ADHD

The Case of Executive Functioning, Not Functioning

by: Dawn Barbarino

Executive Functioning is explained as the set of mental skills that assist us with analyzing, planning, organizing, and executing tasks. The ADHD mind struggles with these nonfunctioning mental skills daily.

Imagine, the head of a committee is missing from a meeting. The committee members know their roles in the group but have no idea how to organize and manage the meeting without their leader.

Here are some examples of the ADHD mind planning an event without the head of the committee present to direct, manage and support.

PLANNING

Part of planning for an event contains the when and where. If there isn't a general idea of the when and/or where, and the decision is left up to the ADHD mind the planning will become stalled. There is too much to think about all at once, along with knowing this is only the start of it. With more steps to follow.

ANALYZE

Once the plan has been loosely outlined, the where part of the event is now given more thought. This is now researching for the perfect venue and analyzing every small detail. While the details of the venue are important, the ADHD mind will start going down the rabbit hole of research, getting more and more confused and stalled again.

ORGANIZE

Organizing the specific elements of the event will be next. For the ADHD mind, organization tends to be enjoyable, if there are no time restraints. With time restraints the task becomes stressful, brings no enjoyment, and is stalled again.

EXECUTE

The final step in all of this will be the execution of the event. This encompasses all the previous stages, if not more. This will be the most stressful for the ADHD mind and would be the perfect time for the head of the committee to be present.

THE BRIGHT SIDE OF IT ALL

On the other side of the struggles, the ADHD mind outshines with qualities of creativity, intelligence, the ability to survive setbacks, out of the box thinking and great problem-solving attributes, to name a few.