As you already know, it’s executive function, meta self-talk, quietly tapping yourself on the shoulder, mental flagging, motivation to haul your ass up. You checked on your food prep. Done and dusted. You didn’t utilize inner speech for every mouthful of your meal; that was auto-pilot. Well, unless, “I must rotate meat, rice, peas” … cyclically.
It’s likely that this phenomenon is selective. For example, “I must write about this and see what others think.” You prolly didn’t self-reflect on it being, planfully, 5 well-written paragraphs. In fact, if you were blind-asked later to tally them you would not know the answer because it’s inconsequential. You might recall the boldface; you may have self-articulated that intention.