Steve:In our third and final audio on executive functioning in this series, Dr Young is still with me. Dr Young, you had already discussed impulse and emotional control. For the benefit of our subscribers, are there any other executive functions that might be useful for them to be made aware of?Clare:Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Steve. So we've talked about working memory in one of the audios. And we've talked about sequencing. And in the last audio, we talked about impulse control and emotional control. And all of these, as we understand executive function to be a number of different skills that enable us to engage in our world in a social, playful, work-related and cognitive manner. And what we know is that people with ADHD can have some real challenges in these areas and these sorts of cognitive processes. So the last one that I'm going to talk about today is around sort of planning, task initiation and general organization.So I suppose you might have a sense that somebody with ADHD is quite scatty, quite struggles to plan, is all over the place, forgets appointments, can't plan ahead. And of course, that is the case, but it is to varying degrees. So we wouldn't necessarily assume that everybody with ADHD will have significant challenges in these areas. And I think what I've tended to find is that people who do have a diagnosis of ADHD, maybe without realizing it, have put in place various strategies to help themselves over the years. So where we might ask somebody, do you have difficulties with planning your time? They might say, What, oh, no, I'm really good. And I'm quite organized. And then I would be asking what is it you need to do in order to be as organized as you are? And they say, Well, I have a planner over here, and I write this down over here, and I have everything written on my phone, and I have an alarm set for myself. So I don't forget.So what you soon realize is that there are lots and lots of different methods that somebody has put in place in order to help them stay organized. And if I were to ask them, What would happen if we took all of that away? The general answer is, well, I'd be all over the place, I wouldn't know if I was coming or going. So from that, I think it's really important to hear that there are many different things that can really help somebody with this particular executive function. So when we're talking about task initiation, we're thinking about the ability to start a task, we're thinking about the ability to time manage a task, which obviously, you know, those two go hand in hand, but lots of people will describe difficulties with even getting started on something. So they have a great idea, they often get very excited about that idea. And then comes the kind of nitty-gritty part of that where you actually have to plan to put that idea into practice.And maybe that starts to be less exciting and interesting. And I think what people with ADHD can kind of describe is this sense of not knowing where to start because the whole idea seems appealing. And then as we talked about in one of the other audios is when we were thinking about difficulties with sequencing. So somebody who might really struggle to initiate a task, because they're not sure which order to do it in, they also find it very difficult to prioritize what needs to come first, second, third, you can see then how when we look at executive functioning as a whole cluster of strengths and difficulties, they relate to one another very, very, very closely.So task initiation is definitely an area of challenge. Organization, you know, in a sense of what do I need to perform this task. So I don't know how to get started, but also I'm not quite sure what I need. So I might sort of pick up what I need as I go. So I'm not always well prepared. So the task might be delayed or may not end up kind of having the end result that I thought it would because I haven't got what I need to make sure that I can deliver that task in the way that I'd like to. And then also I struggle with my time management. So I don't quite know how much time I need to complete this task. I can sometimes over or underestimate, usually underestimate, so I'm approaching a task. I'm not sure how long, I underestimate the time it will need. And then I end up sort of becoming quite flustered and panicked that I won't be able to complete it in the time that I've got.And then I'm rushing. And then of course, as we know, when you rush and you're stressed, your overall sort of brain function, cognitive function slows down because the brain is wired to work. It's a very kind of set level. So if we're overly panicked, overly stressed, because we've struggled to initiate, we've struggled to organize, and we struggled to plan effectively, which are all kinds of challenges that lots of people with ADHD will report, then then it's quite easy to see how people can find themselves coming unstuck. One thing that might happen as a result of that is somebody might avoid tasks altogether because they know that actually performing a task is very, very challenging for them.