93. Stop Task Hopping & Get More Done: 3 Productivity Killers You Can Fix Today

Feeling overwhelmed by never-ending tasks and unfinished projects? You’re not alone! In this episode, I'm sharing three major productivity killers that might be secretly sabotaging your time and focus. Whether you're constantly saying yes to everything, hopping from task to task, or falling into all-or-nothing thinking, this episode will help you break free from those habits and get going on that To Do List.

I’m sharing practical, easy-to-implement strategies to help you regain control of your time—without stress or burnout. Plus, I’m giving you a simple challenge to start making real progress today.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
✅ The #1 question to ask yourself before saying yes to a commitment
✅ Why task hopping makes you feel busy but doesn’t actually get things done
✅ A game-changing trick to start (and finish!) overwhelming tasks
✅ How to embrace progress over perfection for long-term success
✅ Three powerful strategies to eliminate distractions and stay focused

Resources & Links:
🔹 Join the SLP Support Group on Facebook to continue the conversation!
🔹 Want personalized coaching on productivity and time management? I currently have 3 openings for 1:1 coaching. Schedule a free consult here!

💡 If you found this episode helpful, don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review! Your feedback helps me create more content that supports YOU.

To find out how I can help you improve your work-life balance, click here.

Come join the SLP Support Group on Facebook for more tips and tricks!

Follow me on Instagram! @theresamharp

Learn more about Theresa Harp Coaching here.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to Work-Life Balance for Speech Pathologists. I'm Theresa Harp, an SLP and Productivity Coach, and this podcast is all about how to build a successful career as an SLP and still have time for yourself and the people and things you love. So if you're ready to ditch stress and burnout for a more balanced and fulfilling life than you are in the right place. Let's dive in.

Hello podcast listeners. Welcome to episode 93. This is gonna be a fun one because I'm talking all about A DHD. Not all about it, but I'm talking very specifically about some of the biggest productivity killers for those of us who have a DHD or suspect that you have a DHD. And if you are listening and you don't have a diagnosis or don't think that you have a DHD, stay with me because all of these.

Little time sucks, if you will, are things that are absolutely applicable, relevant, relatable [00:01:00] for all humans. If you have a human brain and you sh have ever struggled with time management and productivity, then make sure that you stay with me because I'm gonna be talking you through some of the, in my opinion, biggest time sucks, and how to overcome them.

All right. That's the plan for today. Now, I want to acknowledge, okay, that those who have a DHD tend to be, in my opinion, I may be biased, but incredibly hardworking. Incredibly hardworking, where you're often doing, doing, doing, going, going, going. But you might not feel like you are productive enough. You might not feel like you're actually accomplishing anything, getting things done, moving the needle, blah, blah, blah.

Make sense? But here's the thing. Productivity isn't just about being busy. [00:02:00] If you know me, if you've listened to the podcast before, you probably heard me say, being busy is not a badge of honor. Productivity is not about doing more, but it's about doing the right things efficiently and effectively. And the biggest challenge in my opinion is that so many of you don't recognize the.

Actual things that are slowing you down. You think that it's because you have too much work on your plate. You think you have too many cases or not enough documentation time. You think it's because you don't know how to write a quick evaluation report or because there are expectations about what needs to be included in documentation, and I'm not arguing that.

Those things are not true. Right. I, I agree with you. If you are from that opinion, if you are of that opinion, I agree that some of those things [00:03:00] can feel very true and in some cases they may be true to certain extents. However, there is so much more that we can control than we realize, and we don't always.

Accurately recognize the things that will move the needle, the things that we can change that will help make things easier for us, and that's what I'm gonna be talking you through. All right, so I've got three, three sneaky productivity killers that I'm gonna be talking about, and I just wanna jump right in.

So I'm gonna talk with you about the first one. Let's see how many of these you have. I don't wanna say. You are guilty of because I really don't wanna make this a good versus bad or right and wrong, right? There's a whole lot of gray area and in fact, remember that because we're coming back to that in a few minutes, if that gives you a hint at what this one of the sec, the second productivity killer is.[00:04:00] 

We're coming back to that. But there are definitely pieces in here that we could improve. Okay. And this one, I bet you have all. Experienced at some point in your life, probably more than one point, and that is overcommitting overcommitting, in other words, saying yes to more than you quote unquote should.

Saying yes to things that you maybe wish or wanted to say no to, and. The neurodivergent brain loves to do this, loves to do this. Number one because, and these are my opinions here, I don't necessarily have. A research article that I can point you to right now to connect back to this, but here's been my personal experience.

Here's been [00:05:00] experience of the clients that I've worked with, experiences of friends, colleagues, is that those of us who have a DHD, we tend to be go, go, go. We like to do, we like to do, we like to do quick. We like to be busy, like I said earlier. And so when someone asks us to do something, we often. Have a lot of energy, so we like to say yes to those things.

Sure, I could do that. Yeah, I could do that. Absolutely. Now, even if we, oh, and the other piece of this too, before I. Before I finish that thought, the other piece of this, can you tell I have a DHD. The other piece of this is that we tend to be impulsive. We tend to act first, think later. And so if you can recognize the power of the pause, I'm jumping ahead here, but if you can recognize the power of the pause, it can be incredibly effective with reducing that overcommitment.

That [00:06:00] overcommitting. Okay. Now I think that with the A DHD brain, we tend to, like I said, impulsively say yes before we think it through. We often don't consider what saying yes will involve what it will require from us. So for example. My first grader had a birthday party, a friend's birthday party to go to, and we typically try to carpool when we can, and I volunteered.

I volunteer as tribute. I volunteered to take her and her friend, pick her friend up and bring her to a birthday party. However, what I failed to consider was. What time, the details, the logistics, what time would that mean that I would have to leave? Who's gonna be with my other kids? Am I [00:07:00] bringing my other kids?

Uh, how much time is this going to add on to the trip? Like, I'm happy to do it for sure. And that's all I thought about in that moment when I, when I said yes to, to, to driving her, my daughter and her friend. But I didn't think through the logistics and so this is terrible. But what happened was I also didn't write it down.

I did not put it in my calendar. So in my mind, I was driving my daughter and my friend was driving her daughter, and we were gonna be just meeting there. And I did not realize, or I should have realized, but I did not, I guess. I don't know, think it through when I said yes. And so I didn't show up. I didn't show up to pick her up.

Now, luckily we figured it out like. Right as the party, you know, as we were leaving for the party, [00:08:00] it became clear in our text conversation that we were having two different conversations. The mom, the other mom was thinking I was on my way to her house and luckily we realized with enough time for her to get there on time for both of them to get there on time.

However, it was definitely an example of overcommitment. I said yes before thinking it through. I didn't write it down. I then it just fell outta my head and that was that. Okay. So that's one example for me of an overcommitment. Another example though that I wanna share with you is an example where I didn't over commit and.

It's actually not an exam. It's not a scenario where I said no to something. It's a scenario where I said yes, but I thought it through and I felt good about it. And that is with one of my teaching positions where I needed to take on. Well, I didn't need to. The team needed, the school needed, the program [00:09:00] needed somebody to take on a little bit of, of extra work for something, and I.

In the past, where in the past I might just sort of either, depending upon my mood, I might kind of duck my head and hide, let's be honest. Or I might impulsively raise my hand and be like, yes, I'll do it. Sure, I'll do it. I can help. But this time I slowed down and I thought it through and I really asked myself what it was gonna require of me, what it would mean from a time.

You know, perspective, time demand and also an energy demand. And I said, yes, I volunteered. I said yes, and I still feel good about that. I actually we're coming up soon in a few weeks on when I will be following through and, you know, filling this role. But I still feel good about it. I don't dread it. And that's one of the ways, me personally, I know when it's a quote unquote sacred.

Yes. And when [00:10:00] it's not, is how I feel about it in my gut. Uh, do I resent it or do I dread it? And that's one thing that I have noticed. But the key for me, and I think for some of you, is noticing that tuning into that before you make the decision rather than after, because it's too late at that point. Now, I wanna share with you something on this topic of over commitment that.

I have said before, and that clients, I mean that lots of people have said, you probably have heard this before, but that I know, it tends to be very, very powerful for clients, for coaching clients to hear. So maybe this will be powerful. A powerful reminder for you is that saying yes to one thing means saying no to something else.

And when you really think about it, when you really think about what is this going to require me to say no to? You. If you pause and think, you should [00:11:00] be able to identify what some of those potential nos would be, what some of those things that you'd have to say no to would be, sometimes it might be, uh, sleep, sometimes it might be, I don't know, rest, or it might be time with a client or, uh, time with friends or family or free time.

I mean, it could be. Any number of things, but just keeping in mind that saying yes to one thing means saying no to something else, might be able to help you pause and help you think through what your response is going to be when somebody asks you to take something on or when you are considering taking something on.

So again, a few kind of cues to help you with this are. Power of the pause, so really pausing. Before you impulsively react and choosing how you want to respond, asking yourself, what will this require [00:12:00] of me? And asking yourself, am I going to regret this later? How am I going to feel about this later? Now, you can't always predict how you're gonna feel, and actually you really can't ever necessarily predict how you're gonna feel, but you know, you know yourself well enough that you should be able to answer that question.

Pretty reliably. Is this something I'm gonna regret later? And then after, when the time comes to do the thing that you've said yes to, don't. Forget to evaluate how it went. So afterwards, after you have said yes, ask yourself reflect on what that experience is. That experience was like. Like what about this went well?

What about this didn't go well? What might you do differently, if anything, going forward? Okay, so for those of you who have overcommitted, in fact, now that I'm talking about this. This, uh, productivity killer. I'm like this, these should be [00:13:00] episodes in and of themselves, and I think that might be something that I'll mark for the future is an episode all about overcommitting, an episode all about the other two productivity killers that I'm gonna be sharing with you.

Which one of those two? Dun, dun dun. I feel like we need a drum roll is task switching. Okay. And I, I've. Along with task, task switching. I'm also going to include avoidance. Now, avoidance is a form of procrastination for sure, and I told you that this episode wasn't gonna be all about procrastination, and that's true, it's not.

But I want you to really think about how often you. Avoid something, how long you spend avoiding it or thinking about doing it or thinking about how you should be doing it, but you're not, and then how often you are switching from thing to thing. I call this, I said task [00:14:00] switching before, but what I.

Usually call, this is task hopping. It's like you hop from this to this, to this, to this, and that is definitely a frequent flyer, if you will, when it comes to time management and my neurodivergent coaching clients. So we tend to avoid things that feel hard, that feel unclear, and that feel boring. What we do is if we find ourselves in a situation where we're doing something hard or doing something that's unclear or doing something that's boring, we might impulsively jump to something that's more stimulating instead.

And what happens is that cycle continues. It is a cycle. It creates a cycle and it just continues. So it's this busy work. It feels productive many times it feels productive, but it [00:15:00] doesn't actually move the needle. It doesn't actually result in a product or an an accomplished task. It sort of just results in a bunch of half started tasks.

And if I'm being totally honest, it tends to be not even. True quality work that you may have started before you task hop to something else. It often will just be. Something that you might begin, but you don't actually have anything of good quality that you could even come back to later. 'cause it wasn't an intentional start, it was just sort of like, oh, I'm like, I'm beginning this.

I'm, I'm doing it without even realizing what I'm doing, and now I'm bored and I'm switching to something else. So it's not even like you're present and you are focused and you're productive when you're starting the task. You're just sort of like going through the motions. And then you're moving on. So [00:16:00] I really want you to think about how often this might happen and what are the patterns.

Look for the patterns. When do you notice this happening? A lot. When do you notice? Are there certain times of day when this happens to you? Are there certain. Types of tasks or routines where this happens to you? I'm gonna give you an example for me that might surprise you that you might not even have thought about, but maybe this will land for some of you.

I notice it for myself every night, and once I notice it, I can't unno it. It's just there. So at the end of the day when it's time to go to bed, like when it's time for me to go to bed. I'm getting ready for bed and I task hop like a mother, like a total mother. You know what I will, okay, here's, here's how it goes.

I will like walk into my room. I will take out my toothbrush. I'll [00:17:00] put the toothpaste on. I will start brushing. Then I'll walk around like. Toothbrush in my mouth, not actually brushing at this point, but now I'm wandering, I'm like taking off my shoes and I'm putting them down in the closet. And then I'm going back into the bathroom and I'm brushing a little bit more.

And then I notice that, you know, one of my kids left clothes on the floor. So I'm picking up those clothes and I'm putting them into the laundry basket. And then. I finish brushing and I go to take off my jewelry. I take off one piece of jewelry and then I get distracted, and now I am getting out my makeup remover.

You know the makeup remover wipes before you wash your face. So I'm taking one of those out and then before I start wiping it and like taking the makeup off, I start walking towards my bed and I'm pulling down the sheets and. Yes. All of these things are somewhat related to going to bed, to the [00:18:00] routine, but the amount of task hopping that I'm doing there is so counterproductive.

It's wasted energy. It is. Oftentimes, I don't realize that I'm doing it. I'm just doing it until I have to, you know, till I start checking in with myself. Trying to be more mindful and self-aware in those moments. That has helped me. And it's low stakes too, right? Like talking about getting ready for bed is not anything that's going to make or break my, my day.

My role as a parent, my role as a productivity coach, like these are just low stakes things. Low stakes tasks. There are definitely high stakes, higher stakes tasks where I do this, but I'm trying to give you a funny, silly example and then, you know, nine times out of 10 I will miss a step or two. Because I've been, you know, hopping here to there, to there to there.

And so then I go to get in bed [00:19:00] thinking that I'm done. And then I realize, oh, I forgot to, you know, whatever, shut off the light in the bathroom or whatever it might be. I've, maybe I left my, my watch. That's one for me. I left my watch downstairs on the charger instead of upstairs, and I need it. So it's those types of.

Productivity killers that are sneaky and that add up. And what I want to invite you to do to help work through this, I've got two strategies for you to help you overcome this. And then, and then I'm gonna give you a third. Okay. So three strategies, I guess, uh, two that are really relevant for this example about getting ready for bed at night.

Number one I mentioned it's a low stakes routine, right? So if there is a productivity strategy, a time management strategy that you are trying to. Implement, find the low stakes [00:20:00] tasks, the low stakes routines, and practice the strategy there first so many times we say, okay, I am terrible at task switching at work.

And when I sit down to write a report, every time that happens, I wind up checking my email, then checking my phone, then planning out a session, then finishing up a session note, and I'm hopping, hopping, hopping, and I never finish the report. And then you feel shame, and you feel frustration, and you feel dissatisfied, whatever, instead of trying to sit down and focus and do that one task all at once, practice.

Focusing and doing one thing at a time, at a different time of day where the stakes don't matter. So for me that would be at nighttime where this is really not a huge deal. If I fail, it's okay. Right? I mean, failure is always okay, but there's [00:21:00] not gonna be a big repercussion. Try to implement that strategy or any strategy in those types of scenarios before you start implementing them into the, the big, the big ones.

Okay. So that's, that's one strategy to help you with overcoming this productivity killer second strategy. Is talk out loud. Self-talk is such a huge. Help for me at least, and I know that there is, this is a research based strategy for the neurodivergent brain where you can really talk through out loud what you are doing.

It will help you. It has been shown to help with focus, with follow through with efficiency, and it can help you with that negative self-talk that will often happen. In, you know, throughout our day in, in those scenarios. So talking out loud can really help you [00:22:00] stay grounded, stay more present, more mindful of what you are doing in those moments, and help you complete each step of the routine.

More efficiently. Okay? So that's the second strategy that's gonna help you with this. And then the third strategy for my task hoppers, especially for those, this is more relevant for the work strategy or for the work tasks, but this could be relevant for house tasks too, is the 10 minute rule. I've talked about this as the two minute rule.

I've talked about this as a five minute rule. Now I'm talking about it as the, as the 10 minute rule. It honestly doesn't really matter all that much. You get to decide what works best for you. But. Decide on a certain amount of time that you're going to commit to doing one task before you stop it and move to something else.

So whether that's two minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes, whatever. I wouldn't go much longer than that to tell you the truth, but start there and [00:23:00] commit to just doing it for that amount of time. I am only gonna work on this evaluation report for 10 minutes, and in this 10 minutes I'm not gonna do anything else.

I'm not gonna get up and get a drink. I'm not gonna go answer my phone. I'm not gonna scroll. I'm not gonna check my email real quick just to make sure nothing important came in. No, it's 10 minutes. I'm doing this and only this for the next 10 minutes and just see what happens. See what happens. I think it will help you be a little bit more proactive with your time rather than reactive.

And what you'll find a lot of times anyway, is that those five minutes or 10 minutes lead right into longer periods of time where you're actually getting some of the real work accomplished. Okay. Third time suck. The third productivity killer, I gave you a little hint at this at the beginning of the episode, is all or nothing [00:24:00] thinking, okay?

All or nothing thinking. This is a big one for those of us with a DHD, what tends to happen is that the neurodivergent brain struggles with the gray, the middle ground. So you're either all in or you're all out. It's either all good or it's all bad. It was either a really great day or it was a crappy day.

It was either a really good session or it wasn't a really good session. We don't necessarily think about the gray, but the power, the beauty, the story is in the gray. It's in the middle. Nothing is all good or all bad. Nothing is all this or nothing that isn't that funny that I just said. Nothing is all good.

Nothing is all bad. I'm absolutely demonstrating all or nothing thanking for you right here if you know, you know, but. I'll give you some examples of how this will show up. I can't [00:25:00] write this evaluation report. I can't start it right now because I'm never gonna finish it. I only have a half hour, so I'm gonna wait until I've got like two or maybe three hours of time available at once, and then I can just get it all done.

So instead of starting the report, you put it off and you write nothing. Instead of, let's say, doing session notes, well, I'm not just gonna write this one session note because you know, I only have like five minutes and I tend to take at least 10 for a session note and I can't really do more than one session note, so might as well just wait till I can knock out a chunk of them at once and in some.

Scenarios that might make sense, but in a lot of ti, a lot of scenarios, and a lot of times that does not make sense because what winds up happening is you're just sort of missing opportunities to get little chunks of work [00:26:00] accomplished. If you keep waiting for when you have a whole load of time, like a whole block of time to get something done, it's going to take you longer.

To get that thing done, meaning that's gonna be an open loop in your mind that will remain open until you find that block, that big block of time that may never come. And if it does come, it's not come until a while and. And a lot of times you think you're gonna have that block of time and you either don't, something changes or it's something comes up or it's not as long as you thought it was gonna be, or you get sick or there's a snow day and now you don't have the information that you need in order to get the work done.

Ask me how I know. So it tends to, you know, if you kind of wait for the right time. It will never happen because there is no right time. It's sort of like that. So I want you to really think about where am I? Where am [00:27:00] I demonstrating all or nothing thinking, where is all or nothing thinking showing up for me and how is that killing my productivity?

I really also want you con to consider one of my favorite mantras, affirmations, if you will, is progress over perfection. So progress over perfection and getting a little bit of something done rather than all of something done has been very helpful for me. And thinking about compounding results little.

What is the expression? It's like little drops, make a mighty ocean. It's something like that. Many, many tiny drops a mighty river makes. It's something like that. I'm totally butchering it, but I think about that a lot. Just little, little drops that don't feel like they're effective, that don't feel like they're moving the needle if you, and a lot of times we [00:28:00] stop.

Because before it does become effective, before it does move the needle because we're not seeing the progress right away. But that is how we get to the progress. That's how we, that's how we get the big results. It's the small results that build up over time. So look for those opportunities to create those small results.

Alright, so those are three productivity killers. And some strategies to help you overcome them. As we are wrapping up, I want to give you a couple of key takeaways and invite you into the SLP support group on Facebook to continue the conversation so quickly. For those of you who have A DHD or think you do, or for those of you who are struggling with productivity instead of fighting.

Those tendencies instead of fighting any of these time sucks that I mentioned today. Learn to recognize them and learn to leverage them, make them work for [00:29:00] you. Okay? Think about, is this task moving me toward my bigger goals? Is this something I want to say yes to? Is this something I'm going to want to say yes to later on?

Right? Am I still gonna feel good about that later? Am I hopping from thing to thing? Instead, what can I sort of anchor down into and focus on and look for the power of the middle, the messy middle, the gray, not the black, not the white, all of the gray in the middle, and recognize that that is where the productivity lies.

Alright, so your challenge is to this week, identify one of those three productivity killers. Those three time sucks in your own routines, whether it's a work routine or a home routine. And test one of the strategies that I gave you to help you overcome it. And [00:30:00] I'd love to hear about some of these challenges and some of these wins in the SLP support group.

So make sure you join the free Facebook group. The link is in the show notes, and if you want more individualized, customized, one-on-one support. I currently have three openings for one-on-one coaching. For productivity and time management, and I would love to talk with you to see if we would be a good fit.

So feel free to click the link in the show notes to schedule a free consult. I'll walk you through what I can do to help. Alright, that's it for today's episode. I will talk with you all next week. Bye.