KADmom, I don't know if this is an idea that helps or not, but we definitely have started (beginning at about 8-9yo) to develop task-discrimination skills in DD-- that is, any task assigned by someone else (or even a self-selected one, in some instances) has to be triaged for relative importance, because as you're noting, there are only so many hours in each day.
So a word search? At that grade level? Yeah-right. That ranks a big fat "worthy of Meh-to-good-enough" on the effort scale. This is a fairly novel idea for a perfectionist, I should add; the notion that there are definitely tasks for which "my best" is really not required. Like, at all. She judges the basic integrity and authentic value of each assignment, and treats it accordingly. If it has something to TEACH her, or if it is important to the class grade, or something, well, then fine-- treat it with respect and care. But total garbage intended to act as "filler?" Not-so-much.
This has freed up a LOT more time around here.
Initially, we used a 'budget' of daily schoolwork time to force her to prioritize tasks this way, but now she does it on her own.
It's very sad to me that there are schools that do that kind of "differentiation" but I've seen it as well. The only reason it stopped eating my DD alive was that we gave her explicit instructions to start blowing off the clearly STUPID things.
