or action. Often, it is very difficult at times to stop yourself in the middle of something. Here’s an example:
You’re working diligently on one task—say, your taxes. You’re sustaining your focus as you itemize your deductions and carefully read the forms. Meanwhile you’ve been subjected to an ongoing stream of distractions. Your spouse wants to know where you left the television remote. Your child has a homework problem. A coworker texts you with a question. Then, the phone rings. It’s your accountant, calling to ask for a meeting to go over your taxes. Your instinct is to forge ahead, because you really want to finish this tonight so you can watch your favorite television show, which is on tomorrow.
The organized brain says, “Stop now and schedule the meeting!” Yes, it would be easier and more convenient for you to just get it done now. But the organized brain has weighed the options. The organized brain remembers that last year you made a mistake on your tax forms and ended up paying $1,000 (not to mention $500 to your accountant, who had to redo everything). So the organized brain decides to put on the brakes. The function is called “inhibitory control,” and you could also think of it as a compassionate hand on the shoulder, or a sort of impulse control that keeps the efficient organized brain from getting off task and helps put you into a position for the next Rule of Order.
However you look at it—traffic cop holding up a raised hand or guidance counselor gently steering you away from an ill-advised task—you need to heed the message of the organized brain and stop in order to get to the next step.
4. Mold Information: Your brain has the remarkable ability to hold information it has focused upon, analyze this information, process it and use it to guide future behavior—even after the information is completely out of sight. This form of brain work involves something called representational thinking.
Efficient and organized people have the ability to retain and manipulate information or ideas. Like a computer-generated image suspended in space or a hologram in a sci-fi movie, information is “held up” to scrutiny, slowly turned around and considered from different perspectives, almost as if it were a three-dimensional object. You can consider representational thinking to be reflective—not gut-reacting, seat-of-the-pants thinking, as valuable as that can be in certain cases. This is the mind that takes information, steps back, considers and reflects—often looking at things in new and different ways.
Some people are more comfortable molding visual, verbal or spatial information. Martha Stewart is probably far better at solving a problem of how to decorate a certain-sized room for a holiday party than, say, Albert Einstein might have been. And vice versa if the information that needed to be molded involved theoretical physics. But both illustrate the same principle. No matter how it’s done, or in what context, the ability to “turn over” the information after the stimulus is gone and do something with it—this is a skill to know, embrace, develop.
5. Shift Sets: People with superior muscle flexibility can touch their toes, demonstrating what exercise physiologists call “range of motion.” In football, quarterbacks come up to the line of scrimmage and observe how the opposing team is arrayed to stop them. In the seconds before the play begins, a quick-thinking quarterback will call what’s known as an “audible”—a last-minute change in what he is about to do, based on the quarterback’s instant reading of the way in which the defensive team is positioned against him. This athlete’s brain flexibility has equal importance to his physical flexibility.
The organized brain is ever ready for the change in the defense; the new game in town; the news flash; the timely opportunity or last-minute change in plans. You need to be focused but also able to process and weigh the relative importance of competing stimuli and to be flexible, nimble and ready to move from one task to another or from one thought to another.
In other words, you need mental range of motion and the ability to call an “audible” at your own “line of scrimmage.” Because this is the way life presents itself, isn’t it? To illustrate this cognitive flexibility and adaptability—the ability to shift sets—again consider the particular deficits of persons with ADHD. While those with ADHD are often considered to have a deficit in attention (as if he or she can’t pay attention at all), the better description is that they cannot regulate attention. The mental switch is set to “on” or “off,” and it’s hard for them to change it back; sometimes they can’t pay attention, but sometimes they can’t stop paying attention, even when more important or salient stimuli are at hand.
6. Connect the Dots: The organized and efficient individual pulls together the things we’ve already talked about—the ability to quiet the inner frenzy, to develop consistent and sustained focus, to develop cognitive control, to mold mental/virtual information and to flexibly adapt to new stimuli. The organized and efficient individual synthesizes these qualities, much as the various parts of the brain are often brought together to perform tasks or help solve problems, and brings these abilities to bear on the problem or situation at hand.
The disorganized, unfocused individual may do none of this. We all know people whose lives seem to be out of control—and at the moment, you may feel like you’re one of them. At times like these, it seems as if nothing ever gets done. You feel as if you’re in a losing race with the clock and the calendar. You seem to have no ability to influence or manage events and “things just keep happening” to you. It seems as if there is no time to accomplish the important things.
You see where we’re going here, right? Connect the dots: Thinking…feeling…acting…living. Following a logical path, from emotional control through the different cognitive building blocks, you are ready to put it all together. Here, the organized brain orchestrates all the other functions. The end result: a cognitive harmony that allows you to function more effectively, productively and enjoyably in every aspect of life.
One last time, let’s go back to our example of Jill and her keys. In suggesting the idea of the launch pad to this patient, I was actually addressing two of the Rules of Order.
First, because she was emotionally distraught over what her episode with the keys had wrought in her workday, I knew that I had to calm Jill down; to help her Tame the Frenzy (Rule #1). You can’t get organized and can’t make rational decisions about how to get organized when you’re distraught. In her case, the suggestion of the launch pad began a new process of thinking, not only reacting to the problem at hand.
Next, finding the little box that she eventually used for her launch pad and clearing out the space for it at home and in the office helped her to Sustain Attention (Rule #2) on the tasks at hand:
1) putting her keys down and later
2) finding her keys—by removing physical/cognitive distractions
This small success helped Jill become more confident. You can imagine her now starting her morning on a more positive note, heading out the door on time and ready to face the day, as opposed to already demoralized, frustrated and down on herself because of a moment’s inattentiveness.
In the pages ahead we will examine more closely each of the Rules of Order, one at a time, and give you the tools and solutions that can help you to better sustain attention, stay on task and, above all, create a greater sense of order and efficiency in a world that often seems anything but.
Coach Meg and I will provide you with your own launch pad—and then some.
CHAPTER 2
A Change Will Do You Good/Coach Meg
MY COAUTHOR, DR. PAUL HAMMERNESS, does in this book what doctors do wonderfully well at their best—share their expert knowledge and wisdom in a compelling fashion so that you can make the best possible decisions and choices about your health and life. But of course knowledge and insight are only a start. Knowing what to do is one thing; knowing how you’re going to do it is quite another. Doing something means that you need to make some changes, develop some new habits and unlearn some old ones. That’s where I come in.
As a professional coach, change is my business. My kind of coaching has a few things in common with those who coach football or basketball teams. Like the men and women who exemplify the best of that profession, we