 How can we support people who struggle with task overwhelm? That is the focus of today's podcast so let's dive straight in. Task overwhelm, this is something that we can all struggle with from time to time but it's something that is a daily, hourly, minute reality for some people who struggle with their executive function so people who's planning, organising and executing skills may not be the same as those of their neurotypical peers. So this is very common amongst children, young people and indeed adults who are autistic or ADHD and there are many other people who struggle with this too. All of the ideas in today's podcast are I'm thinking about supporting a child or a young person but these are all things that could be applied to support adults as well so you might use them to support an adult friend or colleague or they might be reasonable adjustments that you ask of your employer for example if you're looking for some support with this too if you find yourself often overwhelmed by tasks. They're all simple things which are relatively easy to execute if we just put a little bit of thought in as with all my ideas no rocket science here. Okay so first of all in terms of tasks feeling overwhelming and not feeling able to make a start or complete on tasks or do them in the right order actually just really clearly communicating so getting our instructions right from the off is a really important thing about tasks being successfully completed and again this isn't just true to support those of us with special needs but actually this is true for supporting anyone to successfully complete any task that you might ask them to do and this works both home school work etc a very clearly communicated task that means if you are the task giver you need to have a really good idea of what your expectations are of that task and then making sure that that is broken down into very simple steps that are then communicated in a way the person who needs to complete the task can actually hear. So that might mean communicating those instructions in a variety of different ways we might write them down as well as verbally saying them we might show them with pictures or perhaps point to a demonstration video for example of what we're expecting to have done but very simple instructions keep them as simple as we can chunk them down into little achievable steps and then clearly communicate them so that's number one if we do not understand and clearly communicate our task in a way that will be heard by the person who needs to complete the task then we are setting ourselves up to fail but if we get that right then there's some chance that the person will not become overwhelmed by tasks you might actually break a task down into parts and say to a young person and spend 10 minutes on this bit and five minutes on this bit and here are the words that you need to know and here are some ideas that we brainstormed out before and this is the order in which we would suggest that you attack it there are lots of those types of sheets out there including one that I've written which I will link to in the description but the idea with these is that we take the task we break it down we make it really really clear the steps that we need to follow and the important thing to remember here if this is not a thing that you struggle with this can feel utterly utterly overwhelming to many of us who struggle with executive function and this might seem surprising because you might be working with someone or caring for someone who is really bright cognitively and have a really great conversation with you about something and they seem really sharp and on it but then when presented with what might seem to you quite a simple task that has a few different steps in it suddenly it all feels really tricky this is why it's really important that we think about how to support with this task overwhelm because there's often this massive gap for people who struggle with executive function between what they are capable of cognitively and what they're able to show us that they can do because the completion of the tasks just gets in the way and you can imagine this is a particular problem in school and in the workplace because we can do this stuff we're bright we're clever we've understood we know what to do but we can't actually just do the actual task the task itself is the thing in the way it's a massive barrier it is like expecting a person in a wheelchair to get up a flight of stairs asking us to do the task completion bit without any support and this will be harder if we are tired or if we are more anxious than usual for example so just thinking about how to help with the planning the organisation the timing of that task and again we might want to be just checking in with the person who's doing the task a little bit more often than we might with someone else just to make sure that they're still on track just to make sure whether they've got any questions that we can answer them just to make sure if they need any modelling on how to be doing this that we can jump in at that point and support that if needed or just to give a little bit of encouragement as well and again just something to remember here is that for someone who has struggled with this sort of thing for some time they might have had quite a lot of experience of failure in terms of task completion and so there might either be some sort of learned helplessness where they almost don't even try because it's unlikely they're going to succeed or there might be a degree of anxiety that comes with this because they've let people down before they feel that they can't they've had negative experiences of this kind of tasks that might take a little bit of extra support and coaching and kindness to enable them to begin to realise and see that they can do this. Next thing in terms of enabling people to successfully work through tasks and not become overwhelmed by them is being really clear not just about the instructions that we communicate and what our expectations are about what the task entails but being really explicit about what the finished product should look like so where are we expecting you to get to what does a good one look like so waggle for all you teachers out there what a good one looks like showing an example of a finished answer making it really clear if we've asked for a writing task for example how long should that writing be how finished should it be are we looking for a perfect final rewritten out example here or are we looking for rough ideas on a page are we looking for one page or 20 are we looking for a few bullet points or should this be something which is written in complete paragraphs and whatever we're doing whatever kind of task it is letting the the person who may struggle with tasks know and this is what we're aiming for ideally but hopefully taking the pressure off so if they don't get all the way there we can still celebrate the success that they've made but making it clear this is what a finished one looks like is very helpful because you imagine how difficult it can be otherwise when we're aiming towards a goal but we don't actually know where that finish line is so you imagine you're running a marathon or something you kind of need those markers that say one mile to go or half a mile to go and so on and if you just don't know where the goalposts are then are you going to keep running maybe not and maybe you just keep running too far and two miles after the finish line you've got people going hey hey hey wait a minute it was right back there and that's also important because we can get the the bit where where kids will dip out of a task and because they don't know what they're trying to do and it feels impossible and this is just overwhelming and we might end up equally in a shut down meltdown type moment or where they think that your expectations are somewhere right up here and actually you might have been doing a simple planning task and this is a bit of a brainstorm and they're trying to create the final version of war and peace and so our expectations are not aligned so make it really really explicitly clear exactly what you are looking for what a good one looks like so they know what they are aiming for here the other benefit of having those kind of worked examples or model answers is that if a child does not complete the task and this is a very real reality for many of our children who have special or additional needs their task completion will be slower than that of their peers we generally say that for an autistic child for example that an ideal aim is something like half the volume of tasks in twice the amount of time so that's a really significant difference in the amount of work that can be completed they will often complete that work very brilliantly have a really good understanding that knowledge is secure and a great foundation for future work and they may not need to repeat tasks as many times as their peers in some instances however you see there they will get through less and so what this means is if you've got those model answers that you've been sharing so that they can see what a good one looks like it means if they're not able to complete that task alongside their friends and their classmates then actually they've got an answer that they can use when you're going through that perhaps review and marking type stage and then finally that idea of half the work and twice the time comes on to the final idea of the things that can really really help prevent task overwhelm which is simply making sure that there is enough time that this feels realistic for the young person or indeed the adult who is completing the task we need not to set people up to fail and make sure they've got enough space to actually do the thing that's been asked because if any of us as human beings are asked to do something and it's not realistic for us to do it we are unlikely to give it our best and try really hard because if we know it's not possible why would we we are going to fail whether we give it 100% or 5% and so the human tendency is towards the 5% so making sure there is enough time also we will often find that those who struggle with executive function may struggle with moving from task to task as well and it can take a little bit of time to settle into actually completing the task and doing the work and so we need to allow that time as well for that transition so then they can get into the task we've moved from whatever we were doing before to the instructional phase to the doing phase and we need enough time in the doing phase for them to actually get absorbed in the task get into the flow and really be able to find their way with it and do their very best that they can this also requires a calm environment in order for someone who struggles particularly with any kind of executive function and potentially other sensory processing type issues as well there might be social stuff going on there there could be all sorts going on for this young person in order for them to have the best chance at doing as well as they can and to enjoy and thrive while they're trying to complete the tasks that you've given them they need not to have lots and lots of other distractions so this means an environment ideally that is calm both inner kind of a physical and if you like a metaphorical sense so there aren't lots of other pressures on their time there's not a lot of auditory noise going on there's not lots of kind of visual stuff happening around them there aren't lots and lots of little social interactions and so on happening at the time we would and this is one way just to think about a little bit and find what works best for the person that you're supporting is how often to actually interrupt and check we want to make sure that they know that we're there we're on hand and we'll support if they need it and we want to check for understanding and make sure things are going okay but each time we interrupt we can kind of potentially break that flow and moving from task completion to interaction with us is actually a shift in task and that will add time to the amount of time that's needed to complete so being able to just observe sometimes and just notice whether it looks like this person is getting on okay with the task do they look happy do they look industrious and if so we might tend actually not to interrupt at that point but be looking for those early signs of of of frustration or any kind of challenge or difficulty and those are the moments when we might come interrupt check understanding is okay see what we can do to support but if they're in the flow my inclination would be to encourage them to continue and this is something I work on really really hard with my own daughters who are currently home educated you know I want to make sure that they're doing okay and it's taken us some time to get to the point where tasks can be completed more independently but as those skills are developing it's quite hard actually to overcome the urge as the teacher not to jump in and make sure it's going all right but I have found that that tends to just put them off course and isn't actually helpful at all so it tends to be a little sneaky look does it look like everything's going okay here yeah and sometimes a little tiny thing like they might look up and I might just do thumbs up and we'll do a kind of thermometer so thumb up thumb down somewhere in the middle and they'll let me know if they're okay and then just carry on without too much disruption so how do we support our children young people and indeed adults who might struggle with task overwhelm just a brief recap there we're going to have really clear idea of what the task is and we're going to communicate that simply in a variety of means perhaps written as well as verbal perhaps with some visuals or videos too we are going to help with the planning the organizing the timing of that task we're going to break it down and enable that person to have a good idea about how to approach it and not expect them to be able to do that always for themselves we're going to have very clear expectations which will be communicated about where we are expecting to get to what does a good one look like and we will show model answers or end points for the person we're supporting and finally we're going to allow enough time and provide a calm uninterrupted environment for the completion of that task I hope there were some ideas in here that felt like they would be helpful for you in supporting children or young people or indeed using it for yourself I use all of these ideas for myself too and just one tiny thing there in terms of the planning I have good times and bad times in terms of how much kind of thinking I can do and I find that in the times when I can take on higher cognitive demand when I'm sharp and on it and rested and so on I can do planning for times ahead when things might feel harder and also sometimes the tasks can feel harder when I know that there's a pressure that they've got to be done now so I quite often do planning ahead and then later actually execute the tasks I'm kind of almost like my own teacher as well as being my own people if that makes sense because I can plan the tasks when I'm in one mindset and ahead and the pressure's off and I haven't got to do it now and then at another time perhaps when I'm slightly closer to overwhelm or just that there is that pressure on the task then my planning has been done ahead and I can continue and as an autistic adult that's something that helps me might be something that helps you or indeed the children that you're supporting as well we can do different things at different time depending on quite what we're at in that moment hope there were helpful ideas in here for you I would love to hear how you are using them do drop me a line on the socials and let me know and also let me know what other topics you would like me to be covering in the future I'd love to hear from you if you like what I'm doing and you'd like to support my work you can do so by subscribing to my podcast or youtube channel please you can also do so by sharing my work via your social networks or your email networks or by word of mouth you can also support me by heading over to patreon and signing up for a pound a month to join my little community there who gets things early gets a little bit more personal input from me and also gets to help decide what I'm going to create in the future or you could go nuclear and invite me to speak at your setting or at your next event which is always a great joy to meet you guys in person and to have the chance to really impact through one of my keynotes speeches or workshops have a fantastic day week month life ahead be kind to yourself but until next time from mark who's been very present this time and me over