Executive Function Skills

What are executive function skills?

You may have never heard of “executive skills” or “executive function skills” but they are skills that you use every day.  These skills help you get things done. Executive function skills are controlled by an area of the brain called the frontal lobe.  They help you accomplish big goals, like completing a training program, or saving for a down payment for a car or house. They also help you achieve smaller goals like getting to work or school on time, or completing the paperwork to get a scholarship or childcare.

Executive function skills help you:

  • Manage time
  • Pay attention
  • Switch focus
  • Plan and organize
  • Remember details
  • Avoid saying or doing the wrong thing
  • Do things based on your experience
  • Multitask

There are 12 executive function skills that you use every day.  We’ve grouped them below according to how you use them. 

Skills you use to get things done

  • Sustained Attention (SA): The capacity to maintain attention to a situation or task in spite of being distracted, tired, or bored.Performing attention-related tasks in real life involves the need to ignore a variety of distractions and inhibit attention shifts to irrelevant activities.

If this skill is one of your strengths, you can use it to redirect your focus to keep on track with your goals. 

If this skills offers an opportunity to grow, here are a few suggestions:
– Chew gum. Various studies have found that chewing gum improves attention and performance at work.
– Drink water. Staying hydrated is important for your body and mind.
– Exercise.
– Meditation or prayer.
– Keep yourself engaged.
– Seek Behavioral therapy.  Sometimes the best help comes from a professional.

  • Task Initiation (TI): The ability to begin projects without  procrastinating, or efficiently and in a timely fashion.Task initiation is the ability to get started on tasks even if you don’t want to do them. Obviously, this is a critical life skill, since there are many chores and tasks we must complete even when we don’t feel like doing them at the moment.

If this is an area where you need to grow, you can try:– Creating a schedule for chores and homework time (and make it a routine)
– Exercise or play a sport with your child before work time.
– Create a daily chore checklist.
– Use a timer to countdown time to get to work.

  • Goal-directed persistence (GDP): The capacity to have a goal and follow it through to the completion, despite the distraction of competing interests.

You can continue to grow in this skill area by doing things like reading a novel.

  • Working Memory (WM): The ability to hold information in memory while performing complex tasks. It incorporates drawing on past learning or experiences to apply to the situation at hand or a project in the future.

Using your working memory of all your experiences, both the positive AND negative ones, can help you handle challenges in the present.

  • Stress Tolerance (ST): The ability to deal with stressful situations and do well even when faced with uncertainty, change, and high demands. Think about an emergency room doctor, or even a good server at a busy restaurant. People who thrive in fast-paced, ever-changing environments are often strong in this skill.

If you have room to grow in this skill, you should first try to recognize the signs of stress. Each person reacts differently to stress.  Identify the triggers of yours.
– Have a positive attitude. Try to find one thing in that moment to be thankful for.
– Take the time to eat well. You’ve heard it–you are what you eat.  Junk in, stress out.
– Get enough sleep.   Sleep is beneficial to the body and the mind.  Try adopting healthy sleeping habits.
– Being active is another way to lower your stress. Go for walks with the kids, join a gym or a line dancing class.
– Manage your time more effectively.  With proper planning, and including time for rest and healthy eating in your daily routine, you can eliminate or decrease your stress significantly.

Organize and Plan

Skills you use to organize and plan

  • Organization (O): The ability to create and maintain systems to keep track of information or materials.

If this is a natural strength for  you, you are blessed.  For the rest of us, there are a ton of tools developed to help you  get and stay organized. 

  • Time Management (TM): The capacity to estimate how much time one has, how to allocate it, and how to stay within time limits and deadlines. It also involves a sense that time is important. Strength in this skill recognizes the importance and urgency of time.  A strong time management skill allows you to accurately estimate how much time it takes, and even add in extra time for unforeseen challenges. 
  • Planning/Prioritization (P/P): The ability to create a roadmap to reach a goal or to complete a task. It also involves being able to make decisions about what’s important to focus on and what’s not.

If this is one of your strengths, you more easily can envision where you are, where you want to go, and the steps needed to get there. Start by making a list of all the steps needed.  Next, you’ll want to identify what must be done before any other step can be done.  Then place the rest of the steps/tasks in order.

Evictions - Where to Get Help

Skills that determine how you react to things

  • Response Inhibition (RI): The capacity to think before you act – this ability to resist the urge to say or do something allows us the time to evaluate a situation and how our behavior might impact it. We first began learning this skill as young children.  We learn to take turns; or to think about the answer to a question a few seconds before we verbalize the answer. 

You can improve your response inhibition by training yourself to mentally count to ten before answering or responding.  The silence can seem awkward, but the pause can be a good thing.

You can also try using “I” statements–this is helpful for good communication. Learn to recognize your triggers and use de-escalation techniques or postpone communication until cooler heads prevail.

  • Emotional Control (EC): The ability to manage emotions in order to achieve goals, complete tasks, or control and direct behavior.  We all get discouraged, sad, lonely, and emotional from time to time.  Your strength in this area will help manage the emotional ups and downs that come with life.

If this is an area of opportunity for you, you can:
– Take a look at the impact of your emotions.  Take stock of just how your uncontrolled emotions are affecting your day-to-day life. This will make it easier to identify problem areas (and track your success.)

– Identify what you’re feeling. Taking a moment to check in with yourself about your mood can help you begin gaining back control.

– Intense emotions aren’t all bad. Aim for regulation, not  repression.  You can’t control your emotions with a dial (if only it were that easy!). But imagine, for a moment, that you could manage emotions this way.  Healthy emotional expression involves finding some balance between overwhelming emotions and no emotions at all.

– Keep a mood journal. Writing down (or typing up) your feelings and the responses they trigger can help you uncover any disruptive patterns.

– Take a deep breath.  There’s much to be said for the power of a deep breath, whether you’re ridiculously happy or so angry you can’t speak.

-The next time you feel emotions starting to take control:  Breathe in slowly. Deep breaths come from the diaphragm, not the chest. It may help to visualize your breath rising from deep in your belly.  Hold your breath for a count of three, then let it out slowly.

– Consider a mantra. Some people find it helpful to repeat a  mantra, like “I am calm” or “I am relaxed.”
– Try meditation or prayer

  • Flexibility (F): The ability to revise plans in the face of obstacles, setbacks, new information or mistakes. It relates to an adapting to changing conditions.

Seeing things from someone else’s point of view, or dealing with obstacles, a sudden change in plans, demands, or needs is hard for many people.  Adapting to change just doesn’t work for everyone. While planning strategies can help you prepare, they cannot predict future obstacles and challenges.

    • Metacognition (M): The ability to stand back and take a birds-eye view of oneself in a situation. It is an ability to observe how you problem solve.  (e.g., asking yourself, “How am I doing? or How did I do?”). 

    When executive function isn’t working as it should, your behavior is less controlled.* This can affect your ability to:

    • Work or go to school
    • Do things independently
    • Maintain relationships

    DISCOVER YOUR EXECUTIVE FUNCTION STRENGTHS

    Get to know yourself better, and discover your executive function strengths.  Take the test!