Executive Function
12 terms
ADHD Tax
The extra costs in money, time, and energy that people with ADHD pay because of executive function challenges in a world designed for neurotypical brains.
Chunking
Breaking large tasks, information, or time periods into smaller, manageable pieces to reduce cognitive overwhelm and improve processing and completion.
Cognitive Load
The total mental effort being used in working memory at any given time—when cognitive load exceeds processing capacity, it leads to overwhelm, errors, and shutdown.
Context Switching
Context switching is the brutal cognitive price tag attached to every "quick question," every notification ping, every "this'll just take a second"—the hidden mental machinery required to save your entire cognitive state, dump it from working memory, load an entirely different program, run it, then somehow reconstruct where you were before the interruption shattered your flow. Like a computer forced to constantly swap between heavy programs on insufficient RAM, context switching transforms what could be smooth cognitive performance into a stuttering, exhausting cycle of mental stops and starts that leaves you wondering why you're so tired after a day of "just emails and meetings."
Decision Fatigue
Your brain running out of decision-making juice—every choice from breakfast cereal to career moves drains the same finite cognitive battery until you're standing in the grocery store unable to choose between two identical yogurts. Not laziness; executive function running on fumes.
Task Initiation
The ability to start a task without unnecessary delay.
Task Paralysis
The complete inability to start a task despite desperately wanting or needing to. Your brain knows what to do, your body won't move. Like being frozen at the starting line while everyone else is already running—not lazy, literally paralyzed.
Time Blindness
The difficulty sensing how much time has passed or accurately estimating how long tasks will take. Living in an eternal "now" where time flows unpredictably—five minutes can feel like an hour, or three hours pass in what seems like moments.
Transition Difficulty
Struggles moving from one activity, environment, or mindset to another.
Visual Schedules
Structured visual representations of daily activities, tasks, or routines using pictures, symbols, or text to support planning, transitions, and time management.
Waiting Mode
The complete inability to start tasks when you have an appointment later, as if your entire brain is on hold until the thing happens. Even with hours available, you're stuck in mental limbo—not procrastinating, literally paralyzed.
Working Memory Deficit
Challenges holding and manipulating information over seconds/minutes to guide action.