One weird Executive Function Back 2 School trick

I feel so much joy holding this guitar. Just kidding.

Parents, what’s up? Seth the South Broiler here. I’m an executive function coach based in Boulder, Colorado, and today I’m doing a little vlog for you on one weird tip I’m going to give you in terms of how to help your child have a better school year as it relates to executive function.

So I was just holding my guitar there—it brings me joy. And the reason I was making that joke, if any of you have heard of Marie Kondo, is that about three or four years ago I read Marie Kondo’s book about the art of tidying up. It was a good book. I didn’t use all the advice in it, but I have been downsizing, minimizing, and living a more minimalist lifestyle since about 1996 or 1997.

The way that I got into it wasn’t through any books or anything like that. It was that I knew somebody named Lou, and I lived in Bloomington, Indiana at the time. He had a mansion—a giant house with four wings. The house was so big that they had a six-car garage, and they even had a separate house on the property where a groundskeeper lived. They literally had someone living there just to maintain the grounds.

That felt quite excessive to me. I’ve always had a minimalist vibe anyway, and while Lou is a great guy, that lifestyle is just not me. It’s not the way I choose to live. I don’t like a lot of stuff—stuff tends to stress me out.

What Lou said one day was so profound that I remember it to this very day: “Seth, the more stuff you have, the more stuff you have to manage.”

Now, I’m an executive function coach. I work with middle school, high school, and college students, generally helping them. It’s the beginning of a new school year, and if I were working with you and your child right now, one of the first things I would try to do—if there is buy-in—is downsize and minimize your child’s stuff.

I’m going to talk about that in some practical ways. But before I do, I want to explain why.

Because of what Lou said: the more stuff your child has, the more stuff they have to manage. And if your child struggles with executive function, I want them to have a manageable amount of things so they can actually learn to manage what they need in life, rather than being overwhelmed by a world full of stuff they don’t even use.

So I’m a big believer in that. I’ll explain how I do it when working with families.

First of all, at the beginning of a school year, I would recommend taking an entire weekend with your child to go through their things and downsize.

Marie Kondo suggests going category by category. For example, you would gather every T-shirt, throw them on the bed, and hold each one up asking, “Does this bring me joy?”

Now, when working with teenagers, I don’t know if that question is always practical. Some don’t care about letting things go, and others struggle to let anything go at all. But the category system still works.

How you do it doesn’t matter as much as simply doing it.

What I did was make a list of all the categories in my life. About three years ago, I went through everything category by category and downsized almost all of it.

I had about 35,000 digital pictures. I deleted almost all of them and reduced it to about 1,000. I had about 3,000 physical photographs from my life, and I reduced that to about 300. I had tons of books. I reduced those as well. I even reduced my shoes down to only what I actually wear.

I used to collect guitars—I had about 12 at one point. That meant a lot of maintenance: changing strings, cleaning, taking care of them. Right now I have four guitars—two acoustics and two electrics. Two stay at my home, and two at my office.

That’s my hobby, so it’s important to me. I still have things—I just don’t have a lot of them.

What you want to do is get buy-in from your child. Say, “Let’s do some downsizing and minimizing. This will make your life much easier.”

Then go through categories: T-shirts, shoes, pants, books, toys—everything. But also include digital clutter: emails, subscriptions, files, and old photos.

I believe all of that takes up mental space as well.

Also look at papers and old schoolwork. I’ve had students with papers from years ago just sitting in drawers. If something is sentimental or meaningful, keep it. But most of it is just clutter.

I want my students to have a life as free of physical, digital, and mental clutter as possible.

Because when we free ourselves from unnecessary stuff, it opens up space for what actually matters—relationships, experiences, and time with people we care about.

That, to me, is the most important thing in life.

So again, my name is Seth, the South Broiler. I’m an executive function coach, and I run something called the Executive Function Summit. It’s a free conference happening August 23rd through 25th for parents.

I really hope you join us—just click the registration link. It’s free, and it will help a lot with executive function.

So that’s my one weird tip for starting the school year: downsize, minimize clutter, and intentionally help your child decide what to keep in their life.

Because the more stuff we have, the more we have to maintain.

So think carefully about what we choose to keep in our lives.

Take care.