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⚙️ The 5 EF Blockers Quiz
A quiz from ND Hive. Companion to “What is Executive Function?”
What this is
Executive function is a depletable resource, not a fixed trait. The 5 EF Blockers framework names what’s draining yours fastest. This quiz tells you which blocker is the biggest culprit RIGHT NOW so you can target your interventions instead of guessing.
Takes about 7 minutes. Retake monthly. Your top blocker will shift over time.
How this works
For each question, pick the answer that’s most true on a typical day in the last two weeks. Each answer adds points to one of five blockers. The blocker with the highest score is your biggest current drain.
The questions
1. What’s most likely to derail your day?
- A. Background sounds, lights, smells, or unexpected sensory input. → Sensory Overload (+3)
- B. A conversation that hit harder than expected. → Emotional Flooding (+3)
- C. Just feeling flat, unmotivated, or “blah” with no obvious cause. → Dopamine Drought (+3)
- D. Switching between tasks or projects. → Task-Switching Cost (+3)
- E. The state of my space (cluttered, too quiet, wrong temperature). → Environmental Collapse (+3)
2. When you hit a wall, where does it show up first?
- A. My nervous system goes into overload. I can’t filter input. → Sensory Overload (+3)
- B. I get tearful, irritable, or shut down emotionally. → Emotional Flooding (+3)
- C. I lose interest in everything. Even things I used to love feel flat. → Dopamine Drought (+3)
- D. My brain feels scrambled. I forget what I was doing mid-task. → Task-Switching Cost (+3)
- E. I look around my space and feel paralyzed by what I see. → Environmental Collapse (+3)
3. What kind of break actually helps you recover?
- A. Quiet, dark, low-stimulus space. Earplugs. Eye mask. → Sensory Overload (+2)
- B. Connection with someone who feels safe. Crying it out. → Emotional Flooding (+2)
- C. Something genuinely novel or challenging. Movement. → Dopamine Drought (+2)
- D. Doing one thing for an extended period without interruption. → Task-Switching Cost (+2)
- E. Cleaning or reorganizing my space. → Environmental Collapse (+2)
4. What makes your hardest tasks feel impossible?
- A. Too much noise, light, or activity around me. → Sensory Overload (+2)
- B. Something feels emotionally charged about the task. → Emotional Flooding (+2)
- C. Nothing feels rewarding. The dopamine isn’t there. → Dopamine Drought (+2)
- D. I keep getting pulled into other tasks before I finish. → Task-Switching Cost (+2)
- E. I can’t think because of the visual chaos around me. → Environmental Collapse (+2)
5. When does your executive function feel best?
- A. When the environment is calm, predictable, and low-stim. → Sensory Overload (+2)
- B. When I’m in a stable emotional state with no fresh wounds. → Emotional Flooding (+2)
- C. When I’m interested, challenged, or have a real reward at the end. → Dopamine Drought (+2)
- D. When I have a long uninterrupted block to focus on one thing. → Task-Switching Cost (+2)
- E. When my space is clean, organized, and visually quiet. → Environmental Collapse (+2)
6. What did you just notice while taking this quiz?
- A. The sounds around me (or lack of them) are loud in my head. → Sensory Overload (+2)
- B. Something emotional came up reading the questions. → Emotional Flooding (+2)
- C. I’m bored and tempted to scroll my phone. → Dopamine Drought (+2)
- D. I almost lost track of what I was doing on question 3. → Task-Switching Cost (+2)
- E. I keep noticing the mess (or order) of my space. → Environmental Collapse (+2)
Scoring
For each blocker (A through E), add up your points across all 6 questions. Your top scorer is your biggest current drain.
| Blocker | Your Score |
|---|---|
| A. Sensory Overload | _____ |
| B. Emotional Flooding | _____ |
| C. Dopamine Drought | _____ |
| D. Task-Switching Cost | _____ |
| E. Environmental Collapse | _____ |
What your top blocker means + what to do
Sensory Overload (top score): Your EF is being drained by environmental input. Action: identify your top 2 sensory triggers. Reduce or buffer them (earplugs, dim lighting, quieter spaces). Take low-stim recovery breaks, not high-stim ones.
Emotional Flooding (top score): Your EF is being drained by unprocessed emotion. Action: emotion needs witness, not solution. Co-regulation with a regulated human (body double, friend, coach). Reduce demands until the wave passes. Stop trying to think your way through.
Dopamine Drought (top score): Your EF is being drained by under-stimulation. Action: novelty, challenge, or genuine reward at the end of effort. Pair boring tasks with interesting input. Move your body before hard tasks. Build in real (not theoretical) rewards.
Task-Switching Cost (top score): Your EF is being drained by context-switching. Action: batch similar tasks. Protect uninterrupted blocks. Reduce the number of “open loops” your brain is tracking. Single-tasking is not optional for your brain.
Environmental Collapse (top score): Your EF is being drained by visual / spatial chaos. Action: 15 minutes of environment reset before any hard task. A clean workspace is not vanity, it’s EF protection. Visual quiet matters more than tidy.
The deeper move
The 5 EF Blockers framework is not about elimination. It’s about awareness. You will not remove all five. You will learn which is loudest right now and protect that one.
Retake this quiz monthly. Your top blocker shifts seasonally, hormonally, and across burnout cycles. The fix that worked in March may not be the fix you need in October.
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A quiz from ND Hive. Built for people whose executive function is leaking through more than one hole.