About

It’s a psychological term and framework, ultimately built upon observations made during early neuropsychological case studies in the European and American traditions. If you’ve ever heard of the brain as having “executive” or “top down” processes, often connected with the prefrontal cortex (versus “automatic” or “bottom up” processes of the reflexive or intuitive type)...that’s what people usually mean, although intuitional guidance is absolutely part of effective living.

For example, Executive Functions are involved every time you attempt to: make a plan, set a goal, figure something out, work collaboratively, stick with a tedious task, consider how you want to behave, seek a resource to improve your skillset, contemplate your responsibilities, self-reflect, control an impulse, manage time, choose materials for a project, establish criteria for success, follow multi-step directions, compare options, make a decision... (you get the picture). My personal definition is something like, “The internal and external processes involved in getting things done well.”

These processes develop differently for everyone through childhood, adolescence, and into adulthood. The unique story of each person’s Executive Functioning (EF) is no simple thing. In psychological language, terms like:

• neurodevelopmental (brain + environment)
• biopsychosocial (body + mind + interpersonal connections)
• epigenetics (environmentally-influenced expression of genetic potential)

show up in discussions of EF because it’s a “both-and” kind of story. It’s a nature AND nurture kind of story.

A final, ultra-nerdy point on definition: To add further complexity, the acronym "EF" can mean Executive Functioning as in how effective we are overall, but it can also refer to Executive Functions as in the specific cognitive (mental) abilities which contribute to overall success. Executive Functions include our capacity for attention, memory (short-term and long-term), planning, inhibition, emotional regulation, and stamina, to name a few.

Over the last 15 years, I've done a LOT of thinking, learning, and individual coaching on this topic, mostly in educational, psychological, business, and project-based settings. I never intended to be an educator or coach, but I'm a nerdy person who had access to great schooling (I hold Bachelors degrees in Mathematics and Philosophy, with a minor in Music). This privilege opened doors for me to pursue extensive training and experience (largely through employment) in human development and evidence-based intervention (educational and behavioral). It's damn interesting and empowering stuff.

To give some highlights of my specialized professional experience and training, I have:

• earned a specialist certification in effective literacy instruction, and I am currently project-managing the development of an accredited training program for literacy educators based in the science of reading. (Project-management of course requires blunt-force, sustained application of Executive Functions.) I've served in a peer training / mentoring / instructional coaching capacity for several years, and have facilitated many group meetings focused on professional development and training program design.
• worked with and for highly effective psychologists for over a decade, including 10-ish years of informal mentoring with a pediatric neuropsychologist who empowered families to support emotional regulation and learning capacity in their children with complex neurological profiles. (Someday I'll have to write a book about what I've learned from my neuropsychologist mentor and friend. She's the kind of person who will gently question your approaches, matter-of-factly tell you when you're wrong, and if you can handle the discomfort of that, will show you how to do better). For the past 7 years I've also worked for a forensic psychologist, who assesses people for psychological damages stemming from traumatic life events.
• conducted hundreds of hours of personalized educational intervention for learners ages 7 to 70+ with diverse profiles, including dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, ADHD, giftedness, autism, nonverbal learning disorder, selective mutism, developmental delay, speech articulation issues, and other forms of disability or difference related to academic learning. Those interventions have included content areas including literacy (reading and writing) and math, as well as organization, studying, time management, test-taking, goal-setting, and planning. The approach has often been team-based and consent-based, including interviewing learners to engage them in goal-setting, sharing progress data with parents and teachers, and attending and advocating at school meetings. I've learned as much as I've taught.
• become deeply familiar with tools and methods for psychological diagnosis, ranging from variations in learning to variations in mood, personality, anxiety, ADHD, and trauma. A note here: Although I work in systems (educational, clinical, legal) that rely heavily on diagnostic labels, I personally have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I'll write more about it later, but again, it's another "both-and" kind of story. My view of psychological or educational diagnostic labels is that they can be useful and empowering at times AND they can be limiting, unnecessary, and even misleading at times. The quality of the methodology matters a whole lot. It's a nuanced blend of science and intuition. What matters more to me--where my energy is directed--is helping us all do a better job accessing, discussing, and sharing helpful supports, frameworks, knowledge bases, scaffolds, and/or interventions to fit a situation or need, regardless of whether there's a diagnosis or not.
• learned that supporting Executive Functions will ALWAYS be relevant when it comes to helping ourselves and others learn or practice a skill, or take on a habit or project, and that they will absolutely be impaired at times. That's not just true for people with ADHD. Accomplishing literally any goal-directed task requires Executive Functions (we have to remember what we're trying to accomplish, gather resources, follow steps to completion, etc.), and challenging emotions and behaviors are practically universal when we're overwhelmed or learning something new (unless it's a personal interest). Especially if we're overriding existing habits or if shame is involved. Many of us are bombarded with messages that the presence of Executive Functioning challenges/symptoms means we're diagnosable with some kind of psychological disorder. In 2025, it's common to see videos describing "How to diagnose someone with [insert psychological diagnosis] in 15 seconds." New symptoms seem to appear on the internet every few minutes. Specifically, we're told that all manner of Executive Functioning issues are proof of ADHD! It's just nonsense, and it matters.
• learned that (at the right time, in the right environment) Executive Functioning can be developed through support and experimentation, just like other skills. Many times, a person may possess the cognitive and emotional capacity (Executive Functions) to engage in behaviors like use a planner, keep a room decluttered, manage time, work with others, set realistic goals, or make strong plans to achieve them, but may have simply never been shown how, or tried to learn but couldn't find the right tools, or had bad experiences with initial attempts, or lacked resources to try things out, or have been in survival mode, or don't have the time or space, or maybe simply never needed to. Often we need "scaffolded" support (provided from the outside until we can be successful at first), then those scaffolds can be gradually lessened as responsibility is explicitly transferred to the learner, or as confidence and skill are gained naturally.
• been slowly working towards becoming a Certified ADHD Professional (ADHD-CCSP) with self-paced courses. It's a little ironic that I haven't gotten it done, but I’m juggling other obligations.
• Overall, I've gained a mighty toolbox of empowering knowledge and practices that I wish more people had access to. I wish these were brought into more people's daily lives, and talked about, in ways that really made a difference. It's about our overall effectiveness towards the ways-of-being that we care about. I've applied these approaches to myself and have shared them with friends and family more times than I can count. In the last couple years, my husband started nudging me towards offering coaching and consulting through my own business.

My "Bread-and-Butter" skillsets include:

• • discussing Executive Functioning generally (say, if there's a situation you want to chat about).
  • helping people set meaningful, realistic goals and intentions.
  • walking folks through a truly life-changing strategy called WOOP to greatly increase odds of meeting a specific goal (I'll blog about it soon, but you can find a brief explanatory video and a free app at woopmylife.org)
  • general time-management and task-management including finding a right-fit planner, using a calendar, and strategies including time blocking and the pomodoro method.
  • exploring materials (digital and/or physical) that are a good fit for your needs.
  • identifying habits you'd like to add, change, or subtract. Then, using strategies including friction, micro-costs, replacement, habit stacking, habit tracking, data visualization, and rewards to self-monitor and affect positive change.
  • assistance with problem-solving any stage of a project.
  • Bullet Journaling and other forms of reflection and planning.

I want to share some more personal experiences that have shaped my views and practices when it comes to EF. Because I’m a human being learning how to manage my own EF as I move through the world. SO many of these lessons are ones I’ve acquired not through professional training, but through living. Which makes personal memoir an important tool for me.

Plus, there are so many traditions and practices (not just in psychology, education, or business) that provide insight and guidance to the conversation around “getting things done.”

• A beloved mantra of mine is this: “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” Of course, so many times we’re NOT ready, and yet life demands we learn. Some of my deepest failures have, with time, become my wisest teachers. I’ve come to believe that running from failures, from messes, from the discomfort of responsibility, can seriously limit and even damage us. If I start tugging at the thread of how I’ve gotten “good” at anything, it’s a story of failure after failure, plus enough grace, support, space, and courage to grow. I hope you can relate. In other words, doing things well is not about doing things perfectly. But belief in growth, and the spark of effort and accountability for learning how to show up better, are crucial ingredients in EF.

• I stumbled upon Taoist philosophy during a breakup not too long ago. It helped me see the emptiness, the low point, as potentially useful and making space for something else. Since 2018, I’ve been practicing formal meditation regularly, with a special connection to the Shambala Buddhist tradition as well as trauma resolution materials. (Note: few years prior, like 2014-ish, I was in such mental turmoil that I couldn’t sit alone on a mat without wanting to crawl out of my skin. Supportive therapy was transformational for me.) I share this because Buddhist and Taoist philosophies deeply shape my life and work. For me, they encourage individual AND collective responsibility. They guide us towards courageous participation with reality on its terms. And they help us see ourselves as we really are — fundamentally good, more alike than different, eternally changing and eternally capable of change. (And, I don't think meditation is the answer all the time.)

• We often limit ourselves with over-application of “either/or” thinking. Sometimes it’s relevant, sure. Shall I sign up for something? What outfit do I wear? Those require a single answer, a yes or no. A this or that. (And don’t get me wrong, I used to LOVE an Answer™. I majored in Mathematics for goodness sake.) But more expansive thinking is more possible and more appropriate than we often acknowledge. In Buddhist and Taoist logic, something can both be true AND not true simultaneously. And apparent opposites can BOTH be true at the same time. I can’t pinpoint where this developed for me, this break from either/or thinking - probably through therapy - but I can say it gives me freedom. For example: Do I have control over which thoughts arise in my mind? No. AND Do I have some influence over the media I consume which is doubtlessly influencing the thoughts that arise? Yes. Most of us do. That’s a bit of a paradox. When I can move past dualistic thinking, this grasping for only one-or-the-other to be true, it often gives me an opening for some personal choice, control, power, and even style. This nuance is directly related to Executive Functioning.

• I don’t teach that EF is exclusively a “top down” mental process that takes place in the prefrontal cortex. Let’s take the example of making a good decision. When I was younger, I made a lot of moves based on what I thought I “should” do or out of impulsivity. Those often had negative consequences, and I’ve learned I’m going to be held responsible for my actions even if I’m not exactly in total control of them (like none of us is). Nowadays, since I’ve learned to grant myself space to pause and listen to my body's messages when making a decision (most of the time), I think it’s more honest to say my intuition is deeply involved. We want so badly to say we should make decisions with our head, rationally, with reason. But that’s only part of it. So often, it’s our heart or gut or intuition (“bottom up” processes) that will sway things in one direction or another, and that’s very OK. That practice of balancing and integrating these different processes is an important piece of Executive Functioning.

• I think community-based education and support (outside of academia, clinical, or professional settings) is the coolest thing and is very needed right now! If you can—take the course, gain the skills, try the thing. Do the deep-dive. And help grow this kind of economy, and our collective resilience. I’ve participated in several groups/cohorts in the last few years (including an entrepreneurial incubator program, sex educator certification, and a grief/bereavement group), and it’s almost uncanny how the connections, lessons, tools, and language have stayed with me in ways that I could use or pass along later, often unexpectedly. I’ve also been facilitating a virtual book club (White People’s Work for Antiracism) since 2019, and it’s endlessly shaped my life for the better. It’s a reliable space where I can explore works by people of color, examine systems of privilege (and how I want to live within them) in a non-shamey learning environment, work against cultural erasure and towards right relationship in my own life, learn and practice ways of organizing and “getting things done well” with a more communal lens, and point my unearned privileges in the direction of solidarity with those most targeted by oppressive systems. And it’s helped me learn to speak on topics that are often considered “taboo” but which deserve much better discourse.

• I have problems with what’s included, and left out of, typical discussions of Executive Functioning. For example, most recommended strategies assume basic needs are met like housing, medical care, and money for materials. And EF resources are almost exclusively focused on individual functioning, ignoring the reality that we can actually get very little done alone. (This is no small distinction.) AND at the same time, I think it’s still really valuable information that’s often “gate-kept” behind barriers to access, or else inadequately distributed into de-contextualized, 30-second tidbits which we barely register before moving onto the next thing. Not super helpful.

• To continue that thought: Improving our Executive Functioning is not just valuable for us individually. We are in an era which demands more effective collective action, coordination, organization, and collaboration. We're being asked to examine our participation within the attentional economy, to loosen our grasp on certainty and our individual ways of doing things, and open up to collaboration. To change our routines and our habits so that we are less alone in our efforts, and more effective and powerful as groups. To ask for help, and set shared goals, exchange our skillsets, rely on each other, be reliable, plan together, and fight together. To grieve and let go. To get things done well, together. I want to work at the intersection of such concerns, and I’m confident that the science of Executive Functioning has much to offer.

On that note - I’ll wrap up my About page. You’ve likely heard the advice to “Fight with the tools that are uniquely yours.” That’s what I’m trying to do here. I’m hoping I can help you in your fight, too, and maybe you can help me in mine. And I hope you can help yourself and your loved ones in theirs, and so on and so forth.

In solidarity -

Caroline