Setting Priorities: The Holiday Season and You

Are you overwhelmed right now with work, family, home, hobby and holidays?

Many people have difficulty setting priorities; everything seems important.

Is that what you are feeling?

Sit down for a moment and think about what really is important to you- and what else takes lower priorities in terms of urgency.  If you have trouble with this, ask yourself, "If I have only one day left to live, how would I spend it?"

For me, safety comes first, followed by general health and family issues.

Holidays can be a special time, but their celebration can be cranked up, or ramped down. If you are feeling stressed, what aspects of the celebration can be reduced, such as attending fewer parties, giving the same gift to several people, sending holiday cards online or decorating more simply?

Setting priorities applies to work, as well. Many times an employee answers to a variety of supervisors, who all assign work with overlapping deadlines.

If you are that employee, it may be wise to explain to each supervisor that you have several people giving you projects, and ask each to tell you the priority and deadline for it.

Communication skills are essential for today's employees, especially for those who are supervisors. Learn the 18 critical communication skills for managers, whether you are one right now, or aspire to  be one in the future! From appreciation and persuasion to listening and asking critical questions

(and some of these are listed), get the skills you need for your workforce!

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"Get your act together": Executive function

       "Get Your Act Together": Executive Function

Do you know someone who has difficulty planning, sequencing  and implementing actions? For example, if he is an adult, he knows he has to go somewhere, but consistently forgets to take the things he needs for the trip? Maybe he has trouble getting steps of a project, or several errands, done in the best order.  Does he have trouble with time management and multi-tasking? This is a consistent pattern of difficulty, not just once or twice.

If the person is a student, he may forget to write the assignment down, bring it and the necessary materials home, do the assignment, bring it back to school, and hand it in to the instructor.

The person may be showing signs of executive function impairment. People who have had head injuries, ADHD/ADD, Aspergers or autism, non-verbal learning disorders, learning disorders,  or Tourette's Syndrome may be more likely to have this, but it can happen to others as well.

Executive function impairment is caused by problems in the pre-frontal and frontal lobes of the brain; other brain regions may also be involved.

What can be done about it? First, it helps to get the problem properly assessed, so the recommendations and training can be more specific and effective. Neuro-psychologists and some general psychologists can test for this.  Some speech-language pathologists also can give tests for this.

Strategies to improve executive functioning can  be provided by some speech-language pathologists, neuro-psychologists and psychologists. Ask before making the appointment if they provide this specific type of assistance.

If the person is a student in public school, ask if the school psychologist can test for this. While waiting for the lengthy process before testing can be done, you may want to read some books on the subject.

Three excellent books for executive functioning in children are: Late, Lost and Unprepared, by Joyce Cooper-Kahn, PhD and Laurie Dietzel, PhD,  Organizing the Disorganized Child, by Martin L Kutscher and Marcella Moran, and  Smart but Scattered by Peg Dawson and Richard Guare.

There are many websites that talk about executive functioning disorder. Three to check out are http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/7051.html, http://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/executive-function,     http://www.ldonline.org/article/24880/, and one YouTube video on it, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR1IZJXc6d8 . One specifically on executive function in the workplace is http://www.tsa-usa.org/news/2012ConfPresentations/ExecutiveDysfunctionintheWorkplace.pdf

Tomorrow's blog post from Business Speech Improvement is on www.BusinessSpeechImprovement.com/more/blog today! It will appear here tomorrow. Check it out now!

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