One Brain at a Time

Just keep your other brain(s) busy

I often feel like I have (at least) 2 brains:

• Productivity Brain:

  • Crushing Tasks

  • Researching

  • Planning

  • Following Detailed Directions

  • Hyperfocus

  • Higher Level Thinking (e.g., writing code, filling out forms)

  • Serious exercise (e.g., running)

• Nurture Brain:

  • Caring for children, setting up kids activities etc.

  • Cooking

  • Gardening

  • Cleaning

  • Organizing/Arranging my House

I’m intentionally not calling these “work brain” and “home brain”. At work, I do use my Nurture Brain when comforting a stressed out colleague or building/maintaining relationships. At home, I use my productivity brain when setting up plans, doing a ton of cooking for hosting, or doing some kind of mega deep clean where I hyperfocus on getting 100 things done in 2 hours. So these aren’t strict work/home dichotomies.

It’s more just that the things I’m working toward when using my Nurture Brain won’t result in actually producing anything, but more just going with the flow of the endless people stuff/childcare/cleaning/laundry cycle (the things that are never “done” just moving through their daily cycle).

One thing I learned during the pandemic is that attempting to do Productivity Brain stuff while little kids are around is literally hell. Even if young kids are totally occupied, haven’t shown any interest in you whatsoever all day because they’re busy doing their own stuff, as soon as you turn on your productivity brain, they need 300 things and help and want to show you and you have to WATCH ME MOM etc.

Oh hey mom have you sat down for the first time in 4 hours to try and compose an email? Cool despite the fact that I was just playing independently totally great I now cannot be put down so you will have to type it out with one hand love you Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash

When kids are around, regardless of what I want to be doing, I have to be in Nurture Brain. The weird thing about those Nurture Brain tasks - cleaning, gardening etc. - is that my kids seem to allow me to do them pretty much endlessly without interruption. So I could spend pretty much all day doing laundry, dishes, cleaning, organizing, and gardening, and my kids would be around but mostly doing their own thing. But if at any point I try to sit down at a laptop or type a detailed thought out in a text message, NOPE.

I think this is because Nurture Brain stuff is often physical or at least visible to kids. You’re not ‘just sitting there’. When kids see me ‘just sitting there’ (even if my brain is going 10,000 miles an hour) they’re like, “mom must be bored, this is a great time to talk to her endlessly and show her all this cool stuff I’m doing.” But when I’m sweeping the floor, they’re like, oh better keep playing over here so I don’t get roped into cleaning with her. Or, more likely, just are like, “mom’s busy” - even if it’s just subconscious.

Keeping The Other Brain Occupied

Now the thing about either brain setting is that the other mode gets bored as heck while it’s idle.

My brain needs some background processes to run.

In either mode, I need music, a podcast, or something to occupy my idling Other Brain. The weird thing about this is that I don’t really hear or pay attention to these things - I will listen to podcasts while cleaning, and 3 episodes later, I have zero memory of what I actually listened to. But my Other Brain was super chilled out and occupied.

I talk to a lot of ADHD folks who say the same thing - they need background noise or something playing in the background to really focus on anything, whether it’s cleaning or editing spreadsheets.

I visualize this like my different brain modes are each trying to cram themselves through a doorway at the same time (the doorway being my ability to focus, basically). Playing music or a podcast is a way of getting one of my brains to hang out in the waiting room so the other one can get through the doorway. Otherwise, they are both stuck there, and I’m doing literally nothing at all.

Just chill out in this nice waiting room and listen to a podcast, Other Brain! Photo by Jose Losada on Unsplash

Both Nurture Brain and Productivity Brain both clamor to be the ‘active’ brain calling the shots, which just ends up in me being either totally paralyzed or switching between tasks and finishing nothing.

I’ve started to really consciously call up which brain needs to take over - sometimes if I wake up in total Productivity Brain but I’ve got kid stuff to do for a couple of hours, I say (internally) to myself “ok Nurture Brain you’re up! Productivity Brain we’ll meet up later.”

Am I completely bananas? Yes, for sure, but it’s a helpful bit of self-awareness that helps me regulate my own expectations for the moment - and I’ll take all the self-regulation I can get.

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