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Executive functioning (EF) skills are the mental processes that allow us to:

• Plan

• Focus attention

• Remember instructions

• Juggle multiple tasks

• Manage our behavior and emotions in order to achieve goals

Think of them as the “air traffic control” system of the brain. They help direct our actions, thoughts, and reactions in an organized way.

These skills generally fall into a few key categories:

Category	Description
Inhibitory Control	Thinking before acting, resisting impulses, and filtering distractions.
Working Memory	Holding information in mind and using it (e.g., remembering directions while walking).
Cognitive Flexibility	Switching tasks, adapting to change, and looking at things in multiple ways.
Planning & Prioritization	Mapping out steps to meet goals, deciding what’s important.
Organization	Keeping track of information, materials, deadlines, ideas.
Task Initiation	Getting started without procrastinating.
Goal-Directed Persistence	Following through to finish things, even when it's hard or boring.
Time Management	Estimating how long tasks take and using time efficiently.
Self-Monitoring	Checking in on your performance (behavior, work quality, progress).
Emotion Regulation	Managing stress, frustration, excitement, and staying calm under pressure.

Why Are Executive Functioning Skills Important for Children?

Children rely on EF skills to:

• Behave successfully at school. These skills allow them to focus in class, wait their turns, and follow multi-step instructions.

• Learn effectively. Thanks to executive functioning skills, kids can remember what they’re told, switch between subjects, and solve problems, which builds strong study skills and supports their long-term academic success.

• Make friends. Executive functioning skills help kids control emotional reactions, consider others’ perspectives, and play cooperatively.

• Build independence. Kids with strong executive functioning skills are able to manage homework, chores, and routines without constant cues and reminders from teachers or parents.

Therefore, early development of these essential skills is linked to better academic performance, social relationships, and mental health in later life. On the other hand, kids who struggle with EF often appear disorganized, impulsive, forgetful, distracted, or immature.

It is important to note that struggling with executive functioning can be a sign of a disorder, such as ADHD or depression. Because of this, it is generally recommended to talk to a specialist before establishing a routine of activities to improve these skills.

Why Are Executive Functioning Skills Important for Adults?

Adults depend on executive function to handle all the daily tasks, including:

• Work performance: meeting deadlines, prioritizing, organizing tasks, adapting

• Home life: managing finances, parenting, household planning

• Relationships: communicating thoughtfully, regulating emotions during conflicts

• Self-care: staying healthy, achieving personal goals, sticking to habits

• Stress and change: coping with transitions, unexpected events, and multitasking

Strong EF in adulthood correlates with better career success and health outcomes, as well as stronger relationships and greater mental resilience. On the other hand, adults with poor EF skills struggle with chronic procrastination, burnout, forgetfulness, and difficulty staying consistent in personal and professional life.

As for kids, executive dysfunction in adults can be caused by a disorder like ADHD or depression. Therefore, it's recommended to consult a specialist to understand whether there is a better approach that targets personal needs.

Executive Functioning Activities for All Ages

Ready to boost your executive functioning skills? Here are plenty of daily activities you can try!

Activities that Strengthen Planning and Organization

• Try Jigsaw puzzles. In the long run, they will help you break long-term goals into smaller, manageable assignments, assess patterns, and organize space.

• Cook with a recipe. This activity can help you build sequencing and organization skills through multi-step planning. You must read, gather materials, measure, remember steps, and self-monitor progress.

• Schedule and plan an event (real or pretend). This activity demands foresight, prioritizing, and time estimation. It involves juggling supplies, guest lists, timing, and budgeting, mirroring real-world task demands.

• Try goal-setting activities and tracking charts. These promote deliberate planning and self-monitoring over time. In the long run, these activities will help you develop persistence and self-reflection.

• Plan and budget a pretend vacation. This can help you build executive functioning skills like complex planning and future-thinking. Choose a destination, compare costs, arrange itineraries, and organize information: all of these target high-level EF.

Activities that Boost Working Memory & Cognitive Flexibility

• Timed scavenger hunts will challenge you to remember categories while adapting quickly under time pressure. They help with flexible thinking, speed, and maintaining rules in mind while searching.

• Simon Says or “follow the leader” can help you strengthen your auditory working memory and impulse control. You must remember changing instructions and resist acting impulsively when the cue is missing.

• Obstacle courses that require remembering and executing multiple rules exercise both memory and shifting attention. You'll have to recall order and adapt movements while inhibiting distractions mid-task.

• Note-taking and summarizing short videos can help improve the ability to hold key points in mind while re-expressing them. This sharpens working memory, attention to detail, and flexible communication.

• “What’s changed?” memory games train visual working memory and attention to detail. You must detect subtle differences in images after brief exposures, building snapshot-memory capacity.

Activities that Target Inhibitory Control & Attention

• Sorting tasks with time limits can help you train your focused attention and rule adherence under pressure. You'll practice staying on task without getting distracted and shifting flexibly between categories.

• Mindfulness exercises can help develop sustained focus and calm reaction control. They can help build self-regulation skills by teaching intentional focus and responsive, rather than reactive, behavior.

• “Reverse” games (follow directions wrong on purpose) can help build inhibitory control by forcing you to suppress automatic responses. By doing the opposite of what is expected, you'll grow your self-control “muscles.”

• Color-by-number or code-based art encourages focus, inhibition, and attention to instruction. It helps you learn how to stay within boundaries, follow rules, and be patient.

Activities that Improve Reasoning, Logic & Problem Solving

• Strategy games such as chess, Connect 4, or checkers can help develop forward-thinking. They require analysis, predicting outcomes, and thinking several steps ahead.

• Sudoku, Kakuro, or logic grids challenge your deductive reasoning and planning skills. These puzzles can help develop persistence, flexible thinking, and complex working memory.

• Escape-room games can help you build collaborative problem-solving and stress-tolerant thinking. You'll have to decode clues, shift approaches, and persist through failures.

• Riddles and brainteasers are designed to enhance abstract thinking and mental flexibility. They encourage thinking outside the box and discarding incorrect response options.

• DIY science experiments promote hypothesis-based thinking and structured planning. They require step-wise thinking, patience, and evaluating outcomes to adapt.

Activities that Strengthen Time Management & Task Completion

• Time-management challenges can help you learn to estimate, monitor, and adjust how long things take. This builds awareness of time and pacing to complete tasks efficiently.

• iPad/computer apps designed for cognitive training can offer targeted practice in timed EF tasks. These typically auto-adjust difficulty and work on speed, accuracy, and memory.

Activities That Improve Emotion Regulation and Self-Monitoring

• Mindfulness meditation: short daily sessions can help you learn how to notice your emotions without reacting impulsively, improving self-awareness and emotional control.

• Journaling or reflection exercises: writing about your feelings, daily challenges, or reactions can help you understand emotional patterns and personal triggers.

• Role-playing scenarios: when you practice responses to challenging social situations, you can develop perspective-taking, empathy, and self-monitoring.

• Breathing & relaxation techniques: techniques like deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, or guided imagery can help you manage stress and impulsive reactions.

• Emotion charades or feelings identification games: especially for kids, acting out or labeling emotions encourages recognition, regulation, and empathy.

• Yoga or Tai Chi: combining movement with mindful attention helps regulate emotions, improve focus, and increase bodily awareness.

Activities That Improve Task Initiation

• Try “5-Minute Start” challenges. Commit to starting a task for just five minutes. Often, the beginning is the hardest part, and once you start, momentum naturally builds. This can apply to cleaning, writing, or creative projects.

• Use visual or physical task prompts. Sticky notes, checklists, or visual boards can break large tasks into simple first steps.

• Establish morning or daily “kickoff” routines. Structured routines create automatic signals to begin tasks, reducing procrastination.

• Try timed micro-tasks. Set a timer for short, defined segments to reduce the pressure of starting. For example, try 10-minute writing sprints, 15-minute tidying sessions, or mini-coding challenges.

• Gamify the start. Reward yourself when you finish the first step. For example, use an app that gives you rewards or earning points for starting homework independently or other minor achievements that help you achieve the ultimate goal.

• Set up your environment. For example, lay out cooking ingredients before actually cooking or have all your art supplies ready before working on a project.

Executive Functioning Activities Especially for Kids

The activities described below are specifically designed for children and offer fun ways to strengthen planning, inhibition, flexible thinking, and working memory!

1. Freeze Dance (Start/Stop Listening Game)

This musical movement game helps children practice impulse control and attention. In short, kids dance freely when the music plays and must stop instantly when the music stops. This sharpens their ability to inhibit action and stay alert.

2. Red Light, Green Light

Classic playground games like Red Light, Green Light train skills like response inhibition, listening accuracy, and self-monitoring. Children must follow changing cues, evaluate instructions, and control their bodies appropriately.

3. Routine Picture Schedules

Visual schedules that outline morning, bedtime, or school routines can help children organize tasks, transition smoothly, and develop independence in managing multi-step plans without constant reminders.

4. “Clean Up by Category” Games

Instead of a general “tidy up,” challenge your kids to put away only soft things, only red items, or only things that belong in the closet. This activity strengthens their cognitive flexibility and sorting skills.

5. Play-Dough Task Cards

Giving children visual cards to “build a snowman,” “make a pizza,” or “create a frog” encourages them to follow a sequence of steps, use creativity within structured limits, and persist until a goal is finished.

6. Pretend Play With Assigned Roles

Assign roles like chef and customer, teacher and student, or storekeeper and shopper. Role-play involves planning, dialogue creation, flexible thinking, and problem-solving in a social context, all executive functioning boosters.

7. Sticker Reward Tracking Systems

Visual charts where children earn stickers for completed tasks can support goal-directed persistence and intrinsic motivation. Kids learn to stick with routines and celebrate sustained effort toward long-term rewards.

8. Puppet Shows (Plan, Script, Perform)

Puppet theater engages planning, sequencing, working memory, and self-expression, all of which are important executive functioning elements.

9. Story-Based Treasure Maps

Following simple maps with picture clues guides children through a sequence of steps, which can help build working memory, attention, and navigation skills.

Executive Functioning Activities Especially for Adults and Young Adults

Even as grown-ups, our brains benefit from thoughtful workouts. The activities described below are meant to genuinely fit into your real life, nudging your executive functioning skills in practical, meaningful ways!

1. Bullet Journaling or Digital Planning

Creative tracking systems (whether analog or through apps) can help you manage tasks, build routines, and reflect on priorities. The process of designing your planner your way taps into organization, planning, and self-monitoring in a deeply personal way.

2. Coordinating a Shared Grocery List + Weekly Meal Plan

This deceptively simple routine demands planning ahead, communicating with others, sticking to a budget, and pivoting when plans change. It’s a powerful hands-on practice in real-world executive functioning scenarios (plus you eat better!).

3. Budgeting Challenges (Envelope or App-Based)

Setting spending categories and actually tracking them can help you sharpen impulse control, future thinking, and sustained goal-pursuit. Small decisions add up, and this can help you reinforce planning and delayed gratification.

4. Learning a New Language with Spaced Repetition Tools

Language learning boosts working memory and cognitive flexibility, especially when practiced consistently in bite-sized sessions using science-backed review systems.

5. Time-Blocking Your Calendar

Schedule your day into chunks for deep work, life tasks, and breaks. This reinforces prioritization, realistic planning, and self-regulation. You'll start to see time differently and use it more purposefully.

6. Multi-Step DIY Home Projects

Whether you’re refinishing a table or re-tiling a bathroom, these are hands-on home projects that can help you enhance sequencing skills, problem-solving, cognitive flexibility, and task initiation. Plus, they offer a satisfying payoff at the end!

7. Working in Pomodoro Bursts

For example, you can use 25-minute focus intervals followed by short breaks or, in other words, the Pomodoro technique. This can help you train sustained attention and avoid procrastination. It’s a surprisingly powerful structure for people who struggle with focus!

Physical Activities that Improve Executive Function

Physical activity is great for the brain, too! For example, activities that combine movement with mental engagement can significantly strengthen executive functioning skills like working memory, cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, and planning. Here are some activities you can try:

• Dancing: following steps, sequences, and rhythms improves working memory, attention, and impulse control.

• Obstacle courses: navigating multiple challenges at once strengthens planning, problem-solving, and flexible thinking.

• Team sports (soccer, basketball, volleyball, etc.): coordinating with teammates, strategizing, and responding to fast-changing situations improves cognitive flexibility, self-regulation, and goal-directed persistence.

• Martial arts (karate, taekwondo, judo, etc.): practicing discipline, sequences, and focus enhances self-control, attention, and emotional regulation.

Mendi Neurofeedback: Brain Training to Improve Executive Function

Mendi is a wearable neurofeedback headband paired with a training app. During short, gamified sessions, Mendi's state-of-the-art fNIRS technology measures blood flow and oxygenation in your prefrontal cortex (the part of your brain responsible for executive skills like focus, impulse control, and decision-making). As you focus and stay calm, you control a ball rising and falling within the app, basically seeing your brain “train” in real time.

This process, called neurofeedback, helps you strengthen neural pathways involved in executive functioning. Over time, consistent Mendi use can give you the necessary mental resources to:

• Maintain focused attention for longer periods

• Regulate emotional responses under pressure

• Resist impulses and distractions

• Plan and make decisions more effectively

• Improve cognitive skills

Keep in mind that Mendi is not a medical device and, therefore, does not substitute medical advice, diagnosis, and treatment. If you think you struggle with executive function because of a medical condition, it's advisable to seek medical advice before using Mendi.

Final Thoughts

Doing puzzles, practicing planning games, and sticking to focus-building routines can absolutely strengthen executive functioning. But combining behavioral training with neurofeedback taps into both behavioral and biological change. So if you’re serious about boosting your brain’s ability to manage life’s endless demands (for yourself or your child), consider adding Mendi to your toolkit!

Ready to take executive functioning training to the next level? Try Mendi today and experience neurofeedback-powered progress!

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the 7 core executive functions?

The 7 core executive functions are inhibition, working memory, emotion regulation, self-awareness, planning, problem-solving, and cognitive flexibility.

What is the best exercise for executive function?

The best exercises for executive function are mental exercises like word games, puzzles, strategy games, role-playing, and even coloring.

What are executive functioning skills, and why are they important?

Executive functioning skills are essential mental processes that allow for effective planning, attention management, and task juggling. Their importance lies in enhancing productivity and facilitating success in daily life.

What role do physical activities play in boosting executive functioning?

Physical activities significantly enhance executive functioning by improving cognitive development, focus, and problem-solving skills. Engaging in various physical exercises, such as obstacle courses and team sports, supports both mental and physical well-being.