I. Understanding the Executive in Your Brain
1. Are You Smart, Scattered, and Stressed?
2. Your Executive Skills Profile
3. Managing Executive Skills by Modifying the Environment
4. Improving Your Executive Skills
II. Understanding the Impact of Executive Skills in Your Daily Life
5. Executive Skills in the Workplace
6. Executive Skills in the Home
7. Executive Skills in Relationships
III. Strategies for Individual Executive Skills
8. Controlling Impulses: Response Inhibition
9. Keeping Track of It All: Working Memory
10. Being Cool: Emotional Control
11. Avoiding Procrastination: Task Initiation
12. Staying Focused: Sustained Attention
13. Defining a Path: Planning/Prioritizing
14. Clearing Clutter: Organization
15. Sticking to the Schedule: Time Management
16. Shifting Gears: Flexibility
17. Learning from Experience: Metacognition
18. Reaching the Finish Line: Goal-Directed Persistence
19. Rolling with the Punches: Stress Tolerance
IV. Looking Ahead
20. Aging without Losing Your Edge: A Prescription for Preserving Executive Skills
Resources

Are you smart, scattered, and struggling? You're not alone. Cutting-edge research shows that today's 24/7 wired world and the growing demands of work and family life may simply max out the part of the brain that manages complex tasks. That's especially true for those lacking strong executive skills--the core brain-based abilities needed to maintain focus, meet deadlines, and stay cool under pressure. In this essential guide, leading experts Peg Dawson and Richard Guare help you map your own executive skills profile and take effective steps to boost your organizational skills, time management, emotional control, and nine other essential capacities. The book is packed with science-based strategies and concrete examples, plus downloadable practical tools for creating your own personalized action plan. Whether on the job or at home, you can get more done with less stress.

See also the authors' Smart but Scattered parenting guides, plus an academic planner for students and related titles for professionals.

Peg Dawson, EdD, is a psychologist who provides professional development training on executive skills for schools and organizations nationally and internationally. She was previously on the staff of the Center for Learning and Attention Disorders at Seacoast Mental Health Center in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Dr. Dawson is a past president of the New Hampshire Association of School Psychologists, the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP), and the International School Psychology Association, and a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from NASP. She is coauthor of bestselling books for general readers, including Smart but Scattered, Smart but Scattered Teens, Smart but Scattered--and Stalled (with a focus on emerging adults), and The Smart but Scattered Guide to Success (with a focus on adults). Dr. Dawson is also coauthor of The Work-Smart Academic Planner, Revised Edition, and books for professionals including Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents, Third Edition.

Richard Guare, PhD, BCBA-D, is a neuropsychologist and board-certified behavior analyst who frequently consults to schools and agencies on attention and executive skills difficulties. He is former Director of the Center for Learning and Attention Disorders at Seacoast Mental Health Center in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Dr. Guare is coauthor of bestselling books for general readers, including Smart but Scattered, Smart but Scattered Teens, Smart but Scattered--and Stalled (with a focus on emerging adults), and The Smart but Scattered Guide to Success (with a focus on adults). He is also coauthor of The Work-Smart Academic Planner, Revised Edition, and books for professionals including Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents, Third Edition.