I Think I Finally Understand Executive Functioning

I've just been pretending like that term made any sense to me up until now

As a burnt-out-former-gifted-kid I feel comfortable saying I’m reasonably “smart,” but unraveling and understanding what exactly executive function is has kicked me up and down the road since my ADHD journey began.

Maybe it’s just me, but when I hear “executive” my brain conjures up a bunch of cringey old white guys laughing maniacally in a fancy boardroom. Things like “C-Suite” and big corner offices with giant windows and suits pop up. The connections my brain makes with the word executive are not helpful in understanding the differences and “dysfunctions” of being a neurodivergent in a world built for neurotypicals.

Then I heard a really simple breakdown in a podcast (I can’t remember the episode but they are all really great!) that helped the concept click into place. Executive functions are the skills and processes needed to EXECUTE tasks (both big and small). Why isn’t this made more clear in the neurodivergent spaces? We get so many lists of what executive functioning skills might look like, but not what they mean as a whole. Maybe this is just another way my brain works differently but before this explanation, I felt like there was this mental block in trying to figure out what the heck my executive functions were actually supposed to be doing which made it really difficult to understand the ways in which they might be different or impaired.

New level of neurospicy understanding — unlocked.

Now that this has clicked into place, I want to spend the rest of this month paying attention to some of the more common executive functioning skills and track how well I’m able to access and use them to execute tasks throughout the day.

I really like the way Tom Brown, PhD. organizes executive functions into clusters. According to the CHADD website:

Brown breaks executive functions down into six different “clusters.”

1. Organizing, prioritizing and activating for tasks

2. Focusing, sustaining and shifting attention to task

3. Regulating alertness, sustaining effort and processing speed

4. Managing frustration and modulating emotions

5. Utilizing working memory and accessing recall

6. Monitoring and self-regulating action

According to Brown, these clusters operate in an integrated way, and people with ADHD tend to suffer impairments in at least some aspects of each cluster. Because these impairments seem to show up together much of the time, Brown believes they are clinically related.

Under Brown’s model, difficulties in these clusters lead to attentional deficits, as individuals have difficulty organizing tasks, getting started, remaining engaged, remaining alert, maintaining a level emotional state, applying working memory and recall, and self-monitoring and regulating actions.

I’m going to start with the first four clusters and focus on one each week for the rest of December. Even as I’m typing this I know it’s probably too ambitious considering the huge increase in pressure that these systems are under during this month… but maybe that will give me an even better picture?

So for next week, I’ll focus on organizing, prioritizing and activating for tasks. The best way to track this is by evaluating how I organized my tasks at the beginning of the day and comparing that to what was completed.

I can use my Todoist list to track tasks and Llama Life to show what I worked on and for how long throughout the day.

Stay tuned! Or don’t - no pressure here!