Episode 68: Overwhelm and Executive Function

Below you can view or listen to Episode 68 of The Personal Brain Trainer Podcast.

Losing Things and Executive Functions

In this episode of the Executive Function Brain Trainer Podcast, Dr. Erica Warren and Darius Namdaran delve into the challenges of losing important items like keys, wallets, and rings, particularly for those with dyslexia or ADHD. They discuss how executive function impacts these behaviors and explore effective strategies to create reliable habits. From pocket systems to visual cues and habit-stacking methods, the hosts offer practical advice to help listeners design workflows tailored to their cognitive styles, ultimately saving time and reducing stress.

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Transcript:

Erica: Welcome to the Personal Brain Trainer podcast. I'm Doctor Erica Warren.

Darius: And I'm Darius Namdaran and we're your hosts. Join us on an adventure to translate scientific jargon and brain research into simple metaphors and explanations for everyday life. We explore executive function and learning strategies that help turbocharge the mind.

Erica: Come learn to steer around the invisible barriers so that you can achieve your goals. This podcast is ideal for parents, educators, and learners of all ages. This podcast is brought to you by goodsensorylearning.com, where you can find educational and occupational therapy lessons and remedial materials that bring delight to learning. Finally, you can find Doctor Warren's many courses at, learningspecialistcourses.com. come check out our newest course on developing executive functions and study strategies.

Darius: This podcast is sponsored by dyslexiaproductivitycoaching.com. we give you a simple productivity system for your Apple devices that harnesses the creativity that comes with your dyslexia.

Erica: Hey, Darius. Great to see you.

Darius: Hey, Erika. great to see you, too.

There's a lot to learn about overwhelm and executive function

Erica: So, let's talk about overwhelm and executive functioning. What do you think?

Darius: Yeah, I think there's a lot to learn about overwhelm and executive function. They work really well together. Sometimes people think, oh, I'm feeling overwhelmed. And often when you're feeling overwhelmed, and often when you're saying you're overwhelmed, you don't know where it's coming from. You just feel this kind of just. It's like being submerged, sinking in water. You just suddenly get overwhelmed by the water, and you feel like you're drowning, and you don't know where it's coming from. But I think we need to talk about this in relation to executive function, that there are certain aspects of executive function, if you understand it, can actually stop overwhelm. And it might be because of executive function that you're the being overwhelmed. It might be other things. It might be your workspace. It might be other things that overwhelm you. But often, I've noticed with adults, especially executive function, especially working memory, is a source of overwhelm.

Erica: You know, it's funny, when you were saying it kind of comes over you, I think of it as almost as a tsunami, because it is. It's this kind of very unexpected thing. Things can be fine, and then all of a sudden, well, it's not always that case, I suppose you can be already a little bit overwhelmed, and then it's kind of like the cup overflowing kind of thing. So you could be slowly building up to a place of overwhelm. Or you could get this tsunami, unexpected overwhelm, where you're like, where did that come from? It could be something, either a natural disaster or car accident or something that just, boom, instant overwhelm.

Darius: And if you think through the kind of life events that sort of often trigger overwhelm moments, it could be early menopause. A lot of menopausal women suddenly feel very competent, very capable, and then suddenly they're overwhelmed very easily and quickly. It could be life events. Like a family member gets really sick. Like, I went into the hospital with my dad. He fell over and he broke his back. And I immediately felt overwhelmed in the middle of that hospital. But there wasn't anything particularly out of control in that circumstance. Externally, yes, it was a bad incident, but I just felt completely overwhelmed. And at that moment in time, I realized that why? And we'll get into that. But there are other moments in life. You could be moving your house. It could be long Covid, for example. You could get long Covid. You could have a personal health crisis, etcetera. And often you feel like it's that thing that is overwhelming you. But what I would put forward, and I think we're going to put forward here, is that often it's your executive, function, ability of working memory to take a new information in gets completely overloaded because you've got other things juggling in your mind. You're maybe working close to capacity already with what you've got, but you don't have that extra capacity to take the shocks of these larger surges of waves, as it were, surges of tide, a, surge that you don't have that capacity to deal with it. And I would put forward that you need to be ready for those surges in understanding your working memory and also having tools and technology round about you to take the impact of that surge that you can deploy.

Erica: Before we hopped on, we talked about how, yes, probably largely working memory, but it just came upon me like a tsunami that has so much to do with cognitive flexibility, because transition is another massive factor of overwhelm. And, particularly if you're going through multiple transitions at once, think of things like major things like childbirth.

Darius: Yes.

Erica: A brand-new child. There's always overwhelm.

Darius: Yes, yes.

Erica: And the overwhelm also is partially due to the fact that it's hard to be cognitively flexible. It's hard to just shift to something completely new that's completely different. There's this overwhelm of this massive learning curve. Right. But then how can you not say that? it also is about inhibitory control, because you've got to focus on these changes. You've got to manage your working memory, but you also have to stay focused, and you have to use your tools of metacognition. So it's funny that it really does make me reflect back on the episode that you did on sailing. You know, overwhelm is really an issue of an overtaxed executive functioning. And there is that piece of the amygdala, which is this kind of emotional reaction. We get overwhelmed because we also just can't manage our emotions very well, which is another piece of inhibitory control. Isn't it interesting?

Darius: So it is.

Erica: It is really a higher level executive functioning issue. It's a matter of all these little pieces, and there's just too much going on.

Darius: Well, how about this? Let's take a real case scenario, okay? And I'll take my experience with my dad, for example, a couple of years ago. Let's take that as a real case scenario.

Working memory is the doorway into executive functions of your mind

And then let's also, the other thing I want to bring into this is every single week, I've got one to one client. We sit down, really capable people often got dyslexia or some adhd, and we're just wanting to go through how to deal with some of these executive function skills. Okay? And what is the most surprising for them every single time is I say to them, look, I know you want to learn how to mind map. I know you want to learn how to do all these different workplace strategies and so on, but we're going to start with taking notes. Let's have a look at your note taking system. And they're like, well, I've got a notepad here. I've got post its notes there. I've got this over here. I've got a third notepad in the toilet. I've got a notepad at work. I put things on Google notes and sometimes on Google keep and sometimes on Apple notes, and there's just note. It's all over the place, okay? And I say to them, working memory is like the doorway into your house. It's the doorway into the executive functions of your mind, that working memory. And if you take information into that doorway, like packages from Amazon or whatever, and you drop them in the hallway, and you leave them in the hallway, the hallway quickly gets filled up, and it stops more information coming in. And it really doesn't matter how good you are at, inhibitory control and focus or cognitive flexibility. If the information isn't being properly filtered through your working memory, you're not getting the information in to actually make good decisions because stuff is getting blocked at the door. Do you see what I mean? And so what I find is, if I took these, the way I describe it to clients is if you take up these three functions of working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control, let's just change the order a little bit. Often with working memory, if you're feeling overwhelmed, it's often to do with working memory. And the solution is often to take notes and to put them somewhere you know you can find them so you can empty your working memory. So basically, take that package you take in the front door and put it in the garage safely, so it keeps that clear. Or quickly unpack it and put it in the place it should be in the kitchen or whatever. Oh, I just got this. Quickly unpack it, put it in the recycling, and put it where it's meant to be. That's basically the function of working memory. Is this important? Yes, it's important. Let's unpack it and put it where it belongs.

Erica: And if you don't, that feels like workplace productivity. That analogy works, like, perfect for productivity and overwhelm when it comes to productivity. But I'm not sure if that works. I think it works perfect for that. I'm not sure if that works for crisis, because crisis sometimes triggers the emotional. You emotionally lose it. Right? Yes, but I like this metaphor, and I want you to go with this metaphor when it comes to just productivity and academics or workplace or just kind of daily overwhelm of, oh, my gosh, I've got too much on my to do list. Where do I get started? And, oh, my goodness, I keep getting distracted. I'm on my way to getting something done, and three other things come at me. And that type of overwhelm, that metaphor is spot on.

Darius: Yeah, I suppose I'm coming at it from that point of view, and maybe because I'm a little less emotionally turbulent.

Erica: That's very interesting. That's very interesting for you to say that. You're right. I mean, I think maybe everybody's a little different. So some people might get triggered into overwhelm because they're not cognitively flexible. Some people might get triggered into overwhelm because they can't manage their emotions. And then other people might get triggered into overwhelm because they have a limited working memory.

Darius: How about this? Absolutely. And I suppose I'm coming, ah, from the point of view that I associate overwhelm with working memory, and I associate, confusion, okay. With cognitive flexibility. Okay?

Working memory is the size of your hallway. And some people have narrow hallways

So, what I've noticed is when someone has their working memory cleared because they've taken tons of notes. So here's the typical workflow, the productivity workflow, okay, that I see with people. So let's say they spend two, three weeks, four weeks taking notes, okay? And they just put everything into apple notes like we've talked about in the past. They just empty it into apple notes. If you're thinking about it for longer than 1520 minutes and it's important, put a three-word comment into apple notes. Or take a screenshot, take a photograph, upload that PDF, attach that email, whatever it is. I show them how to do all of that, and they just dump all their working memory straight into apple notes. So it keeps the doorway clear, know? So keep that doorway clear. Don't end up with the day piling over. Someone knocks on the door, and you just say, I'll just leave it outside. I'll get to it. And then the rain blows it away and it gets ruined and suddenly disappears. Because if your working memory doesn't process it, it gets deleted. That's the bottom line. It doesn't just stay there waiting for you. It's deleted. And that's the big problem, because people will hand stuff to you, deliver it to the door, and say, I've just delivered this important thing to you, Darius. And I go, oh, yes, thank you for that important thing. They go away. I leave at the door. The wind blows it away. They come back. How did it go with that important thing? I go, what important thing? And they're like, well, I gave it to you. You said you had it. And then I walked away, and you go, no, no, you didn't. You didn't give it to me. I don't have it. And you're like, you do have it. I gave it to you. I don't have it. It's nowhere here. It's because it got deleted and blown away. And the number of times, if you're in a neurodiverse household, you can have huge amounts of arguments where you can swear blind that that person never said it to you and that you never agreed to something or you never remembered them telling you something or whatever. And the reality is they did. You did say, yes, you did understand it, but your working memory was so full, it deleted it before it got to its actual memory. Short term or long term. Have you ever had that experience with people?

Erica: Yeah, absolutely. Don't we all? Haven't we all had that dialogue. I told you. No, you didn't. I mean, particularly little kids. I mean, of course. And when you get that all the time with little kids, that's part of development. And get it a lot with the elderly, because as we know, that working memory isn't fully developed until your early twenties, and then it starts to diminish around your late forties. So I'm already experiencing that to some extent. And, yeah, I really am constantly, always activating my brain and learning new things so that I can keep as much of those executive functioning skills as possible, you know?

Darius: So, yeah, so it's so important, to keep that working memory hallway clear. And the way I describe the front door, everyone's got a front door. And the working memory is the size of your hallway. Okay? And some people have narrow hallways, and some people have wide hallways. And so a wide hallway, you can pile stuff up. And our life, the deliveries we get and so on are designed around a certain capacity. In your hallway, seven big boxes can fit in your hallway. But in my hallway, once I've got three big boxes in my hallway, I cannot go in or out of that door. but the thing is, I can't see that. I can't feel it. It just gets. If I bring in a new box, one of those other boxes gets thrown out the front door and deleted. And so once you become aware of that, you start clearing that hallway. But the thing is, when the working memory ideas get deleted, you don't know that they're being deleted, but you can feel they're being deleted. You have this unconscious.

Erica: There was something else going on. What was that? but then you know what? There are those times where it just slips away, and you just don't. You may never know unless somebody brings it up. And then you're like, oh, that sounds vaguely familiar.

Darius: Yeah.

Erica: Right?

Darius: Yeah. And that is all working memory. And if we can get that. When you've got that, uneasy feeling that can amplify into overwhelm. In like, oh, my goodness, I know. There's so many things and I'm not on top of them. and the problem is, I don't even know what I'm meant to be doing because I'm losing, forgetting things left, right and center. And there's that kind of overwhelm. That's kind of the overwhelm I'm talking about.

Erica: And you're right, that type of overwhelm really requires note taking. You've got to. You've got to get it all down and apple notes has been just brilliant for me because, you know, and it might not just be one note. You might be putting down five different notes because they're like, oh, yeah, I've got a list of things that I have to do for this project, and I've got a. A few things that I've got to do for this project. But at least it's all down and it's there, and you can find it really quickly. You'll be like, oh, yeah, what was that stuff? I did do some household stuff. Just type in household, and it'll find that list. So it's.

Emotional overwhelm diminishes working memory, which can lead to cognitive paralysis

We have talked about this in the past, about how Apple notes is just such a beautiful external working memory. But I also, I want to look at it from each lens because I think it could be very interesting, because I'm thinking about, what if we explore overwhelm? I'll take this one. Being a woman, I don't want to peg it that women are the emotional ones, but I'm just thinking of a personal experience where when going through a really difficult or trying time and interesting working memories coming into it for me, my inner voice is harassing me. There was a difficult situation. How did I get into it? How can I get through it? How can I manage it? And there's that kind of overwhelm of managing your parts, managing your emotions, managing the different parts of yourself that are almost having an internal argument of, how did you get into this? Or why did this happen? Or I can't believe they said that, or that kind of stuff. Right? And that does create this sense of emotional overwhelm, which diminishes the working memory. It's like you just don't even have the capacity. I mean, I'm thinking about how I was working on a project, and it was a project that required a lot of attention. And then one of these emotional overwhelm triggers popped into my mind, and it completely disabled me from being able to finish the project. And I had to stop, and I had to manage my emotions so that I could get back into the project and not make mistakes. So it's interesting, but then I can also of situations where, again, where something comes up and we have a life, a mind altering, life altering experience. We move, we graduate, we have a baby, we have a death in the family, we have a car accident. These, like, big transitions. And for some of us, we might have multiple transitions at once. I can remember a friend who lost his sister, his mother, and his father, and went through a divorce all within a year. Talk about that's like overwhelming overwhelm. Right. That's like a crazy amount of overwhelm. but that's all based on transition, and it's about being cognitively flexible enough to be able to shift and pivot into a very different life and being able to move forward when you have the death of a partner. One of my dear, dear friends lost her husband, and she's completely overwhelmed because she spent, I think, 50 years with this man. And there's this overwhelm of. Of just not being able to move on quite yet. Not able to. I guess that's really a combination of all three. So I guess it really is a higher-level executive function. But it's interesting how each one really has its own metaphor. Like, if you work for the other.

Darius: Ones, it kind of does, if I could extend the metaphor. So let's imagine your brain as a house. Okay?

Erica: Okay.

Darius: The front door is the working memory, and different information comes at you and goes into different rooms, okay? But your working memory is a filter. So you choose what comes into your mind. You know, something's junk mail that's not going to come into the house, and other things do come into the house. So the front door is like a filter. Your working memory is like a filter. And your working memory has been programmed to say, this is important. That's not important. Keep this temporarily. Put it in the recycling. Take that, go put it in your memory. Put it in the cupboard, you know, and this. This dynamic. So that goes in the kitchen, that goes in the garage, that goes in the lounge. You could think about the different areas of your house as different parts of you, different roles that you've got. Let's not complicate that too much but think about the hallway where you're stacking up the boxes of things that are coming at you in the day. Okay. Let's say you have a limited unit capacity in your hallway, and mine is three. I can take three items in my hallway at, once. Okay. Other people can take seven. Okay. Typically, it's somewhere between five and seven. if you've got something like dislikes your adhd, often it's more down at the two three mark. But these aren't just spaces for cardboard boxes. They're spaces for people. So let's say that person comes into your conversation. You know that person is arguing with you, that you're having different parts. You're having a conversation, okay. Someone comes into the corridor and m starts having a conversation with you. They take up a unit of your working memory. Let's say you're having two or three, an anxiety kind of conversation with lots of different people. Your hallway is full, okay? A package comes in the door, and you're like, oh, oh, no, no, no. We're too busy for that just now. Just leave it at the front door, you know? And, okay, if you had the capacity of seven, you've got a bit more capacity to put it in the corner while you're still having this conversation with people. So if I. For me, I'll give you a practical example. I'm driving, okay? And I have an amazing sense of direction. Okay? Great sense of direction. Three dimensional. You know, you put me in the wilderness somewhere. Tell me that's where you're going. If I go into the deep woods, I would sense where I'm meant to go, okay? But put me in a car with a couple of people or my own thoughts, and we're having a conversation, I will get lost. Because that conversation is using up so much of my working memory that the extra capacity that other people might have to hold. you're taking a next left unit temporarily in front of your mind gets pushed off the side because I'm having a conversation. And so I'm kind of occupying that hallway with my limited, narrow hallway with those entities, that conversation.

Erica: But, you know, it's funny. I can't help but this because I love the metaphor, but it's funny because something always happens to the metaphor. And what happened to the metaphor of the house is what if someone crashes into the hallway and just demolishes your hallway? Or like a tornado comes and just rips the roof right off the house.

Darius: Yeah, yeah. But no, let's adapt it to a real one. I mean, that's like saying, what happens if someone hits your head with a hammer and destroys your brain?

People with lower working memory develop strategies to deal with memory crises

That that's not.

Erica: Oh, no, it's not. It's not. I think there are times in life where it really is like something happens and everything might stop. You might not be able to work for a while. Health crash.

Darius: That analogy would be. It could be a crash. You know, it could be someone crashes into your front garden, not into your hallway. Okay? Your hallway is still intact. Okay? If we stay true to the principles that it's trying to express in this analogy, you've got this huge delivery, you know, huge delivery of information. Your dad's just fallen, and you've got the ambulance there. You've got financial, difficult challenges and so on. lots of stuff is being delivered into your household front yard. I. All at once. Okay, and you're standing at the door going, I don't know what to do with all of this. I really do not know what to do with all of this. I don't know how to process all of this information now. I think of it in that context and at that point, okay, this is where I feel it's really important to have hallway extension plans, you know, ways to extend your hallway with technology. So we all have limited capacity in our working memory. Some seven, some three, some two. It's still limited. People with lower working memory develop strategies earlier on in life to deal with this later on in life. Even if you have a working memory of seven and you get inundated in your front yard with 30 different units of delivery, let's say the ambulance that's crashed into the front of your house, that contains seven or eight units straight away that you've got to think about, you know, hospital admission, phoning family and friends. I've got to remember to do this. I've got to remember to do that. What drugs has he got? And what's his name and address? What's his date of birth? What's this? You know, there's just so many units of things to deal with, and then there's other stuff coming in. What do you do then? What I discovered when that ambulance crashed into my life, my front garden, was. I had just discovered apple notes properly. You know, I knew about it, but we had had this conversation, and I was teaching people about trying to clear their working memory with apple notes. It was a kind of experiment, actually. Just working with one client after another and saying, look, this is so super simple. I'm sorry, it's so super simple, but I think it could be really powerful for you. And I was teaching it, and they're like, oh, my goodness. Three weeks later, I don't know what it is. I'm, sleeping better. I feel more focused. I don't feel so overwhelmed. It just feels like there's less friction in my life. And the only thing I've done is taken notes in one place that I can find. I cannot believe how much this has transformed. And I said, you've just cleared the hallway of your house and everything else, all your existing things that you're good at is now being fed with the information. The food is being delivered into the kitchen, the stuff is going into your office, and you can function better. You know, there's, ah, actually nothing wrong with you because some people would say there's something wrong with me and there's nothing wrong with you, it's just that the systems you've designed around your life don't fit your way of thinking. And so the first system is taking notes. So ambulance crashes. Okay. My dad's lying. I go to my dad's house. Here's the scenario. My dad's feeling a little bit ill. He's got probably the beginning of COVID, but he thinks it's not Covid. And so I just go over to just check on him, and before I go on holiday, I go in and check on him. And to my surprise, this man was climbing mountains. Monroe's, mountains. A week before, two weeks before. He's lying there in the bathroom, having fallen down, immobile, and he couldn't call me. Thankfully, it'd only been half an hour. And I'm standing there looking at him lying down there, and he's not compos mentis, you know? And I'm like, I don't know what to do. I call the ambulance. The ambulance starts coming. I call my wife. The ambulance is going to be late, 2 hours late, even though it's an emergency. And a funny thing happened to me. I said to myself, Darius, you need to start taking notes. You're getting overwhelmed. I could feel it. Oh, God, I've got to think about this. M got to think about that. And I'm dropping. I've sensed that feeling, that sense of overwhelm, a particular kind of overwhelm that is like I'm dropping the ball while I'm juggling overwhelmed, you know, not just. I'm not doing tasks. I'm just dropping information. And I'm like, this is really important. I need to start taking notes. And it's really weird. I opened up apple notes, and I said, it's 07:30 p.m. dad's falling. So I logged the time, and I thought, I'll take a photo. I took a photo of my dad lying down there, and it spit macabre, as it were, you know, but I was like, maybe the photo will be useful for the doctors to know how he fell. And what did he knock his head? What was the position? And sure enough, these were all really important things. Later on, I took another photo. I took a photo of the carpet he probably tripped on. Maybe it was the carpet. Was it because of a blame claw, or was this as a physical drop or whatever?

You were documenting everything so that your memory could be more reliable

Because that influences it, you know? And that was it. I took that. And then I had a conversation with the ambulance. They called me, and I wrote down ambulance 730. They said, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, does he have any medication? I need to find some medication. And then I called my wife, and every single thing, I just rigorously emptied my working memory. Because what I said to myself was, I need capacity.

Erica: You know what I love about this, too, is the fact that when we're under these stressful situations, our memory is not that great. So what you were doing is you were really documenting everything so that your memory could be more reliable, because I'm sure you were emotionally distressed.

Darius: That's right. I was.

Take notes, make maps, set reminders to deal with overwhelm

Erica: So, you know, I love where we're going, too, with this, because I think let's go more into the strategies of how to deal with overwhelm, because I think that's where the sweet sauce is.

Darius: It is. And I think maybe this is just my approach or personalized, to me, but I've seen it with a lot of clients now, maybe 50 people over the last year. We've been doing this kind of approach where it's like, right, step one. Three things that I keep saying is, take notes, make maps, set reminders. Those are the three things that we'll deal with overwhelm. Taking notes empties your working memory. Making maps means mind maps, maybe, or just a big map of everything on one page. It's like, get, ah, everything into your field of view. You need to be able to see everything on one page, whether it's one big wall, one whiteboard, one sheet of paper, one mind map, whatever it is, you need the map of the territory. And once you've got the map of the territory, that sense of confusion I was talking about right at the beginning, I was saying, you know, there are this feeling of overwhelm. Then there's feeling of confusion, and then there's a, feeling of,

Erica: Feeling lost.

Darius: Lost. That's it. Yes. So there's overwhelmed confusion and lost. Okay, now, lost and confusion are slightly different. Okay, so imagine. Think of apple, of taking notes as going up a mountain and seeing all the different sort of. There's a forest over there, there's river over there, and you're getting all these bits of information.

Erica: You're being a qualitative researcher. You're observing the environment, and you're documenting everything.

Darius: Yes. And so you've gone up there, but then you've taken down little notes of. There's this over there. There's that over there. And then you create a map. You draw all out, and you got a piece of paper, and you go, right, that was there. That was there. That was there. And then you choose a route to where you're going. Okay. And your route to where you're going is the setting goals. And setting reminders is a physical representation of setting goals. So you set your goals, you set your vision, you set your goals, you set the tasks, and you set your reminders to do those tasks that, are related to your goals. So setting reminders is basically the. The tip of the iceberg of setting goals, okay? So if you're ever feeling kind of that general sense of overwhelmed, it's kind of like, have I got that dropping the ball feeling of working memory? Take notes. do I need to see the big picture? Yes, I need to see the big picture, or do I just need to know what to do next? Where are my reminders? That's what I need to do next. So going through this kind of three stations tend to be the sort of triage that deals with a whole ton of problems that are behind the scenes. You don't need to get emotional counseling, per se. You're still going to do all that. You don't necessarily need to deal with your emotions, etcetera. Those characters are still going to be in the hallway. But do you have a way? So let's go to the working memory analogy, okay? You've got two choices. You've got these two characters in your hallway arguing and discussing with you, okay? You've got to do this. We need to do that. You're having this argument. Why am I doing this with yourself? Okay. You've got a choice to boot them out of your hallway to create more capacity. Okay. Or to extend the capacity of your hallway and still have them there and still be able to do the basic functions of life while you process this important conversation. Yeah. And my analogy in that is to put a garage onto the side of your house. Okay? With a doorway into the garage. Okay? Build a garage onto the side of your house. The hallway with a doorway into it. Someone gives you a package, and you go, I don't know what to do with this. I'm just going to put in the hallway. And you go, no, I'll just open the door, and I'll put it into the garage. That's apple notes.

Erica: Ah. but apple notes aren’t just a garage. What you do is you have all the shelves labeled, and maybe it's alphabetized. It might be color coded. It's so it's very easy to find everything that you need.

Darius: Not necessarily. Okay. Because, yes, that is if you're super organized and sensible, like you, of course.

Erica: Oh, no, no, no. But apple notes. As long as you put a title on apple notes, then you're essentially putting a title. That's the one little thing that you have to do. But even if you don't, anyone, it's.

Darius: A three-word title.

Erica: Yes, but in order to manage overwhelm properly, because you can just throw things into apple notes or any of these productivity. But that's not going to necessarily help you.

Darius: It's surprising. I'm sorry to contradict you there. It is actually surprising. Building that garage onto the side, opening the door, labeling it with three words, and throwing it in there.

Erica: Okay, but that's not throwing it in just by labeling it. Labeling it automatically. By labeling it, it automatically flows to the right place.

Darius: That's right.

Apple notes helps with planning, time management, and organization

Because there's a little person inside of my garage that I go, oh, go get me that thing about the holidays or the sailing. And it comes back, and it goes, these three things. The search function. I go, oh, oh, it's that one. Yes, thanks very much. And I'll go and do something with it, you know, and off. Yes. So, absolutely, you're right. But just three words at the top of every note. Three unique words, then you can search it now. So in this analogy, my dads just fallen. Okay. I'm feeling overwhelmed. I've built the garage onto the side of the house. The ambulance has got all of this information and stuff. I'm like, right, right, okay, we're going to take that. We're going to put that in the garage. We're going to take that. We're going to put that. We're going to take that. and what I'm doing is I'm keeping the capacity of the hallway as clear as possible, because I have to stay standing. If I don't stay standing, he dies. You know, I must stay standing. I must keep my capacity available, must keep my hallway clear. So I take it, I, put it in the garage. And I thank God that I had that capacity built in. I didn't desperately need it, but when that crisis happened, oh, my goodness, I really needed it. And I hear this from clients a lot. They're like, yeah, this has been quite good. But you know what? Something just happened to me last week, and I know it would have knocked me sideways and I'd be out for the count right now, but I am still standing. I am still going because I'm taking notes.

Erica: Right. Well, you know what's interesting is it helps you with uniting the three areas of executive functions.

Darius: It does.

Erica: Because it helps you to manage higher level executive functions. It helps with planning, time management, and organization. And to me, that is what higher level executive functioning is. It throws in a little bit of reasoning, but you can't have reasoning if you don't have planning, time management, and organization.

Darius: Yes, absolutely.

Erica: And I think you're right. I think if you're looking for something quick and simple and super easy, apple notes. Apple notes is the way to go right now. Having a calendar is great, but if you said you can only have one productivity app, what is it going to be? I'd say apple notes.

Darius: Apple notes now. Yeah, absolutely.

Erica: I'd be like, apple notes and Apple calendar, please, can I have them both? Because Apple calendar helps more with the time management piece.

Darius: Yes.

Erica: Where, unfortunately, Apple notes isn't as good as at the time management piece.

Darius: Oh, no, no.

Erica: You just need a calendar. You need the calendar. I mean, in a very disorganized way, you could say kind of helps, but not enough. The one thing that it does do is it puts your notes in a sequence, but that's not enough. I like. I like the calendar, but those, using those two tools is extraordinary. It's so funny because this is a conversation I had with my boyfriend this weekend, because he's always. He does not like technology at all. And he's a master carpenter and really struggles with planning, time management, organization. And I finally got him to agree to let me teach him those two productivity tools. It's taken me seven years. It hasn't happened yet, so we'll have to see. But he'll be a really interesting case study. I may have to get him to work with you, Darius, because, you know, sometimes it just doesn't work.

Darius: Yeah. it doesn't work with partner often. And I would love to do that for him, you know, happily. And it's a revelation. And sometimes how simple it is, because sometimes we've got. Organization systems are created by organized people, for organized people. And I'm a disorganized person, and I was determined to create, as a disorganized person, an organization system for disorganized people. And I think the key to an organization system is not to try and be efficient, but to try and be effective. And there's a big difference. And being effective means I'm going to choose what are, the 10% of things that are mission critical that are coming at me that I have to make sure I don't drop the ball on. Well, all of those go into my notes. All of those go into my book of promises, which is my calendar. And all of the top 10% things go into my apple reminders to remind me to take the tablet or look at my calendar or do this or do that. I've still got my to do list and my apple notes, but these are all the minimum things I need to make life functions, and the minimum things I need to honor my commitments to the people I love. And.

Erica: And it manages overwhelm.

Darius: It does. It does.

Erica: What it does is it diminishes the amount of overwhelm in your life, because.

Darius: What happens is you are creating capacity. And that's the key thing, is, like, you have overwhelmed your capacity to deal with that situation. That's why it's called overwhelm. It's overfilled, and you've used up that capacity, whether it's working memory capacity, processing capacity, you know, emotional. All these are capacities that have limits to them. You know, we're limited human beings, and we have limited capacities. So the first domino. Okay, I have this theory that I call domino problems.

Executive function is the ability to get important things done is what

Okay? When I went on that sailing trip, remember, I talked about domino problems? So when you're sailing or in life, there are some things that are problems, and if you don't deal with them, it's not the end of the world. Some little things that are problems, other little things that are problems that if you don't deal with them, they'll knock over onto a slightly bigger problem, which will knock over onto a slightly bigger problem, which will knock over and knock over until it becomes knocks over a big problem. And then you're in this catastrophe situation where you're like, how did I get myself into this situation? And you look back, six dominoes, and you realize, oh, my goodness. I didn't tighten up that screw, and this got loosened, and then that rope pulled out, and then that hit me in the eye and cut me a bit, and then I got distracted by that, and then the sail swung over there, and then it hit me on the head, and I fell out the boat. And now I'm, sitting in the water going, how on earth did this happen? Because I didn't tighten up that screw. That's a domino problem. Okay? And working memory overloaded. Working memory is a domino problem that leads to overwhelm very quickly.

Erica: Yeah.

Darius: There's much more. I mean, there's much more to this conversation. We just scratched the surface, haven't we?

Erica: We have. And we could go on and on. And I really like these kinds of deep dives into these kinds of terms, these life terms that affect us. And I think we should explore some more of those, whether it's a term like anxiety, what is that? Because I think for many of these emotions or feelings, we can learn to manage them better if we understand how to use the tools in our executive functioning.

Darius: How about we take the term confusion because there's overwhelm that I've associated with working memory. Obviously, it's broader than that, but confusion, often the solution to that is to try and get the big picture, get everything onto one page and the whole dynamic of what that's all about, because that's very rich as well. what do you think? Confusion next week?

Erica: Sure.

Darius: Okay. And, listeners, you could maybe think about this over the week ahead. We'll be thinking about it over the week, and in the next episode, we'll talk about confusion and executive function.

Erica: And if you have any other terms, you know, anything that you're going through that you want to talk about and how we can manage those feelings or emotions or situations. Bye. Managing our executive functions. Because our executive functions really are the gatekeeper to a healthy, productive, and satisfying life.

Darius: Yeah. I've been thinking about how to sum up executive functions in many ways. Executive function is the ability to get important things done.

Erica: There are many ways that you can define it. It's big. We've gone back to the, the symphony, but it really is. You could almost think about it as, like, the weather, you know?

Darius: And, if you think about it as the weather and also saline, the atmosphere, you know, you've got an environment that you're in, and you have to use the forces around you to navigate towards a destination. It might be important that you get to a certain destination. You can't just demand that the wind pushes you directly there. You have to adapt with cognitive flexibility. You've got working memory. You've got inhibitory control. You've got to focus in on what your next way mark is. So there's this ability to get important things done is what. When we become the executives of our lives, we're deciding, I'm going to be the executive of my life, and I'm going to do what I think is important with my life. That's really what executive functions about. And if you are told what to do in your work or you're told what to do in your life and so on, you've got very little use and need for executive functions. But if you're deciding to do something important and go for something, then you really need executive functions. Properly functioning.

Erica: Executive functioning. Properly functioning. Yeah. I think it's amazing. The more you understand it, the more you control it.

Darius: Absolutely.

Erica: And that's what we're here for.

Darius: Yeah. Till next time. Confusion next week.

Erica: Confusion next week. Thank you for joining our conversation here at the Personal Brain trainer podcast.

Darius: This is Dr Erica Warren and Darius Namdaran. Check out the show notes for links to resources mentioned in the podcast, and please leave us a review and share us on social media until next time. Bye.