Let me start by describing two familiar scenarios. A high school student sits at the kitchen table looking at a list of missing assignments. He is explaining to his parents that he is baffled by his low grade; he feels that he has been keeping up.
A young professional sits at her desk. She has a list of tasks to accomplish, but can’t figure out where to start. All feel important. She feels like she puts in productive time at work but cannot understand why she is always behind.
A helpful outsider looking in at either of these scenarios might provide advice like: Just make a list of what you have to do. Do one thing at a time. Write down your assignments. Stay motivated. And perhaps the least helpful: Just focus.
While these comments may be well-intentioned, as Angela Haupt wrote recently in Time, people who struggle with the skills that lead to goal-directed activities like organization and task-initiation (executive functioning skills) find these types of comments frustrating, discouraging, or beside the point. They are motivated; they are writing things down and yet somehow they aren’t getting the work done.
Small Group Executive Skills Coaching Course
This is a course for adults. Good for parents, homeschooling parents, and professionals in the workplace.
Summer is a great time to work on strengthening your Executive Skills.
$399 for a 7-week course
Email Us for More Details
Many common responses to executive functioning struggles assume the problem is effort, or motivation. This view leads to advice like try harder and can make a person’s struggles feel like a moral failing. Framing the problem as a motivation problem suggests that the person knows how to complete the activity but won’t. Yet the struggle in these cases often extends beyond just motivation. People who struggle with their executive function skills may miss patterns of urgency that make prioritization and planning easy for other people, or they may struggle to regulate anxiety in a way that allows them to complete one task at a time rather than fixate on the entire list of things to complete. They could also be struggle with working memory, metacognition, or numerous other executive functioning skills. The point is that it is nearly impossible to tell why someone is struggling simply by observing their work output.
People who provide advice often provide the type of advice that would work for them. Strategies that feel intuitive to one person may not translate easily to another person’s cognitive experience. “Just write it down” may work well for someone who naturally remembers to check the list, keep track of the paper, or return to the planner later. For someone struggling with executive function skills, the breakdown may happen somewhere else entirely.
The reason people with executive function skills can get frustrated with advice is that they have often heard it before. Giving a person with executive function skills common advice communicates that the problem must lie with their knowledge. If they only knew that they needed to organize or stay motivated then they would do it. But this misses the point that the problem is generally implementation. The reason a person is not working toward their goals is not, I don’t know what to do or I don’t want to do the work. The reason instead may be “I don’t know how to get from knowing to doing.”
The reason people with executive function skills can get frustrated with advice is that they have often heard it before. Giving a person with executive function skills common advice communicates that the problem must lie with their knowledge. If they only knew that they needed to organize or stay motivated then they would do it. But this misses the point that the problem is generally implementation. The reason a person is not working toward their goals is not, I don’t know what to do or I don’t want to do the work. The reason instead may be “I don’t know how to get from knowing to doing.”
This is where executive function skills coaching takes a different approach. Rather than assuming a person simply needs more discipline or better habits, coaching begins by asking questions. What are this person’s goals and priorities? Where does the process of working toward those goals begin to break down? What strategies have they already tried? What has worked—even temporarily—and what has not? Instead of immediately prescribing solutions, a coach works collaboratively with the client to better understand the barriers they are experiencing. Research shows that coaching can enhance self-awareness and a sense of personal responsibility. So the point is not that problems stemming from executive function struggles should be ignored, the point is that the individual nature of these struggles requires support that allows people to identify their particular barriers and decide what would work for them.
For example, someone struggling to complete assignments may not actually have a problem with motivation. They may feel overwhelmed by large tasks and have difficulty figuring out where to begin. Another person may use a planner consistently for a week, only to abandon it once stress or exhaustion disrupts the routine. Someone else may appear distracted, when the real issue is anxiety or emotional overload. Coaching helps uncover these patterns so that support can be tailored to the individual rather than based on generic advice.
This process often involves experimentation. A coach may help a client try different tools, routines, or systems while paying attention to what feels sustainable and realistic. The goal is not to force a person into a system that works for someone else. Instead, the goal is to develop strategies that fit the client’s actual life, habits, environment, and way of thinking. Over time, this can help people move away from cycles of frustration and self-criticism and toward systems that make daily responsibilities feel more manageable. These systems can then garner heightened personal responsibility because the individual build them with their own skills and needs in mind.
For many people struggling with executive function skills, lack of effort is often not the problem. In many cases, they are already trying extremely hard. And like the student, and professional in the opening paragraph they are often confused as to why their efforts do not show results. What can be frustrating is the expectation that everyone processes tasks, organization, and routines in the same way. Coaching offers a different perspective. Instead of asking, “Why can’t you just do this?” coaching asks, “What is making this difficult, and what support might help?” That shift can make a meaningful difference for both students and adults who have spent years feeling misunderstood or discouraged by advice that doesn’t address the real problem.
Over time, coaching can help people build systems that align with how they actually function rather than how others think they should function. For some, that may mean experimenting with new routines or tools. For others, it may involve learning how stress, overwhelm, or emotional regulation affect daily responsibilities. The goal is not to ignore the problem or to reach perfection. The goal is to create sustainable strategies that make school, work, and everyday life feel more manageable. Working with a coach can mean that support is collaborative instead of corrective, allowing people to develop confidence, self-awareness, and systems that genuinely work for them.
New England Tutors
Allison Neal
80 Ham Road | Barrington, NH | 03825
(603) 953-5025
allison@netutors.com