You check the time: twenty minutes left, plenty. You reply to a message, look for your keys, notice something that needs sorting. And suddenly, you’re late. Again.
It isn’t a lack of respect for other people. With ADHD, time simply doesn’t feel the same.
Time has two settings: now and not now
For many people with ADHD, there are only two moments: now, and not now. Anything in the future, whether it’s an hour away or three weeks away, feels more or less the same, which is to say it doesn’t feel like anything at all. The ADHD specialist Russell Barkley describes this as a kind of “time blindness”.
As a result, you almost always underestimate how long things take, you don’t see deadlines coming, and you get caught out by a time that still seemed a long way off.
Make time visible
If your brain can’t feel time passing, you have to show it.
1. An analogue clock or a visual timer
An analogue clock shows the time remaining as a space, not as a number. A visual timer, which displays a coloured area that gets smaller, works even better for tasks.
2. Multiply your estimates
Get into the habit of multiplying the time you think a task will take by 1.5 or by 2. It seems excessive, until the day you arrive on time.
3. Think in terms of when to leave, not when to arrive
“I need to be there at 2pm” doesn’t trigger anything. “I leave at 1.35pm” is a specific action. Set an alarm for when you need to leave, not for the time of the appointment.
4. Build in buffers
Leave fifteen minutes of slack between two appointments. That time is never wasted: it absorbs the unexpected, which, with ADHD, almost always crops up.
5. Break down distant deadlines
A deadline a month away doesn’t exist for your brain. Break it into steps, each with its own date, ideally this week. Every small, close deadline becomes a driving force.
Stop judging yourself
Being late isn’t a personality trait. It’s the result of a brain that struggles to perceive time, and of tools that aren’t suited to it. With the right visible cues, most people make real progress, sometimes within a few weeks.
What we work on in coaching
“Being on time and meeting deadlines” is one of the six areas we measure at the beginning and at the end of my programme. We work on time distortion mainly in Block 3, “Execution and priorities”, with tools adapted to your real day-to-day life, not to an ideal diary.