SOAR Educational and Mental Health Therapy
Understanding executive function
Your brain's boss skills
Why the gap between knowing and doing is real, where it comes from, and what actually closes it. A client guide for adults and older teens.
Why getting started is so hard, what's really going on in there, and the things that actually help. For kids and teens — and the grown-ups helping them.
Two versions of the same ideas — switch any time.
If people have called you smart and careless in the same breath — or if you have ever finished something genuinely difficult on Tuesday and been unable to open an envelope on Wednesday — this is about the gap between those two things.
Executive function is the set of mental skills your brain uses to manage itself: to start, plan, remember, organize, switch, and stay steady while you do it. It is not intelligence, and it is not motivation. It runs largely out of the prefrontal cortex, and in ADHD it develops on a delay and performs inconsistently. One large imaging study found the cortex in children with ADHD reached its peak thickness about three years later than in other children, with the prefrontal areas — the ones that run all of this — delayed by roughly five years (Shaw et al., PNAS, 2007). It catches up. It just runs on its own schedule.
Here is something people may not have told you: the trouble you have getting started, remembering things, and keeping track of your stuff is not about how smart you are. And it is not about how much you care.
Your brain has a part that works like a boss. It decides what to do first. It holds directions in your head while you follow them. It tells you to stop and check your work. It helps you stay steady when something gets frustrating. Scientists call this executive function.
In some brains — including ADHD brains — that boss shows up late for work. Researchers who scanned a lot of kids' brains found that the part that does this job takes about three extra years to develop in kids with ADHD, and the very front part takes even longer. It gets there. It is just on a different schedule.
Here is what that looks like in real life: you can remember every detail of a game you played two years ago and lose the folder that was in your hand ten minutes ago. Same brain. It is not that you weren't paying attention — the part that hangs on to boring information is still under construction.
One
The eight skills
The eight boss skills
Different clinicians slice this list differently — you will see seven, eight, or eleven depending on whose framework you are reading (Barkley, Brown, Dawson & Guare). These eight cover the ground, and they are the ones we will use together.
These are the jobs your boss does. Almost nobody is good at all eight. Most people are strong in a few and need help with the rest.
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1
Working memory
Holding information in mind while you do something with it — a set of directions, the point you were about to make, where you left off.
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2
Response inhibition
Putting a gap between the impulse and the action, so you get to choose instead of just react.
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3
Task initiation
Crossing the distance between deciding to do it and actually beginning. For most people this is the hardest one.
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4
Sustained attention
Staying with a task after it stops being interesting, urgent, or new.
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5
Planning, prioritizing & time
Deciding what matters, in what order, and how long it will really take. Time blindness lives here.
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6
Organization
Building and keeping systems for your things, your papers, and your information — so you are not re-finding them all day.
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7
Emotional regulation
Managing frustration, boredom, and anxiety well enough to keep working through them.
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8
Cognitive flexibility
Shifting when the plan changes, the answer is wrong, or someone sees it differently than you do.
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1
Holding on to stuff
Keeping directions in your head long enough to actually use them.
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2
Hitting pause
Stopping for a second before you do or say the first thing that pops into your head.
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3
Getting started
Going from thinking about a thing to actually doing the thing. This one is hard for almost everybody.
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4
Sticking with it
Staying on something even after it stops being fun.
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5
Making a plan
Figuring out what to do first, what to do next, and how long it is going to take.
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6
Keeping track
Knowing where your stuff, your papers, and your homework are.
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7
Handling big feelings
Staying steady when you feel frustrated, bored, or upset.
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8
Switching gears
Being okay when the plan changes or you have to try it another way.
Two
Why the same task is easy one day and impossible the next
Why something is easy one day and impossible the next
This is the part that confuses everyone, including the person living it. Two things are going on.
Executive function runs on interest, urgency, novelty, and challenge — not on importance. This is why a deadline can produce four hours of focus that a to-do list could not produce in four weeks, and why it looks arbitrary from the outside. It isn't arbitrary; it just isn't running on the fuel other people assume it runs on.
It is also state-dependent. Sleep, stress, hunger, movement, illness, and emotional load all change how much executive function is actually available on a given day. A bad day means you had less of the resource, not less character.
This part drives everyone a little crazy, including you.
Your boss skills run best on things that are interesting, brand new, or due in ten minutes. They do not run well on things that are just important. That is why you can spend four hours on something you love and four minutes feels impossible for something you don't — and why the adults around you keep saying "but you managed it last week."
They also run on how your body is doing. Sleep, food, stress, and moving around all change how much boss you have available that day. A hard day means you had less to work with. It does not mean you got worse.
Three
Why starting is the hardest part
The most common thing I hear is not "I can't finish." It is "I can't start." Task initiation is where most of the suffering lives, and the reason is emotional, not logistical.
ADHD coach Brendan Mahan named this the Wall of Awful. Every time a task goes badly — a rough attempt, a comment from a teacher or a boss, a missed deadline, one more "you just need to focus" — an emotional brick gets added to the wall between you and that kind of task. Eventually the wall has nothing to do with the task's actual difficulty. You are not avoiding a twenty-minute errand. You are standing in front of twenty years of bricks.
Most people think the hard part is finishing. Usually it's starting — and the reason is feelings, not laziness.
An ADHD coach named Brendan Mahan came up with a really good name for this: the Wall of Awful. Every time something goes badly — you get it wrong, someone gets annoyed with you, you forget it again, somebody says "you just need to try harder" — a brick gets added to an invisible wall. Pretty soon the wall has nothing to do with how hard the task actually is. You are not stuck on a ten-minute worksheet. You are standing in front of a wall.
Every rough attempt, every eye-roll, every “you just need to focus” stacks another brick between you and the task.
What usually happens
Freeze
You sit in front of it waiting to feel ready. Ready doesn't come. The clock does.
Go around
You do easier things and call it productive. The task quietly leaks into everything else.
Force through
Adrenaline, panic, or anger gets it done — and scorches you and the people near you.
What actually works
Climb it
Say the feeling out loud — "I'm embarrassed I let this sit" — let it be true, and take one small action anyway. You do not have to feel better first.
Put a door in it
Change your state before you reach the wall: a walk, music, a shower, a friend on video. Same task, shorter wall.
Every time it goes badly, every eye-roll, every “just try harder” adds one more brick between you and that kind of thing.
What usually happens
Freeze
You wait until you feel like doing it. That feeling almost never shows up.
Go around
You do easy stuff instead. The thing you are avoiding follows you around all day.
Blast through
You get mad and power through it. It works, but you feel awful and so does everyone near you.
What actually works
Climb it
Say the feeling out loud — "I'm scared I'll get it wrong" — and then do one tiny piece anyway. You do not have to feel good about it first.
Make a door in it
Do something first that makes the wall smaller: a song, a snack, jumping jacks, a different room, someone sitting next to you.
The Wall of Awful™ is a concept developed by Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., M.S. (ADHD Essentials). The framing here is adapted for use in session.
Four
What actually helps
Things that actually help
Notice what is not on this list: trying harder, caring more, and wanting it badly enough. Every strategy below does the same thing in a different way — it moves part of the job out of your executive function and into your environment, your calendar, or another person.
Look at what is not on this list: trying harder, caring more, and wanting it enough. Every one of these works by moving part of the job out of your brain and into the room around you.
Pick one. Not four. Tap the one you want to try this week.
Support is not cheating
Someone who needs glasses does not have a character problem, and they do not read better by squinting harder. Timers, lists, alarms, other people in the room, and systems that look excessive from the outside are not crutches — they are the correct treatment for a skill that runs unevenly. The goal is not to need less support. The goal is to get your life back.
Getting help is not cheating
Nobody says a kid who wears glasses is cheating at reading. Timers, lists, alarms, and someone sitting next to you are not cheating either. They are just the right tools for the brain you have.
Five
Bring this to our next session
Try this before our next session
Three questions. You do not need to write anything down — just have a rough answer.
Three things to think about. You don't have to write anything down.
- Of the eight skills, which one is your hardest right now? Which one is an actual strength of yours? (There is always at least one.)
- Pick one task you have been circling for a while. What bricks are in that particular wall — what specifically do you feel when you look at it?
- Which strategy did you pick above? Try it this week and we will talk about what happened, including if it flopped.
- Which boss skill is hardest for you right now? And which one are you actually good at? (There is always at least one — I want to hear it.)
- Pick one thing you have been putting off. What is in that wall? What do you feel when you think about doing it?
- Which one did you pick above? Try it this week and tell me what happened — even if it did not work.
For parents and caregivers
- Expect the executive skills of a younger kid, not a lazier one. A 13-year-old may have roughly a 10-year-old's ability to start, plan, and self-monitor while being fully 13 everywhere else.
- Scaffolding is not spoiling. Doing it with them — sitting nearby, starting the first step together — is how the skill gets built. Kids grow out of support; they do not grow into it alone.
- Praise the start, not just the finish. Starting is the expensive part; if it is only noticed once it's done, the hardest work stays invisible.
- Separate the skill from the character. "You forgot your folder" is a skills problem with a systems fix. "You never care about anything" is a brick.
Six
Resources
All of these are real, current, and mostly free. You do not need to look at all of them — pick one and stop there.
All of these are real and mostly free. Pick one and stop there.
Start here
- CHADD — chadd.org — the main national ADHD organization. Their National Resource Center runs a free helpline at 1-866-200-8098, Monday–Friday, 1:00–5:00 pm ET.
- ADDitude Magazine — additudemag.com — articles, webinars, and free downloadable guides.
- ADDA — add.org — the Attention Deficit Disorder Association. Adult-focused, with virtual support groups and free body-doubling sessions.
If you want to understand it more deeply
- Understood.org — understood.org — the clearest plain-language explanations of executive function anywhere.
- How to ADHD — howtoadhd.com — Jessica McCabe's site, YouTube channel, and book. Short, warm, extremely practical.
- The Smart but Scattered Guide to Success — Peg Dawson & Richard Guare — the adult book in the executive-skills series.
- Taking Charge of Adult ADHD — Russell Barkley. More clinical; the best single source on the “doing, not knowing” model.
- Free Executive Skills Questionnaire — smartbutscatteredkids.com — a short self-rating that maps your own strengths and weak spots.
On the Wall of Awful
- ADHD Essentials — adhdessentials.com — Brendan Mahan's site and podcast, including a free “5 Ways to Overcome the Wall of Awful” download.
Tools worth actually trying
- Goblin Tools “Magic ToDo” — goblin.tools — free. Type in any task and it breaks it into steps, with a slider for how small you need them.
- Focusmate — focusmate.com — scheduled virtual body doubling with a real person. Free tier available.
- A visible countdown timer — a Time Timer or any analog kitchen timer. Time you can see behaves very differently from time you imagine.
Local, here in Bergen County
- Bergen County CHADD — bergencountychadd.com — free speaker series, adult ADHD groups (morning and evening), parent groups, and in-person meetings the first and third Tuesdays, 7:00–8:30 pm, at the Bergenfield Library.
- SPAN Parent Advocacy Network — spanadvocacy.org — New Jersey's parent advocacy organization for IEPs, 504 plans, and school-based supports.
For kids and teens
- How to ADHD — howtoadhd.com — Jessica McCabe's site and YouTube channel. Short, funny videos made by someone with ADHD.
- Goblin Tools “Magic ToDo” — goblin.tools — free. Type in the thing you have to do and it breaks it into small steps for you.
- A timer you can see — a Time Timer or any kitchen timer. Watching time go by works much better than trying to imagine it.
For parents and caregivers
- Understood.org — understood.org — the clearest plain-language site on executive function and learning differences.
- CHADD — chadd.org — the national ADHD organization. Free helpline at 1-866-200-8098, Monday–Friday, 1:00–5:00 pm ET.
- ADDitude Magazine — additudemag.com — practical articles and free downloadable guides for parents.
- Smart but Scattered and Smart but Scattered Teens — smartbutscatteredkids.com — Peg Dawson & Richard Guare. The most useful books on this for parents, with a free executive-skills questionnaire.
- ADHD Essentials — adhdessentials.com — Brendan Mahan's podcast and a free “5 Ways to Overcome the Wall of Awful” download.
Local, here in Bergen County
- Bergen County CHADD — bergencountychadd.com — free speaker series and parent support groups, plus in-person meetings the first and third Tuesdays, 7:00–8:30 pm, at the Bergenfield Library.
- SPAN Parent Advocacy Network — spanadvocacy.org — New Jersey's parent advocacy organization for IEPs, 504 plans, and school supports.