Knowing what you should be doing, but rarely doing it

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Hey. First and foremost, my name is Fraser, i'm 21 years old at from the UK. I was diagnosed at 5 years old which I understand is quite a young age to be diagnosed with AS, particularly back as far as 1996.

Anyway, I was wondering if anybody had the same issue here that i've been having most of my life. It's the feeling of knowing what I "should" be doing, but never actually getting around to doing it, or putting off doing it for a long period of time.

For example. When I was younger I knew I was supposed to be making friends like everybody else, but for some reason that I couldn't explain, I would more or less avoid situations where friends could be made.
When I was at school I knew I should have been trying my best so I could get good grades, but instead I would slack off a lot and not really care that much about failing some dumb tests, although I always felt quite guilty for knowing that I was more than capable of great things, but without really bothering. (Again, I can't explain why, I just didn't).
Now that i'm a 21 year old adult, I know I should be trying to find work, but I continue to put it off on a daily basis and instead waste time in front of my computer doing completely random stuff that will never get me anywhere.

These are just a few simple examples. But it's beginning to depress me that I can't simply "do it" and for some unexplainable reason I just seem to prevent myself from doing anything that I know I should be doing.

Right now I should be sleeping because its late, but instead i'm on here typing up this post. I feel like I have no control over my life at all.

Does anybody else experience this?

Fraser

Yes. Procrastination is common.

You just described my life perfectly.

I've had the exact same thing going on for quite a while now. I used to have a job remotely working for a company, but they got bought by another company, my contract ran out, job gone. I should have been looking for a job, and I could no doubt have one by now, but I simply keep pushing it ahead of me. I'm doing random stuff every day, but often I also keep my skills updated for a future job.

At the end of this week, I'm going to a career event. I signed up (after a friend pushed me to actually sign up, since I was 'planning' to do so) and I told a lot of people around me that I'm going there. The embarrassment of having to explain to them why I didn't go would actually be worse than again pushing this forward. It's scheduled and can't be rescheduled, so I have to.

I should be sleeping now though, but I ended up watching a movie. I planned to get my hair cut tomorrow morning, but now it will be the day after tomorrow since I can't get up early enough tomorrow (and I don't want to be waiting very long at the barber shop). It's a shame since the last few days I actually had a proper pattern. Me getting rather upset today by finding out a friend has been lying to me didn't quite help with this. Oh well

Me too. I simply don't see the point. I don't see how it will help me really.

Ultimately I've always ended up getting a job out of fear, fear of living on the streets, of death ultimately. I haven't enjoyed any job I've ever had. I just don't want to die.

perhaps you do not really believe you should do the things that you think you know you should. i have no knowledge that there is anything i should do. there are things i could do that might lead to seemingly preferable outcomes that i sometimes neglect to do because the doing is less interesting to me than whatever happens to have engaged my attention. whatever happens is okay. tomorrow i have an appointment that i might attend. will i? who knows? not me. accept the mystery.

I'm like you, Fraser, but instead of being aware of needing to do those things I was pretty ignorant.

This severe procrastination is called executive dysfunction. The frontal lobe isn't working properly do be able to subconsciously tell you what task needs to be done and get you motivated enough to do it. I'm on ADHD medication for partly that reason and I actually know another Fraser with ADHD, and AS diagnosed at five funnily enough. He's a swell chap.

I should be doing some reading but I'm just too damn hyper to move my focus to that task.

Damn those solar flares. They're messing with my head. Er...that's a thread for another time.

I just read through the wikipedia article on executive dysfunction. Wow. That explains so much about my life experiences it's almost scary. How does one go about fixing this issue?

Yep - I always get to it eventually though

Thanks for all the the replies, its nice to know i'm certainly not alone. I suspect I probably have Attention Defecit Disorder. It's not that I can't concentrate on things, but that i'm unable to concentrate on the right things at the right time. When i'm doing something that catches my interest I can obsess over it for ridiculous amounts of time, its like time just seems to zoom ahead. And something that I promised myself I would only do for 5 minutes, turns into 5 hours. I believe its whats known as "hyper focusing". Its frustrating for me, because i'm constantly getting into trouble for being lazy and unproductive, but I just don't know how to fight it so I can move on with my life.

Fraser

Yes. I spend a lot of time feeling bothered by all the things I feel I should be doing.

How to fix it? One thing I do is to try to think about why I'm getting that feeling. I try to ask myself whether I really should do that thing or not........to see if there could be a valid reason for the avoidance that I haven't put into words yet. For example, the task might involve risks that I haven't really looked at - risks of social rejection (asking to be with somebody), risks of wasting time (starting a project that might have no useful, practical result, or one that I might not be able to complete), risks of losing financial or emotional investment, etc. I might simply fear being sucked into a fascinating but lonely project which will stall my social progress. Once I've cast some light on my misgivings about the task, I'm in a better position to decide whether I really should do the thing or not, and if I then decide to go ahead, I usually find it's a lot easier to make a start.

I agree that executive disfunction has a lot to do with procrastination for Aspies. I try to train myself to pull out of the detail and look at the big picture occasionally, but it's not easy. Even when I'm just trying to briefly describe what I'm trying to do, or to tell a friend what I've just achieved, it's often very difficult for me to just come out with a couple of sentences that cover the basic idea....mostly I start woffling on about the minute details instead, and the overview remains ignored. But if I really focus and apply myself fully to it, sometimes I can nail it.

You might want to look up autistic inertia too. For myself personally, a lifetime of being unable to set goals or to carry out what was expected of me has resulted in low self esteem, which just exacerbates the problem.