Sage Quiamno experienced overwhelming workload, procrastination, and frantic catch-up that extended workdays past 12 hours and risked burnout. She engaged an executive function coach who focused on concrete skills to manage thoughts, actions, and emotions and to optimize time and energy. Coaching targeted specific pain points such as task management and procrastination and emphasized building practical strategies rather than generic organizational templates. Three years later she continues biweekly one-on-one sessions and monthly group meetings as a long-term investment. Executive function comprises organization, focus, memory, and self-control and is likened to the brain's "air traffic control system," with growing demand for specialists.
In 2022, Sage Quiamno was in her early 30s and a few months into a demanding DEI leadership role at Amazon when she hit a wall. Cycles of feeling overwhelmed, procrastination, and frantic catch-up were routinely stretching her already long workdays past the 12-hour mark. Burnout was on the horizon. She knew she needed to make a change, fast.
Executive function is the blanket term for assorted cognitive skills that help with organization, focus, memory, and self-control. It's the toolkit that lets you plan a multistep project at work and then deliver it on deadline, or navigate conflict with a friend. Harvard researchers have called it the brain's " air traffic control system."
Instead of applying an organizational blueprint to her work life, her coach zoomed in on specific pain points like task management and procrastination, helping her build strategies to confront the habits and feelings that were getting in her way. Three years later, Quiamno, who is now 34 and living in Seattle, still meets one-on-one with her coach every other week, in addition to a monthly meeting with a group of other women who are also focused on honing their executive functioning.
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