Executive function is the set of mental processes that allow you to manage yourself and your behavior toward goals. It covers: starting tasks, sustaining effort, switching between tasks, planning sequences of action, prioritizing, monitoring your own performance, managing time, holding information in working memory while using it, and inhibiting impulses that would derail you.

Most people have heard of ADHD. Almost nobody understands it. The version that gets talked about in schools, workplaces, and even a lot of clinical offices goes something like: trouble paying attention, maybe some hyperactivity, possibly helped by medication.