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

By: Peg Dawson EdD, Richard Guare PhD

Narrated by: Randye Kaye

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.

Please note: The audio refers to supplemental materials that are currently unavailable from the provider.

©2016 The Guilford Press (P)2016 Tantor

Critic reviews

"This isn't just a good book, it's a great book!" (Russell A. Barkley, author of Taking Charge of Adult ADHD)

Clear explanations

Clearly explains executive skills and practical solutions and action plans. Recently diagnosed ADHD and hope for my aging brain.

I really like the way it's organized

they explain for each of the different aspects of executive functioning, what we know about it what it looks like a case study what the people do about it and why they're approach works. All in all the way that it's broken down, is very helpful to me in understanding different levels and aspect of executive functioning. I learned quite a lot about my own processes.

Great for beginners to the self help genre

This was a great book for people who are starting out in the self help book genre. All of these books have some unique information, and this one provided more ideas for people who are older and some good advice for people who are neurodivergent.

Helpful

It’s pretty well organized and helpful when it comes to figuring out your strengths and weaknesses outlined in the book. It’s definitely helpful in giving examples and ideas for how to deal with each weakness as well.

The only thing I hated was the repetitiveness of the later chapters going over the weaknesses and how to change them. After steps 1-3, the “what it looks like in practice” and “action plan” sections were both exactly the same thing in all the chapters and it was kind of annoying that it wasn’t unique for each one.

I only went through the later chapters of my own weaknesses, but I can’t imagine reading through the entire book, because of that.

Overall though I will be implementing some of the things I learned in the book, especially with in regards to working memory and flexibility which are my main two weakness points.

Very helpful on a practical level

This is a really great, comprehensive resource that helps you identify executive skill weaknesses and strengths in your kids and yourself. They have an executive functioning self assessment for you and your child/teen. You can download or print this off from http://www.smartbutscatteredkids.com/media/resources/print-articles/. Gives you skills to help yourself and your children become better with time management, emotional control, sustained attention, impulse control, planning prioritization and so much more. Really helpful.