Could executive function be described more clearly?

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I think I get what it means now. I do have trouble with things like planning long term goals and stuff like that.

ok here is one for ya.
One day a few months ago...I had a really bad E.F day.
Mom bought groceries and told me to put them away.
so this is what I did

I put a whole bag of coffee in the half filled sugar jar, realized afterwards my mistake...I had to scoop as much coffee out and dump the sugar since it was contaminated with coffee.
that was not enough, five minutes later, I put the milk in the cabinet (not refrigerated). I did not notice my mistake on that one, mom said....what are you doing??? I then realized my error and said I have no idea, I lost my mind
about an hour later, I went to go feed and water my bird, so I put fish food in the bird water.
At this point....I screamed, "somebody help me!! !! ! I cant put anything where it goes!! !"

luckily, that was a freak of a day, I am usually not that bad....but as far as how to invest money and things like that...I dont know where to begin. My financially savy aunt tells me to invest in candian or austrialian money...cuz the US money is about to go belly up and wont be worth anything. I should listen to her since 4 years ago she told me that we are heading into a recession and to put all money into gold. Well she did and I didn't....she is living in a three story house in the rich part of town and pays for it off of her interest she is getting from the gold since gold has gone up 200 percent from when she bought it. I on the other hand am in a small rental house barely getting by. I think I will listen to her this time.

It's sort of making sense to me, I guess. I do tend to do a lot of things out of order, but I somehow fumble my way through to get the task done most of the time. It's long-term stuff that I feel I just have no answer for.

I understand it to be a matter of planning & executing tasks. I am not a clinician, but as I see it:

The specific difficulties I have:

Time management:
Getting places on time
Estimating how long a task will take
Estimating how long ago an event happened (for example, I might say that something that happened two weeks ago was "a few days ago" or vice versa)

It seems to be a perceptual issue, I.e.: I don't understand time the same way other people (lacking an executive function impairment) do. There are other difficulties I have, for example: planning & executing tasks in sequence, but they are mostly centered around time.

To be more specific, I would tend to spend too much time on something simple just because I was distracted by or lost in the minutiae (in the programming world, we call this "going down the rabbit hole", no doubt a Lewis Carrol reference). That one really "bit me" in school, because every assignment one gets is essentially a sequence of small tasks culminating in one outcome.

It is possible that these are a part of why we are also commonly misdiagnosed or dual-diagnosed with ADHD, since most of the effects of executive function impairment are synonymous with those symptomologies as well.

Whether these conditions are separate discreet diagnoses or are simply comorbid conditions is something I haven't found a satisfactory answer to. I doubt the research has really gotten that far either. Neuroses are quite difficult to diagnose, but can be even harder to research definitively.

According to Einstein though, time is an illusion. So maybe we're actually just more perceptive & therefore less susceptible to illusory concepts.

I used to think it was another way of saying being lazy to do things. That would describe my family because they refused to make their home look like a palace my mom described it. That would also describe my SIL too because she hates cleaning but supposedly it's her OCD that keeps her from cleaning. That is what my husband told me.

But ED is where someone has a hard time organizing their time and it seems to be lack of motivation and intertia to get stuff done and not knowing how to break it into small peaces to get stuff done. All they see is the big picture so they get so overwhelmed they don't know where to start and how to break it down. I have this problem here. It is also difficulty switching between tasks so they forget about one other thing when they do something else. Lot of people have ED issues when things get too busy and they have too much going on at once so they forget. But ED disorder is where someone does it more often and does it in normal situations when most people don't do it. They may even do it on a normal day when most people would do it on an abnormal day when it's real busy and they had lot of customers that day than normal.

I am sure anxiety causes ED issues as well like how autism and ADHD causes them.

Difficulty multitasking, controlling anger, dealing with a change of circumstances, initiation tasks all fall under Executive Dysfunction.

If you have ever had profound doubts about whether you possess "free will", or wonder if there is any point at all in planning what you're going to do next because your brain will just ignore the decisions that you make, it may well indicate executive functioning impairments.

I have seriously doubted my sanity at times when I just can't work out how or why I didn't manage to get something done despite wanting to do it, knowing how to do it, having all the resources to do it, and having done it successfully before. Not having a reason or excuse for it when I've let someone else down just rubs it in even more, without them even needing to criticise me first.

I'm very good at procrastinating and making rationalisations to avoid things I don't want to do too, but the executive function problems that really crush me don't fit into that category. My motivation gets drained very quickly even for things that I enjoy and want to do, because being motivated makes surprisingly little difference to how likely it is that I'll start doing them. I just get "stuck in a rut" of doing the exact same things every day, even if I'm not enjoying them and know that they are doing me no good. My "auto-pilot" just gets jammed on, and sometimes the only thing that will turn it off is a crisis.

This is really interesting. I've had this all my life it drives people absolutely insane. I used to struggle answering how I did math questions, I would often skip steps or miss something. I ALWAYS lose things no matter how hard I try because simple things like picking up my bag don't stick in my head, and even with a list of things I constantly have to keep referring to it, because I forget the steps all the time.

I often get overwhelmed doing simple things like making dinner because my mind just goes fuzzy and it feels like I am looking at a huge task, I open the fridge and just stare at it my mind completely blank.

I am kinda used to this chaos though, I end up creating huge amounts of work for everything because I have to sit down and excessively plan the smallest thing, and then panic that I can't keep it in my head and often end up giving up. People often see it as me being lazy, but doing the smallest things can seem so huge to me. It gets a lot worse if I am depressed but its an every day part of my life.

Funny enough a large part of my job is planning things, but it takes a huge amount of concentration from me to do it, and I often get exhausted. I am apparently very good at it and detail orientated though when I do.

I just went to kitchen for "something to drink". 4th time today. It went like this:
1. Go to kitchen,
2. Look around,
3. See the kettle,
4. Think: "There should be some water in it because I did boil a lot of it a few hours ago. What do I drink it with?",
5. Imagine some syrup in the fridge,
6. Take out the syrup out of the fridge,
7. Put it next to the kettle,
8. Look around,
9. Find there is no clean glass,
10. Go back to room, to take the class I was drinking before (I was returning for the glass 3rd time already today, I should really know better by now and either wash dishes or bring the glass with me as step 1),
11. Put the glass next to the kettle,
12. Pour syrup to the glass,
13. Make the kettle dirty with the syrup somehow,
14. Pour water into the glass,
15. Clean the kettle using my hand,
16. Wash my hands,
17. Go back to my room,
18. Think "Where is my drink?",
19. Return to kitchen,
20. Take the drink,
21. Put the drink on the desk,
22. Think "The syrup will get bad",
23. Go to kitchen,
24. Put syrup into fridge,
25. Go back into my room,
26. Promise myself I am going to do the dishes later,
27. Sit in front of computer,
28. Think about the topic I was reading right before deciding I would like to drink something,
29. Write the answer,
30. See the glass still full of the drink I wanted that badly.

I knew I have problems with executive functioning... This is the prove.
I thought that problems are just my memory and the whole executive functioning is related to other things I have problems with, such as looking for a job or booking doctors appointments.

^^So familiar! Except that quite often step 30 is...
See the glass still full of the drink I wanted that badly, stood next to the other two half-drunk drinks that I didn't see were right in front of me to begin with!