastination. I have 5 impacts and consequences of procrastination to share. Number 1: The obvious is that their grades suffer. They have lot of missings, incompletes, late work, zeros, and a lot of test corrections. So their grades are suffering from procrastination. Number 2: The relationships. Often times the relationships your child has with you the parents, there’s a breakdown. There’re homework battles, there’s a problem, they might be lying, there might be challenges in the relationship because of procrastination and trying to get them to do what needs to be done and to their relationship with their teacher. Their teachers may perceive them as somebody who doesn’t care even though they do, or somebody who isn’t trying hard enough or isn’t is undisciplined or motivated in, and they get an image of the student that may or may not be accurate. But often that doesn’t take into consideration the legitimacy of executive function challenges. So that’s grades and relationships. Number 3: There is overwhelm. Often times the students get overwhelmed emotionally and that leads to avoidance. Procrastination impacts them because they put things off and they get overwhelmed and they either deal with that really stressed or they pretend it’s not going on. So it affects them emotionally. Number 4: Procrastination also affects mindset, and often times these students who procrastinate, they start saying, “You know what I give up. This is stupid. Why try anyhow. I don’t need to do this. I’ll do it later.” They start to get a lot of mindsets that help them not take action and avoid, which is the emotional that I mentioned before. Number 5: Finally, energy depletion. Procrastination really takes a lot of energy for them to procrastinate. For them, it sort of lingers in the brain that there’s something that’s undone. Even if they’re not conscious of what it is, they have the sense that something’s undone and it can really take energy away from them. So procrastination can really deplete your energy directly and indirectly. Now for the strategy. How do we do this? How do we help? I like, as a coach and a human being, I’m a very big picture person. I like to get things as simple as possible. So I’m going to tell you essentially how I help students I work with, I’m not going to say overcome, how I help them work with and work through procrastination. How I help them to self-start and how I help them to trick themselves into taking action. I’m going to give you one concept that I think encapsulates a lot of how I approach doing this. That word, that concept is ‘chunking.’ I help students by learning to chunk. So in other words what happens is that when a student has action to take and it’s a non-preferred action and they don’t feel like doing it, what happens is it’s often abstract. We have abstract and concrete. If it feels abstract it feels big, it feels overwhelming. They say, “Oh I have homework to do tonight and I don’t even know where to start because it’s abstract.  I got a bunch of stuff to do. I don’t know where to start. I don’t know exactly what I have to do. I don’t know how long it’s going to take. I don’t know where I’m going to do it. I don’t know how I’m going to get this done.” That’s abstract. What do you think abstraction does to emotionally? It feels overwhelming. Abstract is overwhelming. Then we go to concrete. The more concrete we get, the less overwhelming it is and the more attainable it is. So how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. We work with baby-steps. We break it down into small chunks. When a student can chunk it down they can contemplate, “I can get that thing done, I got this.” or “I can get part of that. I can at least get started. I can’t task initiate and I can get the momentum going.” So how do we chunk? Two ways. One word is chunking and there two ways to chunk. There are plenty of other theorists out there or strategist or coaches or tutors or novelist or whatever. There are plenty of people out there with other good ideas. Use them if they worked for you, I don’t really care. I’m going to tell you how I break it down for kids and why. I break it down into two ways of something. (1) is by time (2) is by task. What do I mean by time? I swear I use these timers so often with kids because this is concrete. It’s concrete because it’s auditory, it’s concrete because it’s visual and you can see it, it’s concrete because it’s kinesthetic and you can touch it. This is a thing. I can contemplate doing 3 minutes and 3 seconds of starting my homework. “Hey, I can get the ball rolling with it. I can work for 10 minutes or 20 minutes with this,” is concrete that helps people get started to self to focus and get their attention. I’ve stayed away from the abstract and back to the concrete so that we can concretely work on a non-preferred pass for X amount of minutes. For X amount of time. So we chunk by time. Again, the kid says, “Oh, I have all this work to do all the time,” it’s abstract. Cool. Ask them, “Can you focus for 5 minutes? Can you plan for 3 minutes? Can you focus for 30 minutes?” If you watched my video last week when I talked about the 3-30-3 method that can help you figure out how to do that. But can you do it for a smaller chunk of time? That makes it concrete. We want to get it within the threshold so that they can go, “Okay, I can do that. Yes, I can work for math on math for 5 minutes” and maybe they have an hour or two hours to work, but we need to get the momentum going. Number (2) we chunk by task. If they have a paper to write, a task for the paper is to get your materials out. A task for the paper is to read over the rubric. A task for the paper is to make an outline. A task for the paper is to draft. A task for the paper is to edit to, revise, to talk with someone about your idea and talk it out. These are all tasks that you can break down. So you can chunk it by task. A task for math might be doing one problem, it might be checking your work, it might be doing 5 problems, it might be doing the front page, it might be putting your name on the top of the math paper, it might be reading the instructions. So we can chunk these things down by task and by time. It is outside the scope of this video to go into extraordinary depth on how to do that, but that’s what I wanted to talk about. We want to get it from abstract world to concrete world. We do that by chunking by task and by time. When you do that, you want to ideally write out your plan whether you’re using notecards or whatever, but write out a plan, a concrete plan. This is concrete. You want to have a concrete plan in your hand of the tasks that need to happen. So go snag one of these timers. Anyhow, that’s all I got for you today. Again, my name is Seth with SethPerler.com. If you haven’t signed up for my blog on my site, I send out a new video at least every week and I do a lot of things to help support people struggling with executive function. This was a video where I wanted you to understand exactly how procrastination fits into executive function and how it impacts students, and know my number one key strategy for dealing with that. So, please share this, give it a thumbs up on YouTube. If you’re watching me on YouTube feel free to tell me what you think and what works for you for the students that you are working with. I’m going to get out of here. I hope you have a fantastic day. I will see you soon. Please CLICK below to share.

PROCRASTINATION! How to do a STUDY SPRINT and break through it

Please CLICK above to share. Procrastination is a massive problem for my students who struggle with executive function. Unfortunately, these students have all sorts of consequences as a result, including late work, missing work, incomplete work, zeroes, falling grades, homework battles, overwhelm, stress, etc.. This video teaches students how I use my 3-30-3 study sprint method to break through procrastination and get stuff done.
Love my work and want to give? Click here! To support me, please CLICK at the bottom to share. Click here to visit my official YouTube Channel & subscribe if you want! Thank you — Seth
Reading the transcript? Great! We’re currently uploading hundreds of transcripts so you can read them asap, but they are NOT all edited yet. This is a big process. If you notice anything wrong and want to help us, feel free to click this Google Form to share it. Thanks so much for pitching in! – Seth

Video transcript:

Austin teachers, what’s up? This is a video for your child for your students a student’s. What’s up? My name is Seth. What’s up, bro., man, executive function coach based out of Boulder Colorado. And today I’m going to teach you about how to do a study Sprint and this is the 333 study Sprint store 333 study Sprint. So here’s the problem got a lot of homework to do. It’s overwhelming. You don’t even know where to start and when you don’t know where to start in your overwhelming and it’s very abstract. That’s what you got to do. You want to procrastinate you don’t feel motivated. You don’t feel like doing it. I’ll do it later. I’ll do it tomorrow. Get off my back. Leave me alone, Mom and Dad. I’ve got this. Why don’t you just trust me? I’m going to do it in a few minutes meanwhile in your head. It’s like where do I even start and when we are overwhelmed and we don’t know where to start would we do we procrastinate we push it back? We push it back. We avoid we avoid to avoid and we either get it done later on or we don’t get it done at all. And what often happens when people do this a lot is that the end up with a lot of missing Zane complete slate work zeros. These are people have a lot of tests correction. And these are people who really their grades are suffering in there not learning as much because because they don’t even know where to start. So the 333 method is a so what I call a study Sprint and I work with students all the time. My name is Seth program executive function coach based out of Boulder, Colorado. I am struggling students navigate this thing called education and I work with my students here in Colorado and it’s really hard for them to even know where to start. So here is how this method Works. Basically you’re going to set a timer for 3 minutes like this. I love timers I use them with my students all the time because they are concrete they are auditory. They are at the kinesthetic you can touch them you can see them there. Visual so I use these timers a lot and using this timer is going to help you because it makes it more real and makes more concrete makes it easier to get your stuff that they’re going to set it for 3 minutes. We’re gone 15 seconds already on the street minutes and during that 3 minutes are going to prep and plan. What does that mean? It means you set it for 3 minutes and you’re going to prep him plan. You’re going to pull out what you need. Maybe you need a highlighter. Maybe you need a pen. Maybe you need your planner. Maybe need a book. Maybe you need a worksheet. Whatever you need for this little tiny study Sprint 30 minute session. You get it out. He grab what you need from your backpack you clean off your desk you clean off your study area. You get rid of clutter you get prepped you prep. Your area and you plan for what you’re going to do. So meanwhile during this 3 minutes. I’m also going to plan so my plan may be. Okay. Well, I’m going to work on this Mass shooter. I’m going to write this draft did the taper. I’m going to read a few chapters of this book or whatever. So you prep now. Let’s say the timer goes off early. It doesn’t matter when the timer goes off. Just hit stop and keep if you’re still prepping. Just keep prepping until you’re done prepping and plan. So if it takes you 5 minutes, but if it takes you 7 Minutes who cares, but what’s just happened is you have just tricked yourself into taking action. You have just tricked yourself into overcoming the procrastination. You still may not feel motivated to do it, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t tell people that they should feel motivated what I tell you what I tell my students is that it doesn’t matter if we feel motivated or not. If we want to be successful in life. We have to figure out how to get stuff done that needs to get done. No matter how we feel whether or not we feel motivated doesn’t matter. It’s got to get done. If we don’t figure this out we start with executive function. We don’t figure out how to get stuff done and we are going to struggle in life as adults in a big way and I do not want that to happen to your eye when you have a great life. Filled with possibilities Freedom fun joy connection engagement meaningful activities in your life. Okay. So in order to be able to have the freedom you want your life, we do have to be able to get stuff done. So the 3 minutes is going on at you get you prep and plan in the three minutes. What do you do? You prep your area and you plan what you’re going to do then once you’re 3 minutes or 5 minutes or whatever takes it doesn’t matter, but you’ve just started taking action and getting ready next you’re going to get into the phase of execution where you’re going to start to execute whatever you planned to do now so much of what I teach my students is just a mental game. It’s tricking the Mind into getting things done that needed that was the timer out Salinas in a minute. So it’s tricking the mind. So you just trick your mind into getting started now we got to get the momentum. Okay. You got a little bit started you planned what you got to do. You pulled some stuff out you at least got over the hump for 3 minutes 3 minutes is very easy for the mind to digest. Yes. I can do three minutes of getting ready. But now we need to get the train moving so trained it is standstill is very hard to get moving now. We need to get some momentum with the train. So now we’re going to do is we’re going to go Backed our timer here and we’re going to set it from 3 minutes, and we’re going to set it for 30 minutes total 30 minutes. Now you can set up for 35 you can set up for 20 can set up for 15. You can set up for 50. I do not care, but with A333 method we’re just going to use 30 to be simple to at least get started you’re going to press your timer. And now you are going to start 30 focused minutes of whatever you’re doing. If you get done early let the F Matt and you get done in 20 minutes, then you’re done. Let’s say you get done in 10 minutes, then you’re dying. But whatever you’re going to set up for 30 minutes and you’re going to get the train moving. You’re going to get momentum. This is very important. Now what if you are going in the Beeper goes off at 30 minutes, but you still have more to do and you have momentum. What do you think you should do if you have good momentum. You should continue your someone who struggles with motivation and you procrastinate a lot and you’ve got some momentum go with it. Trust me. I work with students like this all the time. If you are if you’re already going to be for goes off, but you could keep going keep going. Some people will say. Oh no, you should stop and take a break. Well what happens when my students take a break as they get the railed. They think they’re going to take a five-minute break and they end up taking a 5 day break. They may never get back to the assignment or maybe very painful or their homework arguments or they take us 23 minute break instead of a 5-minute break and then they’re up too late and then they’re tired in the morning, you know, so just if you have momentum keep it going but after this 30 minutes is done if you’re ready for a little break or you’re ready to stop then you go to the next three so we had three minutes of what planning and prepping then we have 30 minutes of what of focus And then we have three minutes of reflection. So here’s what that means you finish your 30 minutes. Let’s say we’re going to stop here instead of for 3 minutes again. And now the three minutes is gone again. And this is reflection. What does that mean? It means you look at your plan. You look at what you did and you say okay. I was going to work on math and focus. How focused was I did I get done what I needed to get done. What do I need to do? Next? Should I stay working on this assignment? Should I shift to another assignment? So the final 3 minutes is a time for reflection to just sort of stop and say what in the world is going on. I’ve been trying to focus for 30 minutes. How’s it going? Where do we go from here? So to recap here’s the problem students get overwhelmed. It’s your abstract. They don’t know where to start when they don’t know where to start and it feels overwhelming. What do we do? We procrastinate which causes a lot of problems. So what are we trying to do? We’re trying to get over the procrastination so that we can get some momentum and get some stuff done. How do we do that? Number one? We take 3 minutes and we plan and prep number to we take 30 minutes. Lee Focus number 3 we take 3 minutes and we reflect and figure out what in the world is going on and where we need to go from here. So try this map it out and try it out a lot. Try it out 5 or 10 times consistently and see if it helps your life. Again. The specifics don’t matter may be planning a prepping is 2 minutes. Maybe it’s 10 minutes. Maybe the execution phase is 30 minutes, maybe 10. Maybe it’s an hour at these things don’t matter but it’s a great framework to get you started getting some better habits and bus through that grass Nation so you can get your stuff done in a reasonable amount of time so that you can have more freedom and more fun in your life all together. Not only now but also in your future. All right, my name is Seth. What’s up, bro., Executive function coach here in Boulder, Colorado. I have a starving students them get this thing called education you like this give it a thumbs up or subscribe or leave a comment. What do you think what methods do you use that help you take action and bust through procrastination. What ideas do you have that you can share with all of us? I will see you soon take

3 school PLANNER myths and what to do instead

Please CLICK above to share. In this video, I’ll explain 3 big myths about planners/calendars/agendas and how adults try to help students use them. Then I’ll give you guidance on what really matters when choosing the right planner for a student who struggles with planning.
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Video transcript:

Parents in this video. I’m going to talk to you in teachers. I’m going to talk to you about three myths that people often have about planners calendars and agendas. So the first men tell by the way, my name is sepis up for what I comment executive function coach out of Boulder Colorado and I will work with students who struggle with this thing called education in and help them learn how to better navigate it and the first planner meth that I’m going to talk to you about. Is that giving a kid a planter is enough. So there’s this myth without all that if we just give them the right planner that that’s good enough, but the fact is that these skills the skills of learning how to plan the skills of using a planner eat to effectively track and manage the tasks and responsibilities that a human being has the skills that are required to do that are enormous. There are a lot of microscopes that are involved in this process and I think that what happens is that kids usually get Planters and play. Sixth grade, that’s usually when they’re first given them by the school or the parents and I think that would happens is that at that time we give these planters out in a lot of the kids in 5th or 6th grade do well with Planters. They’re giving them to give him a little bit of guidance and they can run with it. And then you have these other kids were giving the planners and they like, what do you want me to do with this isn’t fun not only is enough fun, but I don’t know what you want me to do with us. And so the idea is that if we give it to you and give you a little guidance since they use it that you’re going to use it while I want to dispel the Smiths. So what I think is happening here is that the kids who are naturally pretty decent using them. They actually have been building on these microscopes for years and first grade second grade third grade fourth grade by the time they’re in 5th and 6th grade and they’ve built a lot of decent executive functioning planning skills there more linear thinkers weather that’s by nature nurture. I am not getting into that but they have better executive function skills. They are more linear Arthur Morris. Sequential there more process thinkers. Are there more detail oriented people and so they take to this stuff more easily. They look at a player and they say and you give him a little guidance that makes my life easier, but the kids who haven’t been consciously or intentionally building the skills over the years and the more free-spirited big picture of global thinker right brain, these type of kids who don’t have great executive function. They get the planner and they say I look at my shoulders watch. Why why what what am I supposed to do? I can’t attract all the things you’re telling me to do. It’s just overwhelming to them all of the skills that are involved in this. So again myth number one is that giving them a planter is enough. It’s not enough. He’s a very high level skills it have to be taught in and takes years to teach and for the kids who haven’t been taught that directly we need to teach that number two. Nip number to is one-size-fits-all. You’ll see a middle school with 1,500 kids. They buy boxes of these Planters. They get them the teachers get them. They take him to the classrooms. They pass them out and you got 1500 middle schoolers in a middle school with the exact same plan or is it one-size-fits-all is the bat planter is banned all be off for all of them. These Planters have the school handbook in the front. They have the hall pass in the back there the periodic table, only misspelled words bunch of crap. They don’t need in the planner and they will have two or three pages in the front of it that says how to use a planner and then the teacher might give a little bit of guidance and say, okay pull out your planner blah blah, but that’s not enough. So anyhow, one-size-fits-all is myth number to one size does not fit off. There’s another place where I see the one-size-fits-all meth and that is where somebody researches planners. What’s the best planner you get back a bunch of gov results on the internet as to what’s the best planner you read the reviews? You see all these people that are crazy about this planner the person who designed the planner has written a book about the plant. Have the courts about the planner in and everything’s the planner. It’s the coolest thing in the world in the people who write the reviews The Five Star reviews. They love it will guess what? They’re the people use it if people use the one-star reviews probably while there probably aren’t many of them because they’re not using it. They don’t have the experience to say I’m going to give this one sat there just aren’t many people who do that. So you got to really think about why are these reviews here? Now? Those Planters are often good for people with decent executive function already who are willing to take the time to learn the methodology and the intention behind that particular planter design again, there is no one-size-fits-all many players can be good for many different people people use those Planters. Well are using the skills of planning. They’ve just giving you a device that helps you use those skills fairly well and you adapt somewhat your personality and style to these Planters. They’ve given you a A jumping off point and some guidance around how to do that. But the these for people who plan decently well and want to spend the time to refine that stuff. They’re going to love these planners your kid if they struggle with executive function is not going to spend that much time on it, especially independently learning how to do it. It’s number to one-size-fits-all number three planners. Don’t work for my kid really. It’s more planners. Don’t work for me. You really hear this myth more for a kid. Yeah planners. Don’t work for me. Yeah, I don’t like planets. I hate planners planners planners just don’t work the Planters not working. It’s that the kid isn’t working the planner. Now as I said before they don’t know how to so it’s like giving them this Guitar. Let’s say you’ve never played guitar before and giving you this guitar that has a lot of complex Q’s me there’s a phone call that has a lot of complicated things going on. You have to know how to change to know how to clean it with a proper cleaning stuff. You have to know how to change the pickup. To change the volume at a change of tone which pickups to gives you what sound what that ass holes for why those dots are there white spots. Are there do you like big fat small fretz flat frats what you are so many complicated things with this instrument and a planner is a very complicated instrument that helps us track our responsibilities in our tasks effectively. So when we when it gets as they just don’t work for me, they’re really saying I don’t have the foundation of knowledge that I need the complex skill set to use this incredible tool. You’re giving me and you’re giving it to me and saying hey go make an amazing song with this like with a guitar, but you’ve never played it before and you’re like what in the world are you talking about? And that’s what we do to kids are so those are the three big myths that I wanted to talk about now. I’m not just going to leave you hanging in there. I’m going to tell you now. How do you pick the right planner? Stop just told you some of these big mess because I don’t want you just thinking that if your kids I was with executive function you give him my planter and they’re going to be okay. Now, we have to really help them learn the skills. But you do have to get one now. I can’t go too deep into it in this video. I’ve already been talking for 7 minutes, but I will tell you this but he kid will do when you go into the office or online or whatever you say what plant or do you want their filter that they’re picking is like if I were to go into a guitar store somebody’s ever play guitar and say which one do you want? They might pick the one that’s their favorite color or that the shape looks cool or that reminds them of their favorite Rockstar. They’re not looking at how is this going to perform and they need to look with planters that how am I going to be able to use this to plant now? How are you the parents going to help them choose that? If they don’t have the background knowledge, what we’re going to do is you’re going to open up dialogue. So they’re going to say it’s a lot of times kids will be like, oh, yeah that one I don’t like the way that one looks. I don’t want my friends to judge me when they see the way that one love, you know, they’re thinking thoughts like this. That one looks cool. That one goes under the radar. I’m not going to stand out with that one. I liked it that one small. I like that one’s bit smaller. Easier to carry a big it’s easier to find like people have all their thoughts what your child is not thinking is how am I going to use this to plan and effectively track my tasks and responsibilities in my life to make my life easier. That’s not what they’re thinking. That’s the dialogue you want to have so they look at a planner and you say what do you think of this one? They say no and you say why? Nice a while because of blah blah blah and if their answer doesn’t really have to do with planning then I want you to press them and say well what about if this was yours how would you use this to plan and they would say whatever they would say and then you look in the next one. How would you use this one to plan how that’s the question the dialogue you want to be having it. How would you use this to check homework? How would you use this one to check test? How would you use this one to check project? If you parents go into the store and you’re talking about how they’re going to use this to effectively manage and track their responsibilities and tasks. That’s what you want to be doing. Now that mean you’re going to walk out of there with the perfect planner know your kid may be using it for two weeks. And you see that it’s not working again. Does that mean that they’re not wear and maybe means they’re not working at you you really windy really need to spend a lot of time with them in the first 6 weeks of school developing planets feels a lot of times the middle school, you know, the teachers will hand out a planner and they open your planner write this in it and it’s just it’s not teaching the skills and again for the kids who seem to pick it up naturally, you know, they seem to be working harder while they’re not they’ve been working for years that they have the skills. Your good is actually working really hard to figure out what the heck is going on with us. So anyhow, I hope that that helps you can sign up for my weekly updates except for what I come and August 23rd 2019. We have it executive function summit.com. I’ll leave a link below cuz I can’t function simon.com its executive function Summit for you parents I’ve got 23 experts from all over the place who are going to share all of their expertise about executive function with you for free for 3 Days starting August 23rd. I register free executive function Summit Please share my work. Please share the summit with people if you like it and please if you like this give it a thumbs up that helps me on YouTube and subscribe to my site subscribe on YouTube. Whatever you want to do this for me. If this is helpful to you, please support my work. Alrighty, then I will see you next Sunday.

“He’s not motivated by much of anything”

Here is a set of 3 videos based upon the following email I received from a reader:
Hello Seth,
I have an 11-year old son in 6th grade, a 2E-type boy (in a “GT” program since 3rd grade and also on a 504), who is not motivated by much of anything. When he wants to, he can do great work, but only when he wants. And, it’s never clear what motivates this uptick in more attention to his work. Sometimes, it’s the subject matter, as he definitely has his passions. He’s very much an out-of-the-box thinker. He’s been this way since he was a toddler — not even motivated by potty-training stickers or treats…  🙂  How can I help to “light his fire” without grand bargains? At this point, I sound like a broken record… “Have a great day! Remember, neat and complete!” Part of the problem surely rests with my ability to handle the issue. Argh! Help!  BTW, his twin sister is highly self-motivated, gets straight A’s because of her strong work ethic and did not qualify for the GT program (which is fine by us). We have never and will never compare the two. They have very different learning styles and outlooks. We also do not put a premium on letter grades, but on doing the best that they can. It just comes out differently for each them. So crazy!
If I could wave a magic wand, I’d make my son’s work output and motivation reflect the visions he has articulated for himself in the future: he’s in love with the Air Force Academy and, at this point, wants to be an engineer or a pilot. He’s got big dreams, and of course, as a parent, I just want him to be happy pursuing something he loves.
Thank you!
Videos 1 & 2 are for parents and will help you understand my unconventional perspective on motivation and students. These should give you some great insights. I made video 3 for middle and high schoolers, to give them some of my most important advice on the matter.

Video #1: Unmotivated Students: The Reason WHY (For PARENTS)

Video #2: Unmotivated Students: How to Help (For PARENTS)

Video #3: How to “get motivated” (For STUDENTS)


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Video Transcripts:

Video #3 for STUDENTS – How to “get motivated” Hey, what’s up? This is Seth Perler.  If you are a middle schooler, a high schooler, or a college student who struggles with motivation, this video is for you. I’m going to give you a couple of tips on how to motivate yourself to do stuff you don’t want to do. I know, I know, I know. Parents bug you, they try to motivate you, your teachers try to motivate you it gets annoying. Everybody’s trying to motivate you. You probably want to be doing certain things and be able to just sit down and do it, but you can’t motivate yourself to do it. You procrastinate, you avoid, you resist, you get in arguments about it, you make excuses. You just don’t want to do something that’s not fun, that seems meaningless, that seems to be a waste of your time. You’re asking yourself, “Why do I have to do this?” So, how do you get over that? Like, how do you motivate yourself? How do you actually get yourself to do these things if you want to be able to start to get in the habit where you’re able to do things you don’t necessarily want to do, but you know you need to do? Or if you know that regardless of what path your life takes you will have to do things you don’t want to do and you have to override that resistance in your brains. So how do you do that? I’m going to give you a quick tip that you can use. This you can use for studying, for homework, for whatever you have to do, for cleaning your bedroom, cleaning your backpack, whatever you have to do. I’m going to give you a quick tip on this. The tip is this. What you want to do is you want to chunk it down. My dad always says, “How do you eat an elephant? You eat an elephant one bite at a time.” You can’t do the whole thing. And what happens with you, is you feel overwhelmed because there are so many tasks nowadays that kids are required to manage. You have so many classes, so much homework, so many tests, so many papers to manage, so many things in your bedroom to manage, so many things to take care of. It is absolutely overwhelming. So what you have to do is you have to chunk it down so that it feels not overwhelming. Okay, there’s two ways to chunk, I’ll explain this to you. Number 1: One way to chunk is by tasks. Let’s say that you have a huge math assignment, you know it’s going to take you a long time and you’re procrastinating. You don’t even want to start on it. In order to chunk it down by task, you’re going to make it into very small pieces. For example, your task might be to do the first five problems only. Or your task might be that you’re only going to do the easiest ones first. Or your task might be that you’ll do half of the math assignment. If you’re writing a paper, your task might be that you’ll just write the outline, and then take a break. Your task might be that you just free-write. Your task might be that you just have a conversation with a friend in the class about the paper and talk through where you’re going to go with your paper. So you’re going to chunk it into tasks that feel manageable. You’re not going to say, “UGHH I have to write that paper. It’s going to take me forever. I don’t even want to start!” You’re going to say instead, “Okay, this paper is a big thing with a small task I can do that feels manageable.” If you have to clean your old bedroom, a task will be to just do the floor, just to do the clothes, just to organize the bookshelf, just to clean your desk. A task is a small thing that will feel manageable to you. You decide how big the task. Number 2: The other thing is time. You can chunk by time, so this is awesome. Let’s say that you have to clean your room. You can just set this timer for 3 minutes, or 5 minutes, or 10 minutes, whatever feels like a reasonable amount of time. It makes noise so it’s very audible, when it’s done it’s done. If you want to clean your room for 5 minutes. You set it and go for 5, when the timer is done, you can quit cleaning your room, or you can keep cleaning your room. A lot of time doing this will just help you trick yourself into actually getting the ball rolling. Same with this, by the way (number 1). The object with both of these is to trick yourself into keeping the train moving. We’re just trying to get through the overwhelm of self-starting, of getting started. A lot of times that’s the biggest problem is just starting it. So you want to chunk it down so you don’t feel overwhelmed. But set the timer for an amount of time that feels manageable. You’re writing a paper? Set it for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, a half-hour, whatever you want. But a manageable amount of time that you can devote to the paper. If you have to work on the math assignment, set it for 5 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever, it doesn’t matter. But you want to junk it down to an amount of time that feels comfortable. So again, you chunk by task or time. Task is breaking it into micro-tasks, one big task into many micro-tasks. Pick a micro-task to get the ball rolling. You’ll probably trick yourself into continuing. Same thing with time. Just pick an amount of time that you want to work on something. Set it, and when it’s done, you can keep going or you can stop. But you need to learn to trick yourself. It’s not like the motivation fairy is going to come and give you some motivation fairy dust and you’re going to be like, “Oh, yeah, this is exciting. Now I’m ready to do my homework.” Don’t fool yourself. I’ve heard a lot of students say, “I’m just waiting till I’m ready. Until I feel ready.” You’re not going to feel ready. That’s not reality. They don’t wait for that. Look for strategies that you can trick yourself into getting started and doing things piece-by-piece. Slowly you’ll build your threshold where you can be more focused for longer periods of time, have less distractions, and be a more serious student so that you can create whatever future you want. So that you can follow your dreams and your passions. If you don’t get this down, you’re going to have a lot of trouble following your dreams. Okay, you need to figure out how to do the things that you’re responsible for. All right. I hope that helped you, go try it out. Please CLICK below to share.

What’s your Prioritization Style?

Priorities - Using executive function to prioritize
Using executive function to prioritize

How to get better with priorities

Every week I work with the most amazing group of outside-the-box learners. All are right-brained students who struggle with some combination of executive function issues. In a nutshell, they learn differently. We work on homework, organization, time management, emotional regulation, social issues, etc.. Last week, one of my high schoolers asked, “how should I prioritize my homework so I can get it done more efficiently?” This is a great question, and here’s my stock answer, “The best way to prioritize is to understand your natural prioritization style and go with it. If your style has certain limitations, be aware of them, and make adjustments to compensate for them.” Sounds obvious, right? But what the heck is a prioritization style and how can we apply this?

Prioritization Styles

Here’s how I break it down. There are 5 major prioritization styles that people use: 1. Easiest first – Some people prioritize doing the easiest tasks first. They like the feeling of accomplishment and the sense of getting it done quickly. It also helps get the momentum going. The problem comes when these students continue to procrastinate on the more challenging tasks. They need to have realistic dialogue regarding strategies for doing these. 2. Hardest firstPeople who do the hardest first like to “get it out of the way.” They are often naturally good at prioritizing. My students rarely choose this method as they often want to avoid harder assignments. 3. Quickest first – People who do the quickest first like to cross as many things off the list as possible so it feels like they are getting more done. Much like the people who like getting the easiest done first, they can struggle with procrastinating. 4. Longest first – People who do the longest first feel like they are getting their time back. They feel a big sense of accomplishment and it makes the next tasks feel more manageable. 5. Most important first – Most left brained people are very good at doing the most important task first. They are great at prioritizing. My students will often do this when I help them plan their study sessions with a lot of intention.

Metacognition

When I work with students, I want them to take ownership and to be involved in articulating their preferences. I want them to build the metacognitive muscles that will help build intentionality around their approaches to learning, studying and homework. Here’s how I phrase it to students, “So how do you like to do your homework, easiest first, hardest, quickest, longest or most important?”

Planning

While I have countless strategies for dealing with prioritization, I’m going to share the most valuable one. It consists of asking three guiding questions: 1. What’s the most important thing for you to get done today? 2. What do you need in order to get it done? 3. What’s your plan? I then help them get crystal clear on the plan and help them get started. Once the train is going, it’s a lot easier to keep moving. Best of luck! ps- if you liked this post, please share it or comment below. Thanks for the support, Seth

How I successfully teach students to make a "daily plan" (Video)

plan This won’t come as a surprise to you, but the students I work with aren’t exactly great with planning. In fact, they usually resist it. But here’s a problem, because learning to plan is absolutely essential for every single student in order to prepare for independence in life, regardless of the type of work they eventually go into.

“Quit bugging me! I know what I’m doing”

These students want more and more independence but still lack the tools to manage independently. They also tend to be very unrealistic about this and they like to think they can remember everything. They are also quite good at wearing parents down with their arguments. Needless to say, this is often a messy situation to handle that leaves us with the following question: How do we help someone learn to “plan” when they’re so resistant to planning? Answer: Make planning as simple and powerful as possible. Tailor it to their unique needs. Use babysteps. Today I’m going to teach you one of the best ways I do that with my students. I’ll show you exactly how and why I teach students to make a “daily plan” (I also teach other essential planning ideas, like; backwards planning, desk calendars on the wall, monthly planners, etc.. Unfortunately these are outside the scope of this article, but you will learn about them through my blog.)

More about the students

To clarify, the students I work with are notoriously outside-the-box thinkers who struggle with organization, overwhelm, remembering details, homework, studying, time management, planning, prioritizing, focusing on one thing at a time, and thinking things through. They need outside-the-box solutions, not cookie cutter fluff. So this simple method has been created just for them.

The brain

Fortunately, it’s nice to know that difficulty with planning has everything to do with executive function, the brain’s ability to “execute” complex tasks form beginning to end. And fortunately, this part of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) continues to develop until we are about 25 years old. So, yes, there is hope!

Step 1: Discussion, ownership and buy in

I usually begin with a discussion about planning and hold a space for my student to tell me what she doesn’t like about it and why. I really listen. Usually I hear that it’s overwhelming, it takes too much time, they can remember it, they forget to write things down, it feels like busywork. I listen and ask them how it’s going with their current approach. I try to get them to take ownership, to tell me that it’s important to them to have a system of tracking assignments and such, that it’s not going as well as it can. I seek to get buy in from them, so they take ownership in the desire to gain more independence. I then tell them about how and why it’s important to make a daily plan and how easy it is and how much it can help. This can be a lengthy discussion, but it pays off. I also discuss the different types of plans, daily, weekly, monthly, annual. Then I bring it back to the daily plan, because that’s the only one I will focus on for now. To clarify, yes we do make a quick daily plan in addition to their planner. They need to be able to use a planner as well. This just helps plan the night or teh study session.

Step 2: Make the plan

Now I teach my student specifically how to make a daily plan. This takes a few minutes but is really simple and straight forward. Interestingly, the magic is in making the plan, we don’t even have to follow it exactly. The act of making it helps us go from being abstract to concrete about what needs to be done. We must learn to get it out of our head and onto paper! Here’s how the plan works: 1. Write the date. This helps them gain a greater sense of time because many of my students are not very aware yet. 2. Write an intention for the study session. This could be anything, it just depends on what one needs at the time. Examples; focus on 1 thing at a time, take my time, work on quality, just finish, don’t be perfectionistic, have fun with it. The point is that writing the intention helps the brain actualize that intention! 4. Write down your #1 priority. I want kids to think, if nothing else gets done, this is the one thing that will! 5. Write the  rest of the to do list: Study for history test, read chapter 3, math hw, etc.. 6. Anything else that pops into your head, but that can wait should go on the backburner list: Clean bedroom, buy a b-day gift for someone, make dentist appt, etc.. 7. Put the plan in the best possible place where it will be in your face. Again, you do NOT have to follow the plan, just make it. Below is a template you are welcome to use any way you wish. I print large stacks of these for my students. Whenever I begin a session with them, we start with a quick plan. It’s one of those little things that makes a BIG difference. Good luck. Seth

Today’s Plan template

Here’s the gist. I usually make 4 of these in a table on google docs, print a bunch and cut them out. Feel free to cut, paste, modify and print! Today’s Plan    Date: ______ Intention _______________ #1 Priority ______________ To do: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Backburner:  

Before you go

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Unmotivated kids

Procrastination. Dragging your feet. Putting it off. Avoidance. Resistance.

Motivation is overrated

We like to think that if we can just figure out how to motivate our kids properly, a mental switch will flip and they’ll realize how much easier it is. But it doesn’t happen that way with a lot of kids. Learning how to walk through resistance tends to happen painfully slowly. Our children often want to convince us that they need to wait until they feel motivated. They claim they have to be in the right mood for it. Yet this is just one of the many defaults our brains attach to in order to continue avoiding. If we wait until we feel motivated, it’ll never happen.
“Don’t wait for your feelings to change to take the action. Take the action and your feelings will change.” ~Barbara Baron
Getting started doing something you don’t feel like doing can be so difficult, especially when there doesn’t appear to be much value in the task, or when it’s overwhelming (both of which are all too common in school). A train at a standstill requires an enormous amount of energy to gain momentum, but once it gets going, its’ a lot easier to keep going. So, we might ask a different question: Rather than, “how can I get them motivated?” consider, “how do I help them learn strategies to get started?”As adults, we have somehow learned ways to trick ourselves into starting, yet it’s such a subtle step, we often don’t even acknowledge it as such. Kids need a lot of help with this. Don’t give up – your guidance is making a difference, regardless of how frustrating it can be. Trust the process and pick your battles wisely. Sometimes kids get “derailed” and it’s so hard to start up again. Sometimes it’s good to get them “back on track” to “complete the work.” But sometimes it’s best to leave well-enough alone. Sometimes it’s best to let go, call it a day and enjoy some much needed downtime with family, friends or just taking care of oneself. What’s your highest trump today?

How to begin spring semester the right way

Here’s a 7 minute video where I share how I help prep students for the spring semester. Of course many students won’t want to do this. After all, it’s not exactly fun. But the amount of energy and frustration it will save makes it well worth it. Not to mention, it will help you have a much more successful semester, ultimately giving you more free time to do what you want.

Here are the main keys:

1. Bring everything home; books, folders, papers, everything from the desk or locker, etc.. (if you didn’t bring everything home, get it on your first day back and do this process.) 2. Purge papers. Recycle everything you possibly can (old assignments, busywork, etc.). Archive everything you might need and everything sentimental. 3. Freshen up folders and notebooks. Reevaluate your systems. 4. Update your calendar for the entire rest of the school year. 5. Get everything back into the backpack and you’re ready to go. Realistically, this process takes 30-60 minutes, but it’s well worth it. If you’re ready to hit the ground running, you’re less likely to end up swimming upstream all semester. Good luck, Seth