Getting it done.

Making decisions to do a task and then following through on those tasks no matter how large or small can be daunting for some people and rather easy for others. Why is that? How is it that the person who can manage follow through can actually do this and is it done with ease or with difficulty?
There are those that make lists and cross their tasks off the list as they accomplish the task but what is that fundamental drive that psychologically separates those people from the ones that make that same list and it sits having its tasks without that coveted crossing?
I have often pondered this question. I doubt very much it has to do with the intelligence of these people and yet the consequences can be devastating not to mention how society shuns them and identifies these people as indeed stupid or lazy.
However, are they really stupid or lazy or irresponsible or any of the other derogatory words that tend to go with the incompletion of tasks? This is where the question starts being broken down by other factors like for example age. To apply this situation to a child of perhaps eight-years-old it could be explained away as acting out for attention. Some might even apply this same answer to an adult of 28.
However it is far more likely that it is not the case in our 28 year-old. So what happened? Are we really facing a situation that some would label it with all those derogatory concepts or is this a type of psychological predisposition? I dare not say some kind of physiological disease because that is not my point. I do concede that there are some situations that would fall into this category and I am putting those aside. My interest lies in those that are generally not suffering from any significant psychological interruptions yet they still struggle with completion of tasks.
I simply wonder if it is a personality predisposition and that it is not linked in any way to intelligence. Is it appropriate for those around this person to bombard this person with negative feedback and suggestions for success such as making the highly touted and ever made holy list that is not completed?
My thinking is that as Einstein reminded us how it is insane to continue to do the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome that if the list has not worked in 28 years for our poor example guy it is probably insane to think it is going to start working now. Perhaps it is time to start looking for another solution.
As I see it the problem is unlikely in the actual doing of the tasks but rather the impetus to begin. So then the question is not a matter of why has the person not completed the list it is actually why has the person not started. What is that specific thing that separates those who can start with ease and those who either have a great difficulty starting or cannot start at all? By my observation it would appear that this is a phenomenon that is on a continuum with a barrier for successful initiation that is highly volatile. So how do we actively influence that highly volatile barrier for success?
As an OT I think this is an area where Occupational Therapy could provide a great deal of successful treatment. This is where an OT can really work one-on-one with a patient and help them to identify what is really proving to be the largest barrier for success. An OT would help the client by creating activities and strategies that utilize a client’s most meaningful activities or as they are also called occupations to overcome and perhaps lower those barriers so that they can ultimately find results in the form of long-term success.

Sex talk and Occupational Therapy

I learned in class last night about creating online surveys. These are trickier to design than you might think. Take the simple act of requesting demographic information. Researchers really benefit from getting demo info. (Nielson makes a ton of money on demo's alone) Anyway, in my pursuit of developing the best Occupational Therapy focused website, I will need to know about the demographics of my constituency (my prof keeps insisting I call it the frame, but that is just confusing to me... so I am sticking with constituency).

So we were sitting in class discussing the development of an online survey that includes demographic information. So, the first think we talk about is sex (ahem, gender). This one should be easy right... wrong (mind you we were getting a bit punchy) but he said there are only two genders so the type of question should be nominal (where you just name stuff) and have a setting where you can only choose one. Someone then pointed out (correctly so) that there are some people who are both sexes. Then another person said, 'oh like cross dressers'. The conversation shifted to discussing how there is a difference between gender and sex. (um... yeah, one is way more fun than the other... ---oops must maintain G rating... anyway I digress) The conversation explored how people are born with a sex and they choose a gender. That is all well and good until you recognize that some people are born with all the mm... 'parts'. The class continued to banter on this distinction and I lost interest in what they were saying.

My mind started to wonder and I found myself having an internal discussion about how people focus much of their lives around how they define themselves. We are sexual beings and anyone who denies this is just not thinking in broad enough terms. As an occupational therapy student, we had a class session devoted to the discussion of how we can help our clients with needs that arise around sex.

Not only to we as OT's have to be sensitive and responsive to our client's needs we need to also recognize that as an OT we might need to help someone say for example a transvestite re-learn dressing. This population may have a few very different needs than a traditional male/female dressing components. I don't know much about this, as I don't have any friends who are transvestites. But if I did, I might ask them about the challenges they might face if they were hurt in such a way that would make dressing difficult. I see the topic of transvestitism occasionally on TV, but that is my only experience and we all know you can't blindly trust what you see on TV. Regardless, I think that there are other sex/gender issues that may be at issue for a client/patient of an OT. We as OT's need to be aware that these are real issues that real people face.

As for my class... we then moved on to culture/ethnicity... you guessed it... we then had a half hour discussion (where some very good points were made) about defining culture vs. ethnicity…

And I was already tired and a little sad from the sex (or is it gender... I am still confused) talk.