Absentmindedness and executive dysfunction

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Are absentmindedness and executive dysfunction closely related?

This is a bit of a tricky question to frame properly. Executive dysfunction is a technical concept and absentmindedness is a non-technical concept. It's my impression that some of the effects of executive dysfunction are things that would be commonly identified as absentmindedness, but that some effects of executive dysfunction aren't. Also, it could be that some phenomena identified as absentmindedness come from executive dysfunction, and some don't. I don't understand executive dysfunction very well, so I can't make a good comparison.

There are different kinds of things that I would classify as absentmindedness:
- Forgetting something or forgetting to do something
(for example, forgetting to eat a meal, or forgetting your bag, or forgetting to pay for something)

-Forgetting not to do something
(for example, mistakenly brushing my teeth at the point in my morning routine that corresponds to the point in my evening routine when I brush my teeth, or forgetting not to try to buy something when I'd left my wallet behind)

-Mixing up what you're doing
(for example, beginning to eat a lunch that I meant to pack, or throwing your keys in the garbage when you meant to throw out the thing you had in your other hand.)

-Being oblivious to surroundings
(for example, walking into a tree, or not noticing traffic lights)

(I'm sure there are other types of things that would be considered absentmindedness too, but those are some I've thought of.)

Well I suppose. After finding ED I found I had serious, but at least clinically "provable" problems. I've always been absent-minded. *shrugs*

you just decribed me

Apparently other people think I am absent-minded:

I had arrived at Sydney Airport and was looking for my baggage from my flight, with no success. A minor official came up to me and asked what I was looking for, and I told him my flight.

He then asked if I was an academic. I looked at him puzzled. He then asked with a smile if I would describe myself as, maybe, absent-minded ... say, an absent-minded professor? I was in the completely wrong line for my luggage - no wonder it hadn't appeared! He had decided that I was in a mental fog, unable to read or understand the signs around me - although obviously competent in other ways - and decided that I fitted the absent-minded professor stereotype.

And all I could think was "Is that what I really look like?"

But no, I am not an academic. I just act like an absent-minded one sometimes. And get comments like that.

And I do think I have executive dysfunction. At least, I have problems starting complex tasks - getting it all into my head. I have problems switching tasks - it is almost painful and I snap at people who interrupt me while I am concentrating. And I had problems tackling big projects at university - I cannot organise myself and usually leave everything to a mad rush at the last moment, relying on native intelligence to get me through (it worked as an undergraduate, but not as a graduate student).

I gather that "working memory" is a big part of executive function (i.e. keeping in our minds all the information we need for our current task), and so we probably have less (or less efficient) working memory. That could well mean that we forget other things in order to focus our "working memory" on one task ... thus appearing "absent-minded" to others.