Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
Processing Speed
My husband and I joke about the difference in our natural speeds, but sometimes, it’s more annoying than funny. I am, by nature, fast. I talk too fast, I rush when I shouldn’t, I barrel through life like the New Yorker that I am. My husband, on the other hand, is methodical and slow. Verrrry slow.
Recently, I’ve been reading Bright Kids Who Can’t Keep Up, by Ellen Braaten and Brian Willoughby, a book geared towards parents whose children struggle with slow processing speeds. The authors, both doctors, explain how people are wired differently and have different speeds. Some people seem to process slowly in just one area, like verbal processing, while others are slow across the board, but either way it can make school and work challenging. Differences in processing speeds can also create frustration in families, when one person is speeding ahead and another is always lagging behind.
The book brought to mind several of my clients whose organization struggles seem to stem in part from the gap between the speed at which they are able to process things and the rate at which those things, be they e-mails, magazines or school forms, come in. Of course my first instinct is always to stem the flow to reduce the influx, but there is a limit to how much we can do that our busy lives. Braaten and Willoughby substantiate what I have observed, which is that routine and structure can help mitigate the issue. It has taken me years to slow down and become more methodical and consistent in my work style, and likewise slow processors can learn to increase their productivity by adhering to good systems.
We can’t change who we are, we can only hope to develop better habits and create structures that support our particular style of working.
No one is perfect; some of us just have better systems.