316: From Thinking to Doing: Action-Oriented Executive Functioning Skills for Graduate Success (Part 2)

316: From Thinking to Doing: Action-Oriented Executive Functioning Skills for Graduate Success (Part 2)

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Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Are you someone who has ever said out loud, I am full of ideas. I'm very creative, but somehow, despite all the many ideas that I have, I am not as great at getting started, or I need support with staying organized, or it takes me a while to finish it on time. If so, then you might be someone who is struggling with some action oriented executive functioning skills.[00:02:00]

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And you are gonna benefit a lot from today's episode because that's exactly what we're talking about. We're talking about how to go from thinking to doing, and the action oriented executive functioning skills that you can strengthen today for graduate success.

Welcome to the award-winning grad School Fem Touring podcast. The place for first gen Bipoc to listen in on inclusive grad school stories and learn about personal development and productivity tips. This is Yvette Martinez Vu, a certified coach, consultant and author, and I will be serving as your femtor, providing you with insider knowledge to help you reach your personal and professional [00:03:00] goals.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Grad School Femtoring podcast.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: This is your host, Doctora Yvette. Today I am offering you part two of a two part mini series on executive functioning skills. In the previous episode, I talked about executive functioning skills related to mastering your mental workspace and cognitive processing skills. For this episode, we're talking about all things action oriented skills, and we're gonna start out with reminding you that if you're new here and you haven't listened to the previous episode, go ahead and listen to that one. And if you're also new to executive functioning skills, go ahead and listen to a former episode called Executive Functioning Skills 101 which I will once again link in the [00:04:00] show notes.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And just as a quick reminder, what are executive functioning skills? They are skills that help you to execute, and that means any skills that help you to plan, focus, remember, and manage your actions.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And for today, the first executive functioning skill I'm gonna be talking about is task initiation and planning.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So task initiation is what it sounds like it is. It's your ability to start something and planning is your ability to map it out. So your ability to begin a complex task paired with your ability to map out the steps needed to complete said task. Why does this matter? Because if you are someone who procrastinates a lot or who struggles when you're [00:05:00] working on long-term projects, then you might be someone who could benefit from some task initiation and planning skills.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So let's talk about those strategies that can help you. If you're struggling with task initiation, I always say break it down into the smallest most minute step and give yourself a very, very small window of time to work on it. So you can implement a five minute rule, for example, where you commit to starting this task that you've been avoiding for just five minutes, and that can help you to overcome that initial resistance that you've been facing.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: The second one is implementation of intentions. So using if then statements. So if it's 10:00 AM then I'm going to start working on my literature review and the if then statements are helpful [00:06:00] because you can also use it to account for your energy levels. So if I am feeling low energy, then I can work on this. Whatever is an easier task for you. If I'm feeling more energetic, then I will work on and then name the thing that's harder to do. So this if then statement can be helpful, especially when it's paired with very specific language around when you're gonna work on something , and what is the thing that you're gonna work on.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: The third strategy you can implement is what I call backwards planning or reverse engineering, and this is where you start with a deadline and then you plan out every single step that you need to complete to get to that deadline. I do this all the time. When I help grad students create their own dissertation timelines, we work backwards from their ideal dissertation defense state, and then we map out [00:07:00] every single thing they need to do to get to that defense state. So those are the three task initiation and planning strategies. .

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: The second set of executive functioning skills I'm gonna talk about today are organization and time management. So, organization is your ability to create systems for your materials and the information you have.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: While time management is your ability to allocate time effectively. So your ability to plan out when and how you're gonna do things in a way that works for you. This is helpful because this helps you when you're managing large volumes of information, which if you're a grad student, you're doing that all the time.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: This also helps you balance multiple responsibilities and in today's age, who doesn't have multiple responsibilities. And then of course, this is all going to help you to prevent [00:08:00] burnout cuz I don't want you waiting until the last minute to do all these things and then never giving yourself a break.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So the first strategy is tied to figuring out a digital organizing system that works for you. And I actually, I heard about this system and I haven't implemented it myself, but it's called the para method, PARA. So where you organize your files based on projects, areas, resources, and archives. And I would make it even simpler than that if you have a big, messy set of documents or Google Drive or Box or external hard drive, wherever you keep your information. One simple way to organize things is by thinking about your life in big, broad umbrella categories. What are the main areas of your life? Is it research? Is it [00:09:00] teaching? Is it your personal life? Is it, you name it?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And then moving things based on those umbrella categories and I also recommending having an archive folder for all the random miscellaneous stuff that you no longer need, but you still want access to just in case, create an archive folder so you can implement this para method, or you can implement my umbrella method of thinking about your life in big umbrella categories and then moving all your files into those broad categories that you, at the very least can find things based on what area of their life that they're part of. Another thing I recommend, and I think a lot of people already do this, but it's still a good reminder, is to make time to review your week and make time to plan your week.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So don't just plan your week ahead. You wanna do this like two week review where you're constantly looking back [00:10:00] at the previous week and then looking forward at the next week. Why? Because this can help you to plan ahead. In looking back, you can see w hat didn't I get to last week that I need to get to this week, and what do I need to get to this week that's tied to what's coming up next week?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So working in these two week windows of, let me look back at last week and reflect on it. Look at what I have going on this week, and then think about how is what I'm working on this week gonna impact next week. So it's like a two to three week window of reviewing your weeks that have come up, and then your weeks ahead.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Aside from this weekly review, the third strategy I want to mention, which I've mentioned before, but I just wanna keep it simple for this episode, and this is the time blocking strategy. I have a separate episode dedicated to what is time blocking, how to time block, and then I have another episode that I [00:11:00] recently released on what to do if time blocking doesn't work for you, but this is not that episode.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: This is just about recognizing that it can be helpful to assign specific blocks of time or specific areas of time if blocks feels too rigid for deep work or focus work or work, that requires a lot of sustained attention and energy. This helps you because if you are intentional about setting aside that time, then you can protect that time.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: You can hold it as sacred and make sure that there are very few to no distractions during that time. But again, if time blocking doesn't work for you, go ahead and listen to my episode on what to do when time blocking doesn't work. I'm happy to link it in the show notes so you can take a look at it.

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Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Okay. The third executive functioning skill I'm gonna talk about, or the third set of skills I'm gonna talk about are inhibitory control and emotional regulation. So these are two more. What is inhibitory control?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: That's your ability to resist impulses. You can also call it impulse control. Go ahead. I should have just said that to begin with. And then, [00:13:00] what is emotional regulation? That's your ability to manage your emotions and Ooh, you know, some of us need it more than others, especially during seasons and, especially high stress seasons.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: We all could benefit from some ways to strengthen our impulse control and our emotional regulation. When I think about impulse control, I actually think a lot about teenagers, and I think about how we don't fully develop our brain until age 26. And so it's understandable that teenagers will want to engage in more high risk behavior if they haven't developed the skills of impulse control, how to manage it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And same thing with emotional regulation that sometimes goes hand in hand with impulse control. Why is this important to you as a fully grown adult? Most of my listeners are above age 26. Some of you are like 22, 23 or younger. You're in college age. That's okay. I'm happy to have you here. [00:14:00] But for the most part, the good majority of you are already over 26 and likely have a fully developed brain.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Nevertheless, these things come up. If you struggle with motivating, then you're struggling with one of these things. If you struggle with dealing with feedback, especially harsh feedback, then yeah, that's gonna impact your ability to regulate your emotions. So it still relevant to you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: What are some strategies for strengthening these skills? I'm a big fan of tools. That's why I have a digital download that's a productivity bundle with two different spreadsheets and one of them has 40 plus different tools you can use to boost your productivity.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So there's a lot of tools you can use. But specifically I wanna call out two of them. One of them is called Freedom, and I remember using it in grad school. I don't use it anymore, but what I liked about it is that it helped to block distractions. Another one is [00:15:00] called Forest, and I haven't personally used it, but I have had clients who used it and it's really cool how you can visualize all the work you've been doing by building a forest in the app. So those are a couple of examples.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: There's a lot more tools you can use. Go ahead and check out my productivity bundle if you'd like. I also recently added a spoonie and chronic illness toolkit that includes six different set of digital downloads that can help you with boosting your productivity in ways that honor your time, your energy, your capacity. So check them out if they might be helpful to you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: But going back to the strategies, another strategy that I recommend, and I often encourage this when working with my coaching clients, is to have them acknowledge what their core values are. So identify those core values and then make values based decisions. So finding a system for yourself that [00:16:00] helps you to make decisions, especially when you're feeling emotional or when you're struggling with feeling impulsive, is taking a step back to give yourself time to think through and process. Does this align with my core values? And again, that can redirect your impulsive decisions and it can help you to better manage your emotions in the moment.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And then the third strategy I'm gonna mention for this set of skills is naming and finding strategies to regulate your emotions. And for this, I'm a big fan of therapy and using emotion wheels, you can Google emotion wheels. I feel like most of us were not taught. The full breadth and scope of the types of emotions that we can feel at any given time, and even, I sometimes have to [00:17:00] go back to my my emotion wheel that I have. I printed it, I laminated it, and I have it sitting next to my desk so that I'm not just like, oh, I'm feeling bad today.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Instead, I can be like, actually, I'm feeling tired actually because I'm tired. I'm feeling unfocused, and I'm actually also tired and I'm also actually achy. And what's another thing that's a deeper level of this is to not just think about your emotions, but. Also get yourself an emotion sensation wheel so you can link your emotions to what you're physically feeling in your body.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: That's the next level work that I'm doing right now, because as someone who deals with a lot of chronic pain, it helps me to be able to name what I'm feeling both on an emotional level and also on a sensation level. And that can also help me to then identify techniques to [00:18:00] help me to manage those emotions and sensations like nervous system, calming techniques. So try it out. Get yourself an emotion wheel. Get yourself a sensation wheel and start to name how you're feeling.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: All right. That was it for this episode on helping you to go from thinking to doing and the more action oriented executive functioning skills that'll help you with graduate school, personal and professional success.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Oh my gosh. Sometimes I struggle to name my episodes because I feel like it is all interrelated. Helping you to work on college success, grad school success, personal success, professional success. It keeps going. It keeps happening no matter whether you're in your twenties, your thirties, your forties, your fifties, and so on, we can all benefit from strengthening our executive functioning skills.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And just as a quick review, what are the [00:19:00] executive functioning skills we covered today? We covered task initiation planning, organization, time management, impulse control and emotional regulation. That's it for this episode. Like I said, I'm gonna mention a lot of the different, , related podcast episodes for you to keep doing the added learning.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And I'm also gonna link my productivity bundle and my toolkit for spoonies and neurodivergent folks, if you wanna check it out too. Thanks so much for listening, and as always, I will talk to you all next time.

Thanks so much for listening. If you liked what you heard, here are three ways you can support the show. The first is to make sure you're [00:20:00] subscribed and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. The second way is to get your copy of my free resource kit linked in my show notes. This kit includes tools, worksheets, and podcast playlists on all things grad school productivity and personal development.

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