🤪 Help a student build reliable systems to manage everything

What’s up? In this video, I’m going to show you how I helped one of my college students set up a fairly complex, robust project management system.

This is a student who has executive function challenges. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Seth Perler. At sethperler.com, I’ve got a bunch of freebies for parents, teachers, and students. I also run The Executive Function Online Summit, where I interview a bunch of experts every year—it’s a fantastic resource, so check it out.

Today, I’m going to talk about one of my college students. This isn’t just for college students—this is useful for middle school, high school, and college students. I’m going to be fairly detailed, so if you’d like to take notes, get ready to pause the video and write things down as I go through a bunch of tips and tricks.

For parents, teachers, therapists, and students—anyone who wants to help students with executive function challenges—one of the massive skill sets we need to develop is planning. If we want a life with choices, opportunities, and freedom—to do what we want, to shine, to develop our strengths—we need strong executive function skills, including this complex skill set of planning.

When we talk about planning, we’re really talking about project management. This is a term we hear in other areas, but essentially, this is what we’re teaching kids to do. How do they manage projects?

Projects can be things like completing homework, cleaning out a backpack, organizing a locker or folder, or studying for a test. Think of these as micro-projects.

When I’m working with students—in this case, a college student—I’m thinking about how to help them “Frankenstein” together a customized, personalized, tailored system (or systems) to help them manage their life, organization, and planning.

Life today is very complex and difficult to manage, especially for students with executive function challenges. Many of these students are also misunderstood, which makes things even more overwhelming and stressful.

So, with that background, let’s look at what we did. We created a project management system for this student’s classes.

I’ve known this student for a while, and like many students, they struggle with resistance—and honestly, so do I. I’ve had (and still have) executive function challenges, but I’ve developed workarounds.

What we’re trying to do is help people build systems that reduce resistance—the “I don’t want to do this,” “this is too stressful,” “I don’t need a planner” mindset. Students want results—they want to feel on top of things—but resistance and mindset get in the way, leading to procrastination and problems.

With this student, there was more buy-in than before. Once that buy-in is there, that’s when we can really build a system that works.

The first thing I did was ask the student a simple question—and I’ll ask you the same thing:

How do you manage your time?
How do you manage your projects?
How do you manage your homework and your life?

Pause and think about that.

Most of my students say, “I don’t know,” or “I don’t even understand the question.” Students with strong executive function skills can answer clearly, but for many others, this is very difficult.

So I asked my student, and he said he was struggling—he wasn’t really using his planner.

Then I asked the next question:
Do you want to work on this? Do you want this to feel better? Do you want a good system?

The answer was yes—so we started building.

There are many project management tools out there: Google Calendar, Asana, Trello, Google Keep, Google Tasks. I use some of these, including Google Calendar with this student, but today I’m going to show you something simpler—a Google Doc that acts as a master project management hub.

Here’s how it works.

First, we structured the document visually. You can see different colors, font sizes, and checkboxes. The student wanted to start with encouraging words at the top—these were their own words:

“I am loved and respected on campus.”
“People are not out to get me.”
“If people feel uncomfortable, they will tell me.”

This student has struggled a lot, and these reminders are powerful.

Next, we added priorities for the day—things like doing laundry, texting updates, checking the inbox, and upcoming classes.

We made due dates highly visible—like “Due September 25th” in bright red—because visual clarity matters.

We also added links for each class, all in one place, so the student can quickly access what they need. Then we included a section for random ideas, like exploring clubs or finding good study spots.

One important thing: we got very specific.

For example, instead of just “practice music,” we broke it down:

* Start at 5:00
* Practice scales and excerpts
* Take a 10-minute break at 5:30
* Resume at 5:40 and work on a solo piece

This level of detail is critical. When things are too abstract, it leads to overwhelm. Overwhelm leads to procrastination, and then nothing gets done.

We also used checklists. In Google Docs, you can highlight text, go to the bulleted list menu, and choose checkboxes.

We created categories like “Back Burner” for things that aren’t urgent but should be remembered—like buying a gift or preparing for a test in a couple of weeks.

We customized headings (like Heading 2 and Heading 3) to create visual structure—different colors, sizes, and formatting—so everything is easy to scan.

Another great feature is the document outline on the left side. It creates a hierarchy, so you can jump directly to sections—super helpful for students.

We also used horizontal lines (Insert → Horizontal Line) to visually separate sections, making everything cleaner and easier to navigate.

The goal here is to help the student build a robust system so they can stop missing assignments, falling behind, and feeling overwhelmed—and instead focus on learning, connecting, and growing.

That’s what this is all about.

Again, my name is Seth Perler. I’m an executive function coach. You can find me at sethperler.com—grab some freebies, check out the summit, and sign up for next year for free. It’s amazing.

I also have a YouTube channel. If you like what I’m doing, feel free to subscribe.

And in the comments, I’d love to hear from you:

What’s one tip you have for project management?
Any hacks—for Google Docs or anything else—that can help make life easier?

Let’s help each other out.

Have a fantastic day. I wish you peace in your heart, joy in your life, and most importantly, connection with the people you care about.

Take care.