Using AI as your external executive function
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Executive function is the set of mental skills that plan, prioritise and follow through. It’s also the part of my brain that’s least reliable. AI has quietly become the tool that fills that gap.
I use it to turn a messy voice note into a task list. To break a vague project into steps I can actually start. To remember context I’ve already forgotten by the next morning. None of this is glamorous — it’s closer to having a very patient assistant who never gets tired of re-explaining things.
The mistake I made early on was expecting AI to make decisions for me. It doesn’t. It organises the decisions I still have to make, which turns out to be most of the battle. Executive dysfunction isn’t a lack of intelligence — it’s a bottleneck in organising what you already know. AI is good at loosening that bottleneck.