How to Support Executive Functioning
Executive functioning is like our brain’s admin team. It involves a set of functions that help to regulate our emotions, behaviours, and cognitive processes. Neurodivergent people often struggle with executive functioning more than neurotypical people, and this is down to differences in the way that resources have been allocated in the brain.
Importantly, executive functioning skills are morally neutral. Your executive functioning skills don’t actually say anything about your worth as a person, they are just a set of cognitive functions like any other. Because many neurotypical people have strength in their executive functioning skills society has been set up to require heavy executive functioning across most aspects of education, work, and daily living. This can cause neurodivergent people to internalise the idea that they are bad, lazy, stupid, slow, ditzy etc. etc., when really there is a clear reason why certain tasks may be more difficult. Learning to identify where you may have executive functioning weaknesses can help you to work out how to compensate for, outsource, or skill build in these areas. Below is a list of several key executive functions, and some tips on managing difficulty in these areas.
INHIBITORY CONTROL
This can be described as the ability to resist impulses and the ability to stop one’s own behaviour at the appropriate time. People with inhibitory control difficulties can struggle to resist impulses and consider the consequences before acting. They are often perceived as being less in control of themselves than their peers. As a child, parents or teachers may have been concerned about safety, and there may have been social consequences related to verbal or physical impulsiveness (i.e. speaking and acting ‘without thinking’). Inhibitory control difficulties can also impact problem solving; someone with poor inhibitory control often acts without first constructing a plan, which means that it can end up taking longer to complete the task than necessary because of the need to back track.
What can you do?
Engage in Stop. Think. Do. Work on developing a habit of pausing, thinking, and then acting. Just a small moment of pause can act a circuit breaker. Repeat this mantra to yourself, particularly when commencing a multi-step task, or when you are in situations that you know you have a tendency to act impulsively in.
TASK MONITORING
This involves task-oriented monitoring or work-checking habits. It involves assessing your own performance during or shortly after finishing a task to ensure accuracy or appropriate attainment of a goal. People with poor task monitoring tend not to be cautious in their approach to tasks and often do not notice and/or check for mistakes. They often rush through their work and make careless mistakes.
What can you do?
Check over your work as a second step, don’t try and do this while you work. Factor in time to do this, and break checking into small time blocks with little rewards between blocks.
Outsource checking. Have someone else check over your work or performance, and highlight errors.
SET SHIFTING
Set shifting is the ability to move freely from one situation, activity, approach, perspective, or way of thinking to another, as the circumstances demand. Key aspects of shifting include the ability to make transitions, tolerate change, problem solve flexibly, switch or alternate attention between tasks, and change focus from one task or topic to another. Mild difficulties here may compromise efficiency of problem solving and result in a tendency to get stuck or focused on a topic or problem, whereas more severe difficulties can result in more significant resistance and emotional response to change, and we can see ‘perseverative behaviours’. This is where the person continues to act in the same way despite that approach not working or external contextual information signalling that a change in approach is needed.
What can you do?
If you find yourself stuck on an idea or approach, brainstorm all the possible options, steps, or considerations that could be involved in the situation or task. This can also be helpful if you are in conflict with someone: what are all the possible ways in which this situation could be viewed? (Note: this doesn’t mean that you have to agree with that person, or that you necessarily have to change your approach, it can just help you be more aware of different approaches).
Where possible, structure your approach to tasks so that you complete one task at a time before adding an additional demand or task.
If you have to be flexible in one aspect of your life, ensure you have routines in other areas of life. Similarly, if you have had a day or week that required a lot of flexibility from you, allow yourself time to engage in a fixed routine or in repetitive actions or behaviours (e.g. listen to your favourite music on repeat, re-watch comfort shows, engage in repetitive craft activities, let family know exactly what your routine will be for the day and that you will be sticking to this etc.). Don’t expect yourself to be flexible with everything.
Communicate to the relevant people in your life that you may require additional explanations or demonstration to grasp the demands of a novel task when it is first presented. It will be helpful if they explain exactly how this is different to the previous approach or task, and allow a period of ‘grace time’ where you get used to the new approach.
INITIATION
Initiation is the ability to begin a task or activity and to independently generate ideas, responses, or problem-solving strategies. Poor initiation typically does not reflect noncompliance or disinterest in a specific task. People with initiation problems typically want to succeed at and complete a task, but they have trouble getting started. They are at risk for being viewed as unmotivated.
What can you do?
Body doubling. Have someone engage in a similar activity in the same space as you.
Do part of the task only (e.g. ‘I will just put that shirt away’, rather than I am going to do laundry). If you feel overwhelmed by a particular task, think about what aspect of that task will be the most functionally useful for you, and do only that. Doing only part of the task helps to make the task seem less overwhelming, and it can also be easier to continue with a task once you have started.
Create structure, habits, and routines around behaviours so they become less of an active choice.
Pre-prepare the first step of a task well before you actually need to do it (e.g. lay out your work out gear before you go to bed).
Have someone else do the first step of the task (e.g. get a family member to go in and turn the shower on for you).
PLANNING AND MENTAL ORGANISATION
This is the ability to manage task demands. The planning component of this is the ability to anticipate future events, to set goals, and to develop appropriate sequential steps ahead of time to carry out a task or activity. People with planning difficulties may underestimate the time required to complete tasks or the level of difficulty inherent in a task. They may often wait until the last minute to begin a long-term project or assignment for school, and may have trouble carrying out the actions needed to reach their goals.
The organization component refers to the ability to bring order to information and to appreciate main ideas or key concepts when learning or communicating information. Mental organization also plays an important role in memory and recall. People with difficulties in this area often complain that they are poor test takers or have poor memory. But how we organise information when we are learning or memorising it impacts how efficiently we can retrieve it. People who struggle here may have good ideas that they fail to express on tests and written projects. They may often feel overwhelmed by large amounts of information and may have difficulty retrieving material spontaneously or in response to open-ended questions. They may, however, exhibit better performance with recognition (multiple-choice) questions.
What can you do?
When beginning a task with multiple processes or steps, first brainstorm all the processes / steps that could be involved. Ask a family member or colleague for support with this, if necessary. Once you have these all written down, then work out what order you need to do them in. Think about how much time each step will take, and work out exactly when you will complete each step (put this into a calendar or diary). Then work through each step sequentially.
If a task seems overwhelming, brainstorm all the possible elements involved in the task and write these down. Once you have them written down, group similar items into ‘themes’ to give you a more condensed list. For example, ‘clean the shower tiles, mop the floor, clean the shower doors, bleach the toilet, clean the mirror’ could become ‘clean the bathroom’. Ask for support with this, if needed. You can also use this strategy for organising concepts in mind, and for expressing concepts.
For tasks that you do frequently, create a consistent structure for completing the task and stick to this each time.
ORGANISATION OF MATERIALS
This involves orderliness of work, home, and storage spaces. People who struggle with this often have difficulty keeping their materials and belongings reasonably well organized, having their materials and belongings readily available when needed, and finding their belongings when needed. This impacts efficient functioning at home and work.
What can you do?
Have a spot for everything that is clearly labelled. Only put things in that spot. This way, when you don’t have something you know exactly where to find it.
Make your ‘spots’ for things functional. For example, don’t have your spot for your keys far away from your front door. You will never put them there.
SUSTAINED ATTENTION
This is the ability to sustain mental effort on tasks that are repetitive, ‘boring’, and require attention to detail. People with difficulty in this area often show variable performance across tasks – when something is interesting and fun there is no difficulty sustaining attention and they perform well.
What can you do?
Engage in regular exercise – research shows this is the most effective behavioural strategy to improve sustained attention skills. Check out this blog post for more information on this!
If something is worth doing, it is worth doing badly. This is particularly true for tasks that can never be truly ‘completed’, but rather are about maintaining functionality (e.g. self-care, cleaning, grocery shopping etc.). If you feel that you cannot sustain your focus for long enough to complete a particular task, think about what aspect of that task will be the most functionally useful for you, and do only that.
When engaging in a task that has no immediate reward it can be helpful to bring a small reward into the immediate ‘now’. This can be an actual reward, or a reminder of a reward (e.g. something written on a brightly coloured post-it). Focusing on internal rewards can also be helpful, for example, a feeling of accomplishment or satisfaction.
When you have to focus on a mentally draining or boring task, do this in short ‘sprints’. For example, if you have to do a house chore set your timer on your phone for 10 minutes – during this 10 minutes you have to engage only in the task at hand, and when the timer goes off you can stop (no matter how much you got done). Take a 5 minute break (timed) and then start again. It is easier to focus our attention if we know we only have to do it for a short period.
Find your optimal level of stimulation to work at. This may change day-to-day. Increase stimulation by fidgeting, listening to music, playing a video silently in the background, sitting on a yoga ball you can bounce on etc. Decrease stimulation by clearing your desk of all non-necessary items, turning off music or moving away from noise, moving away from other people.
Mindfulness practice can help us train our brain to ignore distracting thoughts (including negative self-talk) and focus our attention. The more we practice our focusing skills the better we get at them, and the less effort it takes to engage them. There are a number of free apps available on apple and android that provide short, guided mindfulness sessions (lasting 2-5 minutes) suitable for all ages (e.g. Stop, think, breathe, smiling mind, headspace, calm).