What is “Time Confetti”?
Similar to confetti, which is made of shards of paper, ‘time confetti’ is a concept that symbolizes broken up pieces of time, fragmented by continued interruption—most often personal down time, or leisure time.
For parents, the interruptions causing the ‘time confetti’ are most often categorized in their mind as ‘obligations’ or ‘responsibilities’ that justify or affirm the pattern of pulling attention away from a focused goal or shared familial interaction into a ‘quick task that MUST’ be done.
While there is brain research that supports the benefits of task completion and the process of checking off completed tasks, parents experiencing time confetti are left feeling conflicted and exhausted, versus accomplished and satisfied with oneself. They have not had an opportunity to connect socially as a family, play with their children, or engage in a sustained task that allows themselves to recharge.
Maria DelCorso, MA, CCC-SLP, a practicing speech-language pathologist whose career has centered around children and parents, co-founded New Agenda, an executive function coaching practice, in response to families’ challenges with executive function, and the impact on parenting and child development. She explains, “Time confetti is a modern world proclivity, shaping family relationships and interactions, impacting mental health of parents and children, and unknowingly modeling patterns of decision-making that yield towards distraction.”
Contributing Factors:
Digital Demands:
Amie Davies, M.Ed, a career special educator and also co-founder of New Agenda, shared that the primary reason families are vulnerable to experiencing ‘time confetti’ are societal expectations of immediate responsiveness to digital information, whether related to work emails, texts, calls, or alerts. Thus, when a parent settles in for leisure time activities, or play time with children, there is a tendency to shift focus and respond to any incoming messages on their phone or watch, resulting in fragmented personal time. Davies explained,
“Our response to incoming messages and alerts is automatic. In connecting with the messages or alerts, we disconnect with being present in our social or leisure engagement. At that moment, parents often decide to quickly respond to messages or emails telling themselves ‘this will just take a minute’ and ‘it’s urgent.’ We are a distracted generation telling ourselves we can ‘multi-task’. Yet the research is clear; multi-tasking results in the loss of concentration and ‘switching cost’ in which time is lost in switching focus from one action to another. Through EF coaching, we work with our clients to understand that the ‘switching cost’ impacts productivity in the work environment, relational interactions in the home environment, and brain health and wellness.”
Executive Dysfunction:
Executive dysfunction refers to difficulties with the mental processes we use to plan, prioritize, organize, focus attention, manage distractions, remember instructions, manage time, make decisions, problem solve, and regulate emotions effectively. These skills are managed by the brain’s frontal lobe and are crucial for everyday life tasks, from organizing a schedule to controlling impulses. While it is not a diagnosis itself, it is often present with individuals with ADHD, anxiety, depression, learning disabilities, processing disorders and autism. Executive dysfunction can also show up during periods of chronic stress, burnout, or fatigue—or with the aging process, even in individuals without a clinical diagnosis.
Executive dysfunction often leads to time confetti, as individuals have difficulty with:
Time management—without clear planning or prioritization, the day gets filled reactively—responding to distractions, switching between tasks, or procrastinating—leading to fragmented time
Task initiation—Struggling to get started causes long stretches of procrastination followed by frantic bursts of activity, which scatter time throughout the day.
Rigid thinking or hyperfocus—Either over-focusing on unimportant details or being unable to transition between tasks eats up valuable time and creates unproductive gaps.
Overwhelm and avoidance—When tasks feel too big or emotionally heavy, avoidance kicks in. People fill those small "in-between" moments with scrolling, tidying, or doing anything except the hard thing—breaking time into even more confetti.
Interruptions and distractions—Executive dysfunction makes it hard to resist internal (e.g., anxiety thoughts) and external (e.g., phone alerts) distractions, so deep work is interrupted frequently.
Understanding the Impact of Time Confetti:
It is imperative for parents to recognize patterns of time confetti and the impact on their:
mental health,
physical health,
relationships with their children,
influencing their children’s development of focus and concentration.
First, patterns of time confetti result in a reduced capacity for deep focus as well as deep rest. Parents often share with our EF coaches that they are pulled in many directions, answering emails during playtime, doing household chores between Zoom calls, or squeezing in self care between responsibilities. This disruption of flow due to constant switching, prevents meaningful productivity, connection, or relaxation, and results in mental fatigue and chronic stress.
Second, time confetti results in increased stress and cognitive overload. Fragmented time increases the number of transitions in a day, which taxes executive function skills such as planning, prioritizing, and self-regulation. The constant task-switching elevates cortisol levels, exacerbating feelings of ‘overwhelm’ or ‘chronically behind’.
Third, there is loss of personal identity and joy, over time, with patterned behaviors of time confetti. Amie Davies explained, “Time confetti interrupts personal and social moments of joy, reflection, or hobbies that nourish our soul, and mold our identity outside of parenting. This can lead to emotional depletion for many parents, a reduced sense of autonomy, and resentment or burn-out in relationships.”
Fourth, time confetti impacts emotional regulation. Davies explained that often parents are concerned with the development of emotional regulation strategies for their children. We work with parents in understanding that emotional regulation is a consideration across the lifespan. For parents without predictable blocks of downtime, it is challenging to emotionally regulate, resulting in shorter fuses, more reactive parenting responses, and subsequent guilt around their responses. The lack of consistent ‘recovery time’ or down time weakens resilience and reduces the ability to cope with everyday parenting stressors.
Lastly, DelCorso explained that time confetti undermines social connection and relationship, between partners, as well as parents and children. “Understanding the research on the impact of fragmented attention versus sustained attention in parenting, is empowering for parents,” DelCorso explained. “Speaking from the positive perspective, we have clear evidence that parenting with focused attention results in children having stronger language skills, stronger social bonds and social skills, and improved academic readiness and academic skills.” Some parents may be physically present, yet mental pre-occupation prevents being “fully there.” DelCorso explained, “By 9 months of age, children whose parents engage in focused attention have stronger joint attention skills, reading cues of their parents in interaction and play, and responding accordingly. Consequently, for children who repeatedly experience parents who are ‘multi-tasking’ and distracted from focused engagement, there is a prevalence of strained relationships, social disconnection, and/or feelings of social isolation. Complicating matters, the children themselves, learn the modeled patterns, impacting school and social relationships.”
Reducing Time Confetti by Shifting Mindset:
At New Agenda, our executive function coaches partner with parents and families in identifying patterns and strategies to support intentional shifts in mindset, habits, and environment, to support becoming more present, reduce ‘time confetti, and be less rushed. This includes:
Prioritized actions/goals for the day
To ‘reclaim time’ an executive function coach with New Agenda works with parents and professionals to understand strategies for deep focus. Deep focus involves decision-making or prioritization about what to do, and often what to NOT do. New Agenda’s EF coaches guide approaches with the story of creation/evolution of the approach, including:
Warren Buffett’s 2-List strategy for focused attention
The Eisenhower Box (4 square grid based on Important/Not Important, Urgent / Not Urgent
The Ivy Lee Method (Top 6 items daily in priority)
As parents adopt patterns of deep focus, this allows the satisfaction of work completion, and mindset, for uninterrupted social, leisure, and wellness time with children, family, and friends.
The practice of healthy time management patterns
Time blocking is a time management technique in which the day is divided into specific blocks of time, each dedicated to a particular task or activity.
Time blocking supports improved focus and commitment to work tasks, personal engagement, and mental health/wellness activities.
Time blocking includes building space between transitions to reduce rushing, allowing mental recharging, and social connections.
Clustering or batch tasks for emails, errands, and chores is a strategy to avoid constant switching, and improved time management. ‘Batch tasks’ work particularly well for parents juggling household responsibilities with work obligations and parenting engagement.
Pomodoro technique is a time management method that breaks work into focused 25 minute intervals, called “pomodoros” separated by short 5 minute breaks. After 4 “pomodoros” a longer 15-30 minute break is taken.
The Pomodoro technique is a strategy developed for improved productivity and focus. The application of this technique is taught to high school and college students learning to manage unstructured time, as well as parents and professionals.
DelCorso has also recommended this technique to parents for engaging in play time, or floor time, with their children. This is particularly true for parents whose children are struggling with language development whether due to specific speech-language concerns, hearing concerns, or neurodevelopmental differences. DelCorso explains, “When parents set a timer for 25 minutes of uninterrupted play time with their children, two outcomes are most frequently achieved: First, their child’s social and language skills flourish, and second their child’s behavior improves with engagement in play-based activities and affirmation of relationship. In the midst of this evolution, parents note how they were unaware of how fragmented their interactions were with their children. Everyone feels fulfilled, and empowered.”
Tech-free times: This includes removing distractions and creating designated tech-free times, beginning with meals, family time, and bedtime routines.
Often New Agenda’s EF Coaches advise parents to narrate their own presence: “I’m putting my phone down so I can really listen to you.” Our coaches advise parents to “allow your children to see that you are choosing ‘connection’ over distraction.”
Parents modeling these patterns will set expectations for their children, pre-teens, and teenagers as they also work to manage digital engagement.
For some parents, organizational strategies support tech-free times. This may include creating a charging station that is in an office, cabinet, or shelf-space that keeps technology out of sight and out of mind.
Other parents working with New Agenda’s Coaches have benefited from using apps to create new patterns with their phone use, allowing them to disconnect from their phones and stay more present while spending time with their children. These apps have included:
Forest: an app that allows you to plant a virtual tree that grows as you stay off your phone.
Flipd: an app that locks you out of distracting apps for set periods of time.
Freedom: an app that blocks access to websites, apps, or the internet across devising, reducing digital noise during family time.
One Sec: an app that forces a delay before opening a distracting app, asking if it is ‘worth it’--breaking the ‘autopilot’ habit.
Offtime: an app that allows you to create custom modes that block calls, texts, and apps, but allows emergency exceptions.
Healthy interactional patterns to support family and personal relationships.
Dedicated play time: Playtime together is the foundation for social interaction, communication, and problem solving. DelCorso advises parents of children of all ages that using time blocking and finding time to play together is imperative. “In addition to strengthening connection and bonding, it supports emotional development, brain development, teaches social and life skills, reduces stress, builds joy, and creates lasting memories.”
Conversation time: As a speech-language pathologist, DelCorso advises families to begin at a young age, developing conversation time. For young children, this may first be anchored in objects or photos, to support processing. As language development grows and matures, the process evolves into the language and discourse of sharing experiences.
Research supports when families engage in routine conversation time:
Children grow in vocabulary, comprehension and critical thinking skills;
relationships strengthen between parents and children;
children learn how to express emotions, understand other’s feelings, and navigate social situations;
parents model how to approach conflicts, make decisions, and uphold values through conversational topics;
a communication pattern of openness evolves supporting children’s mindset to share challenges, questions, and concerns as they grow older; and
feelings of emotional correctness and reduced stress evolve.
Develop rituals of connection: For each family this may look different based on culture and schedule. Our coaches at New Agenda remind parents that small dependable routines of connection build predictability of love, creating a lasting memory of connection, and create joy. These may include:
“Read Aloud” time,
cooking or baking rituals,
Morning hugs
After dinner walks
bedtime routines,
Saturday morning bike rides
Sunday bakery visit
Use waiting times: Whether in the car, or waiting in line, use these times for relaxed conversation or quiet connection. Make a mindful effort to not immediately pull a phone to ‘check messages’ or go on-line.
DelCorso recommends a balance of flexible thinking with parents and children. “Let your child lead the play time or part of your time together. Show your child that you are fully with them, and not managing them.”
Amie Davies complements this with guiding parents and students to use child-based check-lists to empower children to own their personal responsibilities and routines. This allows parent - interactions to focus on conversational engagement, versus child management of routines for which they can be accountable.
Deep connections between parents and children are further supported as parents slow down their body language and practice active listening. As a speech-language pathologist, DelCorso spends time with families modeling this approach, including lowering her body to the child’s level, making eye contact, nodding, pausing before responding, and allowing a variety of responding moves including affirmation, reflection, wondering, and laying in related thoughts. This signals “you matter.”
Use calming strategies: New Agenda’s Coaches partner with parents to engage in and model calming strategies. These include breathing exercises and mindfulness strategies. Davies explains, “Candidly, parenting at times can be frustrating. There is normalcy to that. Modern life is demanding, adding to frustrations. All too often, we are pulling out our devices to distract ourselves from our feelings–adults and children. Remapping such moments with breathing techniques and mindfulness creates the foundation for problem solving, relationship, and positive parenting engagement.”
Lastly, one can not discount the importance of rest and down time, so that parents may show up with patience. Healthy sleep hygiene is of the utmost importance. As Davies explained, “disruptive sleep patterns are routinely one of the driving instigators of executive dysfunction, creating internal disorganization for focus and engagement.”
Parting Thoughts About Addressing Time Confetti
Amie Davies, M.Ed, emphasized the importance of granting one-self grace when recognizing patterns and working to reset an approach.
“In our EF Coaching we remind our clients that we set attainable goals in small increments, as we work to reset patterns. Reflection upon our goals is open and honest, and we grant ourselves grace to consider progress and barriers as we tackle issues such as time confetti.”
The value of the work is observable.
“As our clients make gains working with their EF Coach, we see changes in parent interactions and approach, as well as positive changes in the engagement within the family unit.”
For more information on how New Agenda may help you with addressing patterns of Time Confetti or concerns, reach out to www.newagendacoaching.com