Executive function is the set of cognitive processes that help us organize thoughts, prioritize tasks, manage time, and make effective decisions. These skills provide the foundation for creating structures, developing strategies, and determining the steps needed to successfully move projects forward. When executive function is impaired, individuals may struggle with analyzing, planning, organizing, and completing tasks on time—or at all. This often leads to misplaced items, mismanaged priorities, and feelings of overwhelm when facing larger projects.
Executive Function: The Brain’s Organizational Blueprint
Executive Functioning
Simply put, this is self-directed attention.
Also known as self-restraint.
The ability to hold things in your mind. Essentially, visual imagery — how well you can picture things mentally.
Self-speech, or internal speech. Most people think of this as their “inner monologue.”
The ability to take the previous four executive functions and use them to manipulate your own emotional state. This means learning to use words, images, and your own self-awareness to process and alter how we feel about things.
How well you can motivate yourself to complete a task when there is no immediate external consequence.
Experts sometimes like to think of this as “self-play” — how we play with information in our minds to come up with new ways of doing something. By taking things apart and recombining them in different ways, we’re planning solutions to our problems.