Six Super Skills to Build Executive Functioning in Adults with ADHD (with Lara Honos-Webb, Ph.D.) 

3:30 Excutive functioning 7:18 six super skills 9:29 Find Gifts 16:10 Assessment 18:58 Types of Goals 22:22 Chunking : Most Powerful Skill with.. 29:55 Motivational Interviewing 33:40 Motivation is closely related to managing mood 41:45 Find Focus 42:48 Sleep 43:16 Nature as medicine

FYI for my fellow ADHDers - Increasing the speed to 1.5 to 2.0 on videos like this - informative but boring - really helps me stay focused on videos. Otherwise everyone talks to slowly and I lose interest quickly.

I don’t know. I noodle with these types of presentations and never get very far. No question that I am hard to guide, though I’m presumably not unusual for the audience. But on the chance that this is useful for service providers to hear, this is what turns me off every time: The basic gist always seems to that positive thinking is the key to it all. But for me and maybe others, positive thinking is an outcome not a starting strategy. At the getgo, depression issues are talked about, and what I think I hear suggested is that the solution here is to change my thinking: here are the logical reasons why I should realize I’m not a disaster. I imagine it sounds extremely sensible to someone who is not depressed or ADHD. The problem for me is: I’m low on dopamine which makes me sluggish and have a depressive baseline mood. Hypofrontality means my prefrontal cortex is a weak proponent of logic. Stress and depression have made my limbic system and especially my amygdala dominant, so what I feel is paramount and shades my logic circuits heavily, and not in a positive way. Negative emotions fight with positive ideas and win. This is literally how It works physiologically: the stronger area suppresses the weaker. Now with antidepressants or stimulants, I may be able to give my PFC a leg up. Then I am able to move this way, positive logic can win. Maybe these strategies work once that imbalance is corrected. But if we are talking about trying to improve by CBT techniques on their own, I need them to start where I am, not where I want to be. Concepts that apply are the ones like chunking where you do something without giving it lots of thought, sneak some minor achievements in, get a few dopamine hits and small habits going, and start an upward spiral. Maybe if I can listen to the whole thing I will perceive these aspects more clearly. But for me these things too often start with a pep talk about thinking differently. To a person prone to depression at least, this gets really close to the whole “you just need to adjust your attitude” thing. That’s downward spiral material for a depressed person in the same way that “you just need to have more discipline” is for a person with ADHD. SO...I submit that “you need to take a more positive attitude toward being disciplined” is a message that may resonate with NTs, but is a lose-lose for a depressed ADHDer.

All of the intros and “housekeeping” at the start of ADDitude’s videos can be a little tough to get through for a viewer w/ADHD.

This is interesting but I'm finding some of the tips near the end a bit inaccessible as they're framed in a classically neurotypical way, eg, "Eat the frog" can literally put me straight into ADHD paralysis for the whole day. It sounds like "just do it", which feels very demoralising when you just can't. A more ADHD friendly approach might be to try to snowball momentum from completing smaller less overwhelming tasks to build confidence and start taking some kind of action

Amen. These long intros are killing for those of us not needing all the housekeeping stuff. And very very ADHD unfriendly.

Presentation begins at 3:29

There are RU-vid videos on how to clean each room for people who don’t like to clean. It breaks it down into sections or layers and it has helped me a lot. Also setting my timer for 10 minutes will help me get started bc I tell myself just 10 minutes not 4 hours (like my mind is imagining)

Adhd will never, ever, ever be a gift. It is a remarkably challenging disorder and the only value this "adhd is gift" mentality has is for selling books, courses, and seminars. I highly recommend that everyone watch Dr. Russell Barkley to counter this dangerous ideology.

Cleaning the kitchen is DEFINITELY worthy of chunking for me and the level of severity of ADHD not to mention the physical energy and sensory overload. Cleaning my kitchen is the most overwhelming task I can think of in the home. Ex: 1. Throw away all trash. 2. Move all dishes into the sink area. and sort silverware to soak. 3. Put items (that have a home in the kitchen) away. 4. Move items that doesn’t belong in kitchen out. 5. Wipe down counters 6. Wash dishes Other tasks that might be included: Sweep Mop Clean out refrigerator Organize

I don’t have an answer, but reward and motivation is not a part of ADHD, so when I have something to do and chunking gets me to see what is involved and steps to take, I still can’t dive in and do it! I need some kind of way to dive in!! At this point I don’t care about minimizing the negatives and magnifying the positives. It’s almost like I want to go on a 10 day hike and come back to tackle my task from a different, more rounded and inspired person.

I seriously thought the introduction might go on for the entire hour... those 3 and a half minutes felt like 3 and a half HOURS 😳

I honestly only found a few points here helpful. It seems that the general goal setting/getting strategy is more for “advanced” levels of executive functioning. My goals ARE only the basic level of just cleaning my kitchen and having to chunk that down into smaller tasks. I’m not trying to become a clown, travel to Greece, make a career advancement, etc. I need to have basic hygiene, feed myself, have a functional living space, pay my bills. These are not long term goals, it’s daily “to do list” items I struggle with. The idea of “tell yourself to focus on completion” is laughable. This is my entire problem. Just telling myself to do it doesn’t help and can be in and of itself a form of negative self talk (although I did like the ideas about not bullying yourself and working through what my strengths/gifts are as mindset does help). Idk, I just don’t think it helps improve executive function to just focus on getting better at skills you have a deficit in. I’d rather have strategies to lower the demand on my poor executive function rather than double down my effort in an area I already struggle in (suggestions in other videos about point of performance have been way more helpful, for example).

If you're watching RU-vid clips instead of doing the "thing" you're supposed to be doing right now. You're off the hook. This is amongst the best presentations and tutorials I have seen on executive function. I've saved this clip into my RU-vid account to repeat it again. Right now I feel like I have the tools to tackle my day. Ms. Honos. If I don't forget your name or where I filed the video. I'll be sure to look for more of your work online ;-)

1. I usually watch the RU-vid ADHD experts who are ADHDers themselves. 2. This particular video is in more of a lecture format than I was expecting for RU-vid. 3. I truly feel that for a lot of peeps who have ADHD, it means having to take concrete breaks before being able to get back up on the horse again. 4. WHAT exactly the horse that get’s you going is depends on you. Some of us, like me, need medication. …Great luck🌬️❤️‍🩹.

Essentially this webinar is pressing upon the ADHDer to conform and fit into the neuro-typical box using willpower, which is a constant fight for those of us with ADHD. I don't know about you all, but I'm not interested in staying in fight mode my entire life, which I may add will use up all my available energy, therefore leaving little ir no energy left for self-care. I mean if one more expert tells me to break things down into smaller chunks, my emotional disregulation is goung ti make me lose my s#%t! All i heard was "research shows this, and that", not research specific to the ADHD brain. ADHDers cannot be lumped in with gen. pop.

It would also be helpful to have markers for those of us w/ ADD so we can jump right to the tips/tools section. I already know what executive functioning is. And focusing on the "gifts" denies people's struggles w/ ADD.

A lot of her suggestions work great for motivational challenges faced by people with ADHD. People with ADHD are not aliens with extraterrestrial brains. We're still human beings. She took motivational tools and adapted them to work better for someone who has ADHS. Some of what she suggested I already do and it helps a lot. I'm going to implement some of her other suggestions. Something she didn't talk about much that works great for me is exercising or doing a really good stretching and breathing practice, preferably outside, before I do something that's boring or not interesting to me. Calming my nervous system by decreasing the amount of energy I'm feeling makes it way easier for me to get started on projects. Just throwing that out there for other people who would like to try something more active.

This is incredibly helpful and informative. I struggle with procrastination, feeling overwhelmed, missing details appointments etc. Thank you for posting this video.

For me exuberance usually means temporary massive action.

Low-stress START HERE >> 3:30

My 20 minute naps turn into 2-3 hour naps. When we were little, we used to "play pretend". Our imaginations went wild. Hours of fun. How about "playing pretend" we are Martha Stewart? WWMSD? Or, to keep your car clean, pretend you're an Uber driver and the car needs to look great for your customers, so they'll give you compliments and tips. Oh wait, I AM an Uber driver....

Isnt it not that executive functions are "impaired" but theyre simply missing in various degrees case by case? Im on a learning trail rn bc i was just diagnosed and this seems off. Like Im pretty sure if I tried these things I would just be overwhelmed instantly bc ive tried less intensive staegies with that result.

I have been wondering if ADD/ADHD applies to me, along with RSD. The folks commenting here - think like me - i.e. long intros, I skip all of them, & taking 1 hour to give 30 minutes of info (I need them to focus) etc. Believe I have found my tribe. I learn a lot from the comments.

This has been the most helpful videos, giving us SPECIFICS! God bless you, BIG TIME!!!

I really like to go with my (fleeting) motivation. I tend to clean for hours, which is hyper focusing, then leave it for months, until I can't stand the way it looks (self-bullying, emotional connection). I like going with the FlyLady. She advocates starting with the kitchen sink. So my kitchen sink looks great, but everything else looks like hell.

67 years old, just diagnosed with ADHD, but I can see that I have had it my whole life. I have many talents, praise the Lord for that, but I can't see which is my best talent. I'm a Golf Pro, I was a good athlete, but I drank a lot and stuff and both my hips are artificial, I've had one for 28 years and the other is only 22 years old. I can still play golf quite well, but not much else is good these days. I study the Bible when I get my focus working well. This looks like a lot of work, I keep dosing off every couple minutes but I am determined to make it through and more than once.

For me the information has def been helpful. I listen to such when doing laundry or bicycling (i live in Denmark) or when im down because of my daily niveau of basic function. So thumbs up from Copenhagen 👍🏽

can someone tell me the name of the app that was suggested at 56:50. is it ultradot or ultraworking?

Really I appreciate this. Found it immediately helpful even 15 minutes in. Will be coming back to this one often

To paraphrase (I think) Cicero "Discipline is the key to self respect, which is the key to courage." Now, courage meant something particularly different back into the bad old days, than it does now

Prioritization and too many things on the list have put me in freeze mode and I am having a real issue getting out I’m currently not working for the first time in my life. I cannot collect unemployment had to sell my car. It was a back up car so that being said… But things are getting interesting, I need to pull myself back. I haven’t had a drink for over a month but I did have a beer last night which really really helped me put things in a perspective because it slowed my mind down one beer FYI.

So good. Rewatched 4 times within the past 5 days. Thank you 🙏🏽

Team work is the hardest part.

Empathy can affect attention. Never heard that concept before. Yes. Yes.

These techniques can help, but what's missing is the observation that ADHD creates an impairment and these techniques won't remove that impairment but they may give enough of a boost to be able to work around the impairment to some degree.

It felt like it had never occurred to her to define "chunking".

30 percent of those who didn’t make progress on written goals were ADD’ers

Very helpful -- thank you!

I am a chunker. Has changed my life.

I wish this was an article i could read. Reading long artivles woth lots of ideas is so much easier than listening to the same voice go on andd on. No hate to Dr. Honos Webb...its not their speech, it is simply that the speech isn't broken by anything...to my ears it becomes a drone. And they seem to be making good points. I just looked it up. She has like 7 books. I should go help myself i guess. 😅

Thank you very much for this, i will listen to this again, this is good!!

Does this “expert” have ADHD? Because her tips for managing mood are, like so many that are listed in talks and articles, pretty much BS. Maybe they work for those who can take the meds (I can’t, for medical reasons). But in my experience, cognitive suggestions do little or nothing to alter mood. All the “remember” and “think about” ideas are useless when you feel self-loathing, or rejection, or frustration-or are unable to focus. Or are hyperfocused on something. But the same talking heads suggest them repeatedly. Because they often work in study settings, where people are being cued, or where there’s enough external pressure being supplied, by the study itself, that these factors address the EF issue. And, of course, many studies rely on self-reporting, which have been shown to yield unreliable results. I’m particularly amazed by the speaker’s utter inability to identify why the “look up alternative words” method may work, for some people (I have my doubts as to how many folks w ADHD will do that exercise on their own, outside of a study setting). That exercise might work for some people the way writing down your feelings (like journaling) works: by shifting the person’s mood from being immersed in feelings to trying to form sentences. Because that act forces you to engage cognition enough to put words in order. It also gives you some emotional distance in the moment, which gives your brain a way to shift into cognitive mode. In fact, writing has been shown to be effective for people who have PTSD, in which EF is also impaired. For the reason I mentioned. As for the rest of this talk? Meh. But hey, she’s making lots of money publishing books that rely on the same core ideas. Nice for her.

I watched this video so many times… ❤

Thank you for the video and helpful content. What was the app suggested by the listeners? Ultra…?

What was that thing called? At 2:45? Ultra work-cycles

good lord that was a long intro

I am in Florida. I speak southern.. thought chunkin' meant throwing stuff in the garbage.

Thank you for the excellent and useful information! 🤩💐

Executive dysfunction is not something a person with ADHD can overcome just by learning that discipline brings power, or that it's important to take massive action on a goal. The problem is not ignoring this, the problem is that it is almost impossible to implement action when your brain is paralyzing you. Telling this to a person with ADHD is counterproductive. Just imagine how demoralizing it is to try with all the effort you can put in, but being unable to take action anyways; and there comes an "expert" to tell you that your problem is that you lack discipline. These strategies have not been designed taking the executive dysfunction of an ADHD brain into account.

Thank you for sharing this information. It is very helpful.

Amongst the most impactful webinars on ADD out there 🌟

Dont you guys think its a BIT ironic to have a 59 minute webinar on executive functioning for adhd people?

I appreciate the information and her knowledge but presentation is not very ND/ADHD friendly. Someone else commented the material is dense, and I agree. I’m going to have to try and watch this multiple times to process and absorb all of this info.

Tell yourself how good you’re gonna feel and get the problem off your back that’s gonna feel great! This is huge, huge, huge huge!

This has nothing to do with ADHD. These are advice for neurotypical people.

15:05 How to find your gifts

playback 1.75

13:00 she got me

I don’t want to be a leader. That’s too much responsibility

That introduction is agonizing

Do non ADHD people come up with these tips? Bc I’ve been listening for a tip that works so that I can do my work 😅 like breaking things up one at a time as if it’s a choice to be inundated with things we need to do. Or any of those tips 😂 I can gameify by racing time OR take a nap or do anything I actually want to do until I have enough energy to do what I need to or meds

This is my 3rd time listening. It’s useful and my brain needs to hear it several times to really get it.

Can somebody summarise please

Webinar host’s voice signals me such tiredness, I can’t…

I took the executive function test and ended up getting 46 out of 61 on it! Jinkies that explains a lot! I didn't know if I should laugh or cry about it. Btw, I like the info and I don't want to hurt feelings but the scratchy voice makes me wanna clear my throat or take a sip of water. Very triggering for some reason

I know you’re just trying to give helpful information but this is very difficult for a someone with ADHD to get through. I’m at the 3 minute mark and struggling already.

Cbt would have been intersting also. I mean a deeper dive

Susan at the beginning needs to chill 😅

Okay sure... ADD Is a gift... but someone forgot to include a gift card. Is there a place to get in store credit? Okay... Thanks for your work on developing a User Manual.

This is so sensory sensitivity unfriendly!

who the hell wants to go to "clown school"

YT: makes a video for people with ADHD US: why are you taking forever to get to the point and talking so slow?

I don't know what people here now are nagging about. This is a FANTASTIC informative webinar!

You guys are so nice but no!!! Good golly, this is just torture to try to listen to, and there’s no useful information. There’s not even any element of understanding or compassion. It’s just dry disconnected whatever as usual. I don’t even think a neurotypical could listen to her drone on and on without actually saying anything useful.

Why does the speaker have so many jargon points that need to be explained? Why not just make your points in easily accessible language?

all I'm hearing is just try harder. 🙄

CBT was completely useless for me!

Far too long and rambling. I'm sure the speaker has some helpful advice but twenty minutes in and I can't find it. Please, no more hour long presentations. Keep it to fifteen minutes.

The body-building analogy is bad. Bodybuilders build for size, not for strength.

I got 7 min in before I realized how ND-unfriendly this video is. Wow, couldn't believe it. Does she realize you can't have ADHD in the military? Why would that quote be motivating? I have loved so many other presentations on this channel, but this one really misses the mark. I couldn't even watch it.

The introduction is a huge turnoff and shows that you have no talent for constructing presentations! All of the information in that 3-minute intro should be put in written form in the description. Just concisely introduce the presenter and let her get on with the show.

what a load of crap. These are great general rules for anyone to live by, but they DO NOT solve or address the executive functioning deficiency in ADHD sufferers.

Least helpful

Well said. It explains why I stopped watching years ago…. I got tired of waiting for him to evolve while he made millions. And owns a movie studio, for what? This?? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

None of these videos goes into how much narcissism is exacerbated by ADHD and what to do to counter those kinds of responses. Me me me me me creates nothing but conflict and kills relationships.

Not interesting enough

I don't know if it is the host's vocal cords or bad microphone but the weird hoarseness to her voice feels like nails on chalkboard for me. I'm glad she doesn't talk much usually.