By Tasneem Abrahams — Occupational Therapist, Private Practice Growth Club
Executive functioning refers to the set of cognitive skills that help us plan, organize and manage our thoughts and actions. These skills develop over time, through real world experiences, starting in early childhood and continuing into young adulthood. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a diagnosis with a primary presentation of executive functioning challenges than negatively impacts an individual’s day-to-day functioning. However, it is important to note that not everyone with executive functioning challenges has ADHD. Other factors such as grief, physical illness, stress, burnout and other mental health conditions can also temporarily affect your ability to access your executive functioning skills.
The festive season is a time of great joy, and if you take time off, the holidays are meant to also be a time of rest and relaxation. However, the holiday period is often characterised by disruption in sleep patterns and unpredictable routines, overstimulation from social gatherings, and additional social pressure from demands on your time, attention and financial resources.
Getting back into a routine is hard for everyone, but it is especially difficult for individuals with ADHD.
These changes disrupt the coping strategies people with ADHD often need to put in place to function optimally day-to-day. Although ADHD brains crave novelty, they need routines to compensate for challenges with planning, prioritization and attention regulation. Once a working routine is established, a disruption during the holidays can make it very difficult to re-establish a working routine.
Common executive functioning challenges impacted by the New Year
- Planning and Prioritizing: At the start of the year there is social pressure to set New Year’s resolutions. Challenges with planning and prioritization can make it difficult for an individual to break down large aspirational goals into specific, manageable steps and determining which tasks are most important. This then leads to overwhelm, which results in difficulties with the executive function of task initiation.
- Task Initiation and Follow-Through: Many people struggle to start new tasks or projects, even when they know what needs to be done. Returning to work after the holidays often means a backlog of emails and tasks, which can create a feeling of being overwhelmed. This, combined with the pressure of achieving lofty New Year’s Resolutions, can lead to “task paralysis,” where the sheer number of things to do makes it hard to know where to begin.
- Emotional Regulation: When motivation naturally wanes after the initial burst of New Year’s enthusiasm, individuals may struggle to self-motivate or manage frustration when setbacks occur.
5 Steps to set yourself up for success when you return to work or study after the holidays
- Preparation is key.
- Start by acknowledging that transitioning back into daily life after the holidays will be challenging, and anticipating what specific tasks or areas of your life you typically struggle with the most so that you can identify strategies and plans to address them purposefully. This will give you a greater sense of control, which helps reduce anxiety.
- Make time to take time.
Schedule a buffer between returning from holiday mode and jumping back into work or study. This little pocket of “in-between” time acts like a decompression chamber. It lets your brain shift gears gradually instead of going from zero to one hundred overnight. People with ADHD or executive functioning challenges often struggle with abrupt transitions. A planned transition day gives you space to reset your routines, review upcoming commitments, organise your environment, and mentally rehearse what your first week back will look like. This helps reduce overwhelm, increase predictability, and make it easier for your brain to find its footing.
- Do a stock take.
During your planned transition period, take time to zoom out and see the landscape you’re returning to. Overwhelm often comes not from the work itself, but from the unknowns lurking in the background. A simple audit can dissolve half of that anxiety. Look at the roles you hold and the responsibilities that sit within each one. What projects were mid-stream before you left? What tasks are unfinished? What meetings or deadlines are approaching? What commitments have been quietly piling up while you were sipping something fruity in the sun? Once everything is laid out in front of you, it becomes far easier to prioritise. You can spot your non-negotiables, identify what’s flexible, and decide what can be delayed or reshaped.
- Lighten the load
Once you’ve done your stock take, the next step is deciding what actually deserves to come with you into the new year. This is where you lighten the load so your capacity isn’t crushed before you even begin. A simple way to do this is to run your responsibilities through the C.A.R.D. filter.
- C – Cut out or cut down: not everything needs to stay on your plate in its current form. Identify which habits, tasks and commitments you can do less of, or cut out completely.
- A – Automate: Identify tasks that can run on their own with a bit of upfront technology setup.
- R – Routinize: Are there tasks or activities you do repetitively. Can you routinize the way you do them, or when you them so that they take less mental energy each time. Are there tasks and activities you can stack together for greater efficiency, or new activities you can attach to existing routines?
- D – Delegate or defer: Are there tasks or commitments you can delegate to someone else, or defer if it doesn’t need your immediate attention? The goal is to shape your workload so it is more closely aligned with your real-life capacity.
- Slow and steady wins the race.
When you’ve been on holiday, even your best habits can fall by the wayside. That doesn’t mean you’ve failed or lost all your progress. It simply means you need a reset. Instead of trying to snap back into every routine at full intensity, on top of introducing all those New Year’s resolution new habits; focus on first rebuilding your foundations one tiny step at a time. Small, consistent actions are less overwhelming, create momentum, and are easier to sustain long after the “New Year motivation” wears off. Start by identifying the minimum routines that help you feel grounded, organised and functional and lock those in first. Once your foundation is solid, you’ll naturally find it easier to layer new habits on top and rebuild your full rhythm for the year.
Tips and Strategies to overcome executive functioning challenges
There’s no single formula for managing executive functioning challenges, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling magic beans. What works beautifully for one person might fall flat for someone else, because your brain, your lifestyle and your responsibilities are uniquely yours. The strategies below aren’t meant to be a universal blueprint. They’re simply a menu of ideas to explore, adapt or toss out depending on what actually supports you. Think of this section as a toolkit you can customise rather than a rulebook you have to follow.
Brain Dumping: Reduce the mental load by getting everything out of your head and into a reliable system. Choose what works for you, be it apps, whiteboards, sticky notes, calendars, voice notes, anything that reduces mental clutter.
Daily Planning Window: Spend 5-10 minutes each evening or morning reviewing your day. This builds self-awareness about time, energy, and task completion patterns.
Divide and Conquer: Divide large projects into smaller, more manageable steps to make them less overwhelming and to provide a sense of accomplishment as you complete each step.
Time Chunking with Anchor Points: Instead of scheduling your day hour-by-hour (which almost never works for ADHD brains), start by identifying your anchor events. These are fixed commitments that must happen at certain times, like school runs, meetings or client sessions. Everything else becomes a set of flexible blocks you can fill based on your energy. High-energy tasks sit in high-capacity times, low-energy tasks go where your brain is softer. Group similar tasks together so you don’t have to switch gears a hundred times. It’s structure without rigidity, which is exactly the sweet spot for ADHD brains.
Body Doubling: Work alongside someone else (in person or virtually) when tackling difficult tasks. The presence of another person can help maintain focus and accountability.
Lower the activation energy: Make starting easier by prepping the environment. For example, lay out clothes, open the document you need to work on, pre-pack your bag, set out ingredients, etc.
Create “minimum viable days”: Define the bare minimum that keeps your life functioning when capacity dips, e.g. a quick tidy, one work priority, basic hygiene, a simple meal. This helps you stay afloat without shame.
Use timers and gentle time awareness tools: Timers, vibrating watches, Pomodoro cycles or hourglasses can help you stay grounded in time, especially when hyperfocus kicks in or tasks feel overwhelming.
Start the New Year with self-compassion and a growth mindset
Many of the challenges you face with executive functioning are neurobiological, not character flaws. ADHD often isn’t recognized until adulthood, when work and family responsibilities intensify. If you’re just discovering this about yourself, be patient and compassionate as you learn new strategies.
The new year doesn’t require a complete transformation. Start where you are, use what you have, and do what you can.
An ADHD-friendly routine is not about rigid schedules or trying to become a perfectly organized person overnight. When built with enough flexibility, stimulation, and personal meaning, routines become empowering rather than stifling.
This year, instead of resolving to be someone else, resolve to be the best version of yourself