Making Gains in Student Productivity

Individual tutoring often takes the form of academic support that focuses on a specific skill or skills (reading, writing, spelling, or math), or tutoring may give priority to content support (history, foreign language, science, etc.). Very often, though, our clients seek tutorial support for what they perceive as a general or specific lack of productivity from a student. The degree of concern varies from outright panic about what is not getting done to a more positive, proactive agenda to support or boost what might be already good output in a competitive academic culture. Reasons for this “productivity gap” are extremely varied, and thus the menu of potentially effective responses to the need must be broad.

Students may be perceived as having low productivity by their parents, their teachers, their peers, or themselves—sometimes accurately and other times not. In the especially fast-paced and demanding educational climate surrounding many of our students, it makes perfect sense that some students should be struggling to meet productivity goals. Their strain is not necessarily a reflection of their problem but may be instead a natural response to high, and sometimes unreasonable, expectations. This is often the case for students who have a deficit of attention control, either diagnosed as ADHD or manifested in behaviors that are typical of people with ADHD. A hallmark of attention deficit is inconsistency in performance, and it is not uncommon for parents and teachers who do not fully understand the nature of this trait to assume that a student should be able to maintain the same level of output that they have observed in them at a different time. The fact is that many of these students simply cannot keep up the same level of efficiency in every circumstance. When we insist that they should, we tend to shower the student with blame, causing frustration that only compounds the problem.

Dr. Mel Levine provides good understanding of where breakdowns can occur in productivity in his book A Mind at a Time. He describes what he calls “output controls” and points out different channels that may or may not work effectively in a given person. Some students have difficulty previewing a task; they aren’t good at figuring out in advance just what all of the steps are going to be or at estimating the demands of each step. They may not really have a clear picture of the finished “product.” Other students’ breakdown may come in selecting alternatives for how they might best respond to a task; many are on the impulsive side and pick what comes to mind first or what initially seems “easiest,” only to experience frustration later with their chosen course. Some students tackle a task with tremendous enthusiasm and energy only to find that they cannot maintain that level of energy, and their effort peters out to everyone’s disappointment. Better assessment of the scope of the task and other competing priorities can help these students understand this potential pitfall, and they can become more efficient.

Dr. Edward Hallowell, a leading authority on ADHD, recently wrote an insightful book called Crazy Busy in which he discusses some behaviors that are typical of ADHD and that hinder productivity among many non-ADHD people, students and adults alike. He emphasizes the changing role of technology and how our newfound and growing abilities to do so much so fast both helps and hurts us. It is easy, for example, to relate to the maladies of an overflowing email inbox, the proliferation of unsolicited web links and videos sent to us by family and friends, the sense that you should have responded to something just because you could have, etc. He offers a number of suggestions about how to regain some control over this epidemic of opportunity that takes us away from what we might otherwise prefer or need to do.

Hallowell makes a distinction between the time we use technology for a specific intention versus the time we spend with that technology because we simply fall into it. He calls it “screensucking” when we find ourselves looking at a computer, mobile phone, television, game console, etc. long after we had intended to be done. It’s a useful term because rather than casting judgment on the technology itself, we focus instead on our choices. For example, you went to the computer to look up a recipe and soon found yourself shopping for pans. There was nothing wrong with looking up the recipe; it was your goal, but pan shopping was not. You are productively responding to work demands when you check your email, but watching the You-Tube video of your niece’s audition that you found forwarded to your inbox was not your goal and maybe should have been saved for the weekend. You may have chosen to watch a favorite TV show to relax, but you are “screensucking” when you don’t turn it off promptly when the show is over and end up watching another. Recognizing the difference between using technology by choice and simply spending time with it because it is there can really help with your own productivity. By making discussion of the problem of “screensucking” a family matter, parents can help their children understand that time management is not just their own shortcoming but an increasingly growing need among anyone who wants to successfully employ technology rather than be used by it.

-Mark A. Carey
Spring 2008



Perspectives on Productivity and “Getting Things Done”

How many times has Sunday evening arrived too early for you? The weekend is seeing its last hours of light, but you still have six things on your weekend to-do list despite your good intentions to accomplish them all. You aren’t alone in your frustration: your son still has five pages to write on that English paper that was going to be done by last Thursday so it wouldn’t drag out over the weekend. It happens all the time.

While there is no “one size fits all” solution to productivity problems, there is a widespread desire for help and perspective. In his article “The Guru of Getting Things Done” in the October 2007 edition of Wired magazine, Gary Wolf chronicles the life of New Age efficiency expert David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, a best-selling book about Allen’s philosophy of life and the strategies that support it. In a nutshell, Allen believes that most people’s minds are so cluttered with things they want or need to do that they cannot think straight—and can’t not think enough to enjoy the pleasure that comes with an uncluttered mind. His strategies range from the simplest to somewhat complex, but his belief is that everything can be managed in such a way as to allow one to “clear his plate” of those nagging, undone tasks.

Clearly the extent of the strategies Allen promotes is beyond what the majority of people will want to or be able to employ, but most of us can pick up a good idea or two from him at the very least. This article was recommended to us by a high school student who found it incredibly helpful largely because of the attractiveness of the “high tech” factor in Allen’s world, including the heavy use of computers, PDA’s, and other devices. If this sounds like it might be a match for someone in your family, by all means check out this article, Allen’s book itself, or the many spin-offs that espouse similar systems that can be found online and elsewhere. What is especially interesting is how the Wolf connects Allen’s system to other self-organization and self-help movements that have been popular in the past, including the “Seven Habits” series, Eckankar, and various counterculture movements. Whether seeking enhanced business management or New Age style self-help, millions of people flock to sources that promise relief from all that “stuff” that’s on our minds.

Commentator Wolf points out that one key to Allen’s “Getting Things Done” system is its relentless attention to detail in the development of task lists. The system will appeal to the high-tech oriented and to the already-organized-but-still-overtaxed types who are motivated by concrete, precise structure and guidelines. As tutors, we almost universally promote the motto, “Write it down!” when working with students on management of their time. It’s amazing what a big leap it is to get that list from thought to paper. For some, the big leap is the result; for others, the leap is simply the act of taking that first organizational step of writing it down, while acting on it is yet another. Either way, making the list is often key.

Recently, a couple of our staff members interviewed the team of people who provide disability support services at Stanford. Their team explained that their most requested supports revolved around helping students manage the volume of reading they were encountering; among the solutions were adaptations such as recorded books, high tech solutions such as the Kurzweil reader, or simply working on the time management aspect of reading. Surprising to us, though, was the extent of the need in the area of executive functioning, or getting things done. They find that even the most competent and organized high schoolers may falter when faced with daunting productivity demands in a new context and with different supports than those to which they had grown accustomed. A subsequent discussion with the head of the Learning Assistance program at a local independent high school indicated something similar; she was slightly disconcerted that her most effective time was not always when she employed the specialized approaches for which she had been trained but rather when she sat down and cleaned out backpacks, wrote down lists, and did other low-level interventions that some students simply could not or did not do on their own.

Managing productivity is a life-long challenge. Some of the most organized and successful people we know still struggle as adults to develop and refine systems that allow them to be more efficient. It’s easy to think—or say—“If only you would . . .” and expect that this admonishment will cause the executive functioning patterns of some students to turn around. It’s also easy to assert that big changes are necessary, while losing sight of the fact that the big changes often come not from some profound new commitment to change but rather from taking on one small change at a time. Each small step not only directly advances the cause, but it results in positive change that is reinforcing in multiple ways, making it more likely that another positive change will follow. Neil Armstrong’s most famous words come to mind . . .

-Mark A. Carey
Spring 2008