The Smart but Scattered Guide to Success: How to Use Your Brain's Executive Skills to Keep Up, Stay Calm, and Get Organized at Work and at Home

I’ve had this book on my book shelf since January of 2019 and just got around to reading it. What a mistake. I wish I would have started it right away. I’m just glad I finally read it. Don’t hesitate. This books highlights the main 12 skills that we use in everyday home and work life. It’s starts with a questionnaire that (if you are honest with yourself while completing the questionnaire) will tell you what skills are your strengths and which are your weaknesses. It also directs you to do one for work and one for home. Most of us react differently to situations at work than we would at home. Let me start by saying that before reading this book, I couldn’t figure out why I was struggling with time management despite all the systems I had in place and other things that I tried to improve it to no avail. It turned out it was task initiation (procrastination on a particular task) I was struggling with not time management. I was working on improving the wrong skill. Some skills are even have multiple skills embodied in them. A few are even split in two areas where a different set of skills are used for each. Organization for example, has two areas. Creating systems and maintaining them. I’ve always been great at creating organization but not so good at maintaining them. Creating systems uses three skills that are my strengths while the maintenance portion uses skills that are my weaknesses. It was a complete eye-opening read for me. I learned a lot about myself (and other people) and why I was struggling in certain areas and was so good in other areas. So make sure you read/listen to every chapter. Even if you aren’t struggling with that particular skill, there are things to learn about it. You will also learn a lot about other people, be able to identify skills they might be struggling in and adjust how you react to them. But with that being said, the book gave great explanation and lots of strategies and implementation steps to help create plans to improve in all the skills. There are action plan forms in the book that you can download from their website so you can print them as needed. Each chapter is laid out in the same order and gives real world examples to connect the information provided in the chapter. There are lots of additional resources listed like books, websites and apps to assist with that skill. The Smart But Scattered Guide to Success version is for adults. However, they have written other smart but scattered books specifically for school aged children and teens. I would have loved to have these books when I was raising my kids to be adults. A must for every person/family.

A good subject matter and extremely informative.

If you hate the smol beanification of ADHD online, this book is a breath of fresh air. The authors write to you like you're a capable adult who wants to work on your skills and provide great templates, definitions, and concept breakdowns. I've tried watching 20 minute youtube videos like "10 Tricks To Make Your ADHD Life Easier!!!", but I would always already have figured out 8 or 9 of the environmental/situational modifications they' would list. If that's also true for you, don't worry, that section in this book is only a couple pages. Currently halfway through this book and can't wait to slowly work my way through the rest!

I was in a bike accident on Dec19 2003 , NO HELMET struck a community style/apartment type mailbox at about 35-40 mph changed my life 8 broken ribs, 8 fractures left leg /ankle, fractured c4 vertebrae, 5 skull fractures w 3 subderal hematomas(Serious TBI) - 12 weeks coma. The team of DR.'s upon release kept telling me my likely biggest impacts would be to my Executive skills they were correct as it has taken me 15+ years to get back to what I consider 95% normal Executive Functions . This book helped me analyze and put into place practices that I use daily . Would recommend for those in your life who might suffer from mild to moderate TBI and have no means of ongoing professional therapy

I struggle with executive functioning skills. I have a severe deficit do to a multiple sclerosis diagnosis coupled with Parkinson's. This book has helped me develop many and provided me with many compensatory techniques. I appreciate the candid and realistic measures that are presented in this book to assist with overcoming your shortcomings. Please, if you're contemplating purchasing this do not wait. I don't say this to be dramatic but trust me: it will change your life literally.

I found this book to be very useful in identifying, explaining, and indicating the significance of the 12 executive skills that the authors describe. With the definitions of the skills and examples of what they look like, in addition to personal examples, it made thinking about both one's strengths and weaknesses very useful. I particularly liked the surveys, embedded in the book but also available/printable online, because they helped focus the mind. Originally intended for one member of our family, we all took the surveys and used the results as the basis of many frank discussions. Everybody found they had strengths not previously noted, and weaknesses in areas not clearly observed. Finally, the value of this book is that it gives one strategies on how to cope with one's deficits, frequently by planning and positive mind work. Therefore, I would highly recommend this book..

Easy to read, great ideas, and a clear path and step by step how to on increasing your ExF skills. The accompanying downloads for use are priceless!

I worked in a trauma-informed setting with high school students for two school years. I needed something in addition to what the school offered in the way of training and faculty support. Being left on my own to figure it out, I searched and read lots of reviews. This book and its companion rose to the top of my purchase list. I have yet to be disappointed in either of these selections.

El pedido llegó en el tiempo estimado por Amazon. Lo compré como complemento para el máster que estaba realizando, para afianzar conocimientos; y no me defraudó. Es interesante el contenido, por lo aclaratorio que es así como la sencillez de su formato que lo hace accesible. Eso sí, en inglés.

Looks at what psychologists call executive skills and how you can improve yours to be more effective and get more out of life. The writers' style is friendly and does not overload you with tons of unnecessary information.

BEST THING: This is a great way to see your executive functioning issues split out clearly, with corresponding chapters to help you improve how you manage each of them. EFFORT: The improvement work does require a reasonably high level of self reflection and self awareness. STAND OUT CONTENT: What's nice is that there is a small part speaking to your executive functioning strengths. Quite a few books will point out weaknesses but this gives you a glimpse of how your strengths have helped compensate. What I was left wanting: I wanted a full chapter (or three) about really digging into strengths. Then I thought about the other books I have in the same topic and they REALLY need the same thing; so, this book is the best of the lot so far.

Even in a genre which is not known for information density, this book feels far too long. Most of the content is already widely known or common sense, but at least I didn’t find anything completely wrong or harmful.

Really opened a window into understanding why I struggle with certain tasks, and actionable steps to take to turn my weaknesses info strengths (or at least less weak weaknesses).