When executing something synchronously, you wait for it to finish before moving on to another task. Asynchronously, you can move on before it finishes. Future methods, Queueable Apex, and Batch Apex allow asynchronous execution in Apex. Future methods are best for long-running methods or callouts. Queueable Apex allows job chaining and passing complex types. Batch Apex is best for large data volumes processed in batches. Continuations allow asynchronous callouts from Visualforce pages.