# The akrasia doom loop and executive function disorders: a question

There’s a lot of productivity advice on LW, or more specifically advice on how to beat procrastination and akrasia (see [this one](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bbEzsn9b6R64vHX8G/exercises-for-overcoming-akrasia-and-procrastination), [this one](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XmqqkfY8XAJ6LkwdP/akrasia-is-confusion-about-what-you-want), [this one](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BH8BcP7d2sbmzZig8/fighting-akrasia-finding-the-source), [this one](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uKoqrgnRoWjhneDvM/improving-the-akrasia-hypothesis), [this one](https://www.google.fr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwib086xqfCDAxXlVKQEHfezDgEQFnoECBMQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lesswrong.com%2Fposts%2FBvGSDfBR6KmPkaafg%2Fon-akrasia-habits-and-reward-maximization&usg=AOvVaw1l9_nKauSkfQlruO4j_RrP&opi=89978449), [this one](https://www.google.fr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwib086xqfCDAxXlVKQEHfezDgEQFnoECC4QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lesswrong.com%2Fposts%2FrRmisKb45dN7DK4BW%2Fakrasia-tactics-review&usg=AOvVaw28vhRONLUKFngSkGKLksUE&opi=89978449), [this one](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/T3Hii22niGNTKPBpt/on-akrasia-starting-at-the-bottom), [this one](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xfk93e3qvgT5mrZHr/three-useful-types-of-akrasia), [this one](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ga8g4RbKc6DmqEBwD/why-productivity-systems-don-t-stick), … — all of those are pretty good and you should check them out, btw).

But, well… do you know the feeling where you say to yourself "today is the day where I start taking up this cool new habit that will slowly but surely destroy my akrasia forever!" and then it’s 11pm, you still haven’t done the anti-akrasia thing you said you’d do at 7am, and you decide you’ll do it tomorrow but you know you won’t really and it’s super frustrating?   
 

At this point, there are two questions I could be asking. And I’ll ask them both in turn.

First: how is it supposed to work!? In other words: do the people who did manage to get better at getting stuff done know how to avoid akrasia killing your motivation to beat akrasia?

Second: … 

… well, a lot of people do manage to find enough motivation in themselves at least to get started, at least most of the time, right? So, maybe my answer is that I’m uniquely bad at it, right?

That’s not as self-deprecating and misguided as it sounds: I have ASD, and it is [quite](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28439105/) well [established](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28945319/) that [this](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18838033/) comes [with](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32200468/) an impaired executive function compared to the general population.

Hence my second question: does anyone have interesting things to say on the links between autism-related executive function deficits and akrasia? It seems like there’s more to it than just "ASD makes me bad at doing stuff, period", and that it’s instead a weird mix of trouble with some form or other of social anxiety (stuff like postponing writing an email for a week because I’m not sure how it will be received by the other person), some bizarre trouble with motivation (maybe non-ASD people get more social motivation, and so are more motivated than me?), and actual troubles with task switching, task initiation, or other stuff at brain level. I don’t think I understand very well how these different factors interact and each contribute to "akrasia and crappy executive function", and I’m curious to understand it better.

And, of course, that comes with a third question: there’s no reason to expect "crappy executive function" to be something different entirely in an autistic person vs. in a non-autistic person (concepts like ASD or ADHD, after all, are only convenient ways to refer to a collection of traits, each of which can be present in any ordinary person), but maybe there are pieces of advice on how to improve it that work particularly well for people on the spectrum?