Why I can function at work but fall apart at home.

Planning, starting tasks, switching between them, remembering and regulating emotions all draw on the same limited pool of mental energy. It isn't a precise scientific measure, but it's a useful way to think about it. Work often spends most of that pool before you get home.

Staying composed at work, managing your tone and appearing organized takes effort, especially with ADHD or autism. By evening, the effort of looking fine all day catches up.

At work, deadlines, meetings and other people help you start things. At home, there's usually nobody and nothing to get you going, so starting depends entirely on you, at the time of day when you have least left.

By evening you've made hundreds of decisions. "What's for dinner?" can feel impossible not because it's hard, but because it's one more.

Work has consequences you can see. Home tasks can usually wait one more day, so they're the first to go when you're out of energy. Over time that can leave home feeling chaotic and you feeling like a fraud. "But you can do it" is not the same as "you can do it without a cost."

• Decide in the morning: pick dinner before work, not after.
• Lower the evening bar: a default easy meal, paper plates on hard weeks.
• Protect a buffer: ten minutes of nothing when you get home.
• Batch home tasks on the day you have most energy.
• Borrow structure: a body double, a timer, a set routine.

See where your budget is going with the free executive function budget check, or break one task down with the task cost calculator.

If this pattern is wearing you down, it may be worth looking at ADHD, burnout or both. Read about ADHD therapy, ADHD coaching or executive dysfunction vs. lack of discipline.