Who is rubato for?

Rubato is for anyone who wishes to “make the most out of time” – or – improve his/her Executive Functioning Skills as it relates to Time Management, Prioritizing, and Delay of Gratification.

A person or group of people who are personally or professionally faced with the challenge of completing a series of tasks within a specific period of time: The person running a meeting; The college student studying for exams; The homemaker who needs to multi-task; The person who needs to complete a series of projects by a certain deadline. (Read entire essay)

The Parent, Teacher, Coach, or Therapist who needs to teach the important lessons of Time Management, Decision Making, and Delay of Gratification to a younger individual. (Read entire essay)

The Special Education Teacher or Therapist who needs to take the extra step by using an interactive visual format that demonstrates the passage of time while concretely showing the cause-and-effect relationship within behavior choices. (Read entire essay)

Rubato for the Professional

A person or group of people who are personally or professionally faced with the challenge of completing a series of tasks within a specific period of time: The person running a meeting; The college student studying for exams; The homemaker who needs to multi-task; The person who needs to complete a series of projects by a certain deadline.

There is a case to be made for using an analog clock over a digital timer or other means to measure the passage of time. The analog clock provides a visual representation of time (60 minutes; 12 hours) along with a more fluid passing of time as the minute hand moves along the dial. A digital clock is more static. A useful analogy would be the visual map compared to a list of directions when traveling from point-A to point-B. If one is unfamiliar with where they are traveling, a list of directions are helpful at each specific moment in time when one needs to turn left, right, go straight, etc. A map with the route provides a bigger and more fluid picture of ones progress along with a visual sense of how much more he/she needs to travel. A digital clock is much like a list of directions while an analog clock is like a visual map.

The use of other means to measure the passing of time such as a stopwatch, egg timer, or even an hour glass are limited when compared to measure time on an analog clock because the former operate in a vacuum of time with no relationship with the actual time of the day. The analog clock shows the passing of time in real time. This is why rubato uses an analog clock format that operates in real time. The use of a digital clock and digital countdown are also provided as additional information but the real sense of the passage of time is far more obvious as the minute hand travels along the dial, shading out the different colored segments of time for each activity.

Rubato for The Parent, Teacher, Coach, or Therapist who needs to teach the important lessons of Time Management, Decision Making, and Delay of Gratification to a younger individual.

– and –

The Special Education Teacher or Therapist who needs to take the extra step by using an interactive visual format that demonstrates the passage of time while concretely showing the cause-and-effect relationship within behavior choices.

It is very difficult for a Parent, Coach, Therapist, or Educator to explain to a younger individual the important lessons of how to manage one’s time so to get what is required out of the way in order to have the time to truly enjoy what is more preferred. And this difficulty only gets more complicated if the Learner has Executive Functioning challenges and/or Special Needs.  With rubato the Learner experiences the lessons of prioritizing and time management for him or herself.  The Learner experiences how certain choices directly lead to tangible benefits in earning more time for preferred activities as well as the burden of having less time to do the things he or she really wants to do.

Delay of Gratification is an essential skill within effective Time Management.  rubato can be an important tool in setting the parameters to promote Delay of Gratification while encouraging the development of Executive Functioning around Time Management. 

Rubato helps the user keep track and manage time by offering a constant, color-coded visual representation of the passage of time around their schedule of activities--all in real time through the use of an analog clock format.

Unlike simple timers that operate within a time vacuum (egg timers, digital timers, and timers that show time elapsing visually via red dial or other means), rubato operates in real time.  With rubato the person sees time elapsing visually within actual time, allowing them to learn how to operate within a typical hour or set of hours. 

As a Board Certified Behavior Analyst and Licensed Family Therapist, I have worked with a number of families on the day-to-day challenges of Parents trying to get their children to “hurry up” and start and finish a variety of required actives.  Morning Routines, Bedtime Routines, Homework, Chores, etc. can all be time-sensitive situations that often require the Parent to constantly “push” their child through the demands.  By getting pushed, carried, or eventually rushed through a series of required activities, the Learner becomes frustrated in acquiring the necessary skills of learning to manage his or her time, to make better choices, and to eventually take over managing time for themselves.  rubato to the rescue! 

1 - Whenever possible, the required activity should be a “close-ended” event that is concrete enough for everyone to know what the expectations are.  When an activity is close-ended and concrete, it usually means that it is either countable and/or observable.  For example, if the person is to Read a Book before they get to Play Wii, the reading activity can be something like, Read 20 pages.  The Adult and Learner then agree on a time frame for reading 20 pages--let’s say 25 minutes.  Twenty pages is concrete, and countable, which is different than just instructing someone to read 25 minutes, because what does that mean? 
10 pages,15, 30?

Another example is to having to Clean Your Bedroom before being allowed to Watch TV.  The expectation to clean the bedroom needs to be concrete enough, so the Adult needs to verbally specify:  1) put your clothes away, 2) vacuum, and 3) empty your trash can.  This verbal instruction needs to be concrete (and close-ended) because it will be observable and everyone will know when all the steps have been completed.  Again, the Adult and Learner will need to decide how long it should take to Clean Your Room; let’s say, 30 minutes. This is different than just saying that one has to clean his/her bedroom for 30 minutes before watching TV.  Without clear, observable expectations the task Cleaning Your Room would be too open-ended. 

Unlike the required activity, the preferred activity can be open-ended.  Read a Book for pleasure, Watch TV, Play Wii, … all of these can be open-ended and only constrained by the amount of allotted time decided up front.  So, with any of these preferred activities, there is no practical purpose in deciding how many pages to read of a favorite book, or how many TV shows to watch or games to play on the Wii.  The preferred activity would continue as long as there is still time to do it. 

Assuming there is one hour to work with: If the required activity is Clean Your Room (with concrete instructions) estimated to take 30 minutes, that would leave another 30 minutes to Watch TV.  If the Learner accomplished all the tasks within Clean Your Room in only 20 minutes, then he/she would now have 40 minutes to Watch TV.  On the other hand, if the Learner took 40 minutes to clean the room, then there would only be 20 minutes left for TV.   By using rubato, the Learner would see the colored time frames that represented both Clean Your Room and Watch TV adjust themselves in this way:  Cleaning the bedroom in 20 minutes would result in the corresponding colored time period shrinking while the time period for Watch TV would expand.  The opposite is true to: the Learner would see the required activity of Clean Your Room expand while the amount of time to Watch TV would shrink, if they were taking longer than 30 minutes on their bedroom task. 

2 - The Learner is meant to experience how making certain decisions directly benefits or hinders his/her desire to have time for more preferred activities.  The Adult’s role is to teach the Learner through facilitating the use of rubato.  The Adult will also need to control the environment sufficiently enough so as to limit the Learner from gaining access to any of the identified preferred activities before he/she has earned them by successfully completing all required activities first.  If Play Wii is an identified preferred activity, then the Adult will need to have some level of physical control over the gaming system until any required activity is completed. 

3 - The Adult should expect the Learner to experience better decision-making within time management incrementally – meaning, that everyone learns in approximations (two steps forward, one step back.)  Depending on who the Learner is, it may be reasonable for the Adult to fade his/her involvement and allow the Learner to set up his/her own rubato clocks.  In the beginning, the Adult may need to set-up the clock(s) with the Learner present.  Eventually the Learner can set up the clock(s) and the Adult will only need to supervise.  Finally, the Adult may be able to stand further back and allow the Learner to continue to (mostly) succeed and (occasionally) fail – which would mean that he/she is continuing to develop Time Awareness and Management skills.