If You're Bad At Managing Your Time & Have ADHD Listen To This

Everyone says people with ADHD have "time blindness." But what does that actually mean?

In this Research Recap, Skye Waterson and Will Curb review a decade of research (2012–2022) on time perception in adults with ADHD. Rather than treating time as one skill, the research separates it into three: estimating how long something will take, reproducing a duration, and managing time day to day.

One finding stands out: many ADHD struggles begin with inaccurate time estimation. If your brain can't reliably predict how long a task will take, missed deadlines, last-minute work, and chronic lateness start to make much more sense. Skye and Will also explore what the research suggests actually helps—from visual timers and external cues to breaking projects into smaller pieces that are easier to estimate.

What You'll Learn

• Why ADHD affects time estimation, time reproduction, and time management differently
• The difference between circadian, interval, and millisecond timing
• Why visual timers often work better than clocks
• Why giving yourself "more time" usually isn't the solution
• How breaking projects into smaller steps improves time estimation
• Why external accountability is often more effective than self-imposed deadlines

Learn more from Will at HackingYourADHD.com or subscribe to the Hacking Your ADHD podcast.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

One of the things that I often will find myself telling people about being late, for example, is you will either be like about 10 minutes late or 10 minutes early. Chances that you turn up exactly on time is very, very low. That's why people are often like, oh, this highly anxious person who has ADHD turns up everywhere half an hour early. So they must not have ADHD because they don't struggle to because they're not late. But this is just a time estimation problem that they're overcompensating for at this point.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

This episode, we're going to be discussing a paper called Time Perception and Adult's Findings from a Decade, a Review. And in this paper, they're looking at analyzing a decade of research, and this is going to be from 2012 to 2022, investigating the specific nature of time perception deficits for adults with ADHD, because time is a little bit more complex than we often think about it is. And so let's get into how complex time is.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

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SPEAKER_02 1:10

And so, like, yeah, I think a lot of people kind of have the idea of what time estimation is. You know, it's just like, how long did this take? And then time reproduction being, you know, a task where a person is asked to replicate a specific duration that they were just exposed to. So like it's the same as time estimation, but in you're like being like, this was just a minute, show us a minute. And that gives me anxiety just thinking about doing it.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Not very good at it. Spoiler alert, we're not very good at it. Yeah, this is an interesting one. I'm gonna put the results at the beginning, which is to say, we struggle with all of this when we have ADHD. Like this is we know this, and the study, the long literature review over a decade of research indicates that yes, if there is a time struggle and you have ADHD, you probably struggle with it. But the interesting piece, as Will said, was time is not one thing. And we're gonna get a little bit esoteric here, but I wanna, I'm gonna try and keep it grounded with some examples because they specifically looked at three areas. They looked at time estimation, time reproduction, and time management.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Yeah, and then uh time management, you know, we we we know what time management is. It's you know just our ability to use our time how we want to be using it.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Which is important because if you've set some goals for this year and you're currently working on them and you've found that you massively underestimated how long something would take, that is a struggle with time management. That is very normal when it comes to ADHD. And I wanted to dig a little bit deeper here. One of the things they said was time, struggles with time is such a big part of ADHD. It's now considered the triple pathway model. We have different struggles with ADHD. We have, you know, behavioral inhibition, we have cognitive inhibition, motivational factors, and then yeah, the time perception. When we're talking about ways that time is seen, there is circadian timing, interval timing, and millisecond timing. And I thought it was really interesting. The millisecond timing is important for motor processes, speech and music perception. And what they were looking at specifically was yeah, your ability to adjust time in milliseconds. And I wondered, Will, do you think that is one of the reasons why we struggle with interrupting? We're just not very good at millisecond timing.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

It could be, yeah, that I could see that as a add-on effect. Our, you know, kind of rhythm of timing is then thrown off and we can't get back into where we were.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Yeah, I thought that was interesting. I mean, I think there's a lot of other reasons, daydreaming, dopamine regulation, etc. But that was one of them. And then circadian timing is the internal body clock regulating bodily functions. You know, that's something that happens sort of without us. And then interval timing is our ability to track the passage of time in the seconds to minutes range. And again, like all of these other things, we struggle with this. So do you wanna maybe maybe we should give some examples of how we've struggled with this to give people a sense of what this looks like?

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Yeah, well, so for I mean, I think one of the easiest do you want to start with interval timing or let's start with interval timing, yeah. So yeah, I think for that, that's just I mean, I think that goes hand in hand with time estimation, really. Deciding what I'm going to do next based on how much time I have seems like it should be an easy decision. And yet, you know, like making it to meetings on time or getting out the door is vastly affected by if I can understand how long that minute is going to take, how long that five minutes is going to take.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Yeah, 100%. It's one of the reasons why we get told a lot to have timers because it will help us. And although I do think timers are helpful, they are not always as helpful as you think with time estimation. They tell you what time it is now, but you don't know when it's they're gonna go off if you struggle with time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:11

This I mean, this is why I really love the time timer that has like the visual aspect. I use those all the time to just be like, okay, I know there's one in my office, but I'm like, it's not in reach. I used to have one on the wall behind me too, so I don't You're losing your time space. Yeah. My kids borrow them all the time because it's so helpful for them. Like they were specifically like things that we got for the kids to help them be like, okay, this is how long you need to have to get ready. And I highly recommend that if you have kids, but they're also something that are like vital for my own time management, especially when I'm like wanting to take a break or divide up my time in ways that where I don't have like these, like, okay, now I have to go to this next thing. When it's oh, I want to only do this for this amount of time and then move on to the next thing. That's when it's really helpful because otherwise I just don't have a sense.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

What those do is they allow you to when you turn on the timer, you can see a big swath of red or blue or another color that then ticks down. So you're not just seeing what time the timer is gonna go off, but you're also, well, is it's very wonderfully uh showing us right now. You can also see how much visually how much time you have left. And this has always been my biggest recommendation for people when they are talking about time estimation is try and put more time, more ways to see and visualize time into your world or even audio. I have had clients who've really struggled with this, who've had phones that said it's 1015, it's 1020, it's 1025. Like sometimes it can be helpful in that way. Sometimes you want to have just lots of beautiful clocks around you, things that show you the time, because unlike other people, we cannot do this in our heads. It's not a thing that is happening in our head.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

So uh my daughter was very much into K-pop demon hunters, and so we would often listen to the soundtrack on the way to school, and so it was got to the point where I'm like, we are running late because we are too far in this playlist. And so, like, it was a great way for me to be like, oh, okay, we don't have time to do, you know, we have to, you know, go this other way to make sure that we're getting there on time because the music is giving me cues that I normally would not feel.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Yeah, yeah, that's a really, really great example of it. And that is a big part of why we struggle so much. And so it's not, you know, one of the things that I often will find myself telling people about being late, for example, is you will either be like about 10 minutes on time. Sorry, 10 minutes late or 10 minutes early. The chances that you turn up exactly on time is very, very low. That's why people are often like, oh, this highly anxious person who has ADHD turns up everywhere half an hour early. So they must not have ADHD because they don't struggle to because they're not late. But this is just a time estimation problem that they're overcompensating for at this point.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

Absolutely. And it's something that like overcompensation is definitely a way a lot of people manage their time estimation issues where they're just like, if I don't do it, I'm going to be late.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Yeah, exactly. In fact, I remember as a student, my professor was very surprised. You know, she was like, Can you come to you know our meeting at this time? And I'm like, No, because I need to get here this much earlier because I have to catch this bus and this train, and and I need to have lots of buffer time in between all of them. This is before I knew I had ADHD. I just knew that if I didn't do those things, I would be late.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

And then some other places that people can also see, like, it is funny to think that yes, our circadian clock that's in inside of us and that we have very little effect over consciously also has issues with being on time. Like a lot of people have kind of a delayed circadian rhythm where they're not waking up or going to sleep exactly when society would dictate that we should.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Good old society telling us what time to wake up in the morning.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

That that is one of the places where I'm like, I really wish schools could be shifted. It it's it's hard when you you it's something you can't change, but it is biologically worse for most people to be doing that at that time.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Yeah, yeah, it can make it, it can make it really, really tricky. They talked about motor timing, so estimating things when you're, you know, if you're driving could be an example of this, like your reaction timing, all of this kind of stuff can be affected. But they also mentioned temporal foresight, which I really wanted to dive into, which is the ability to anticipate the consequences of a decision. They put this in timing. I thought that was really interesting.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

And it's interesting, uh, especially with impulsivity, as something where impulsivity is often because we don't anticipate and plan for future consequences.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

We just Yeah. Which is one of the reasons why when people come to me and they say, Oh, I um always do things at the last minute and you can never change this. Sometimes my clients are slightly competitive. You know, this is a thing that will never change about me, and I just have to be doing it the last minute. Often what I'll do is I won't, I'll say, Yep, that makes total sense. Let's sit down and let's write out to the point of previous papers that you know, we've done breaking things down. Let's break down everything that you need to do, assign it a time. Usually we use AI to help us so that we can at least be like, no, AI is wrong. It's about this much. And then have a look at it. And usually at that point, people will realize that this is going to take a lot longer than half a day. And they will now feel motivated to do it earlier. Because yes, we do have that dopamine rush of getting things done at the last minute, but one of the reasons is because we're not estimating time appropriately. We're not estimating how long this will actually take. So we don't feel like it has to get done until way later than it really should be.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

Yeah. And then sometimes we were so bad with that estimation, we're just like, well, now I can't do it. Like I've given myself two hours to write a five-hour paper. Whoops.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

And if you think you're doing that, I've had a lot of professors. I've worked with a lot of professors who do this. And I actually think that this might be such a common thing in the academic space that it actually has become part of the system because I've had a lot of professors hand things in late, and then the deadline that was a deadline that had to be done right now, absolutely, was actually a bit more flexible than that. So I feel like a lot of people in like more creative fields where things like writing or music, I've had artists have the same struggle, and and and again, those deadlines are sometimes fuzzy. People are like, you've got to be here at five, and really it was seven, because they have so many people in that community who struggle with this.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

Yeah, deadlines are tricky because the flexible deadlines are great unless you are trained on the non-flexible deadline model, in which case they become a detriment.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Yes, and actually flexible deadlines can be their own problem. Because I've seen people do the well, I I know it's due on Monday, but I know that technically means it's due on Wednesday, so I should probably start it on Tuesday. And now they're just doing very, very complicated math for a fuzzy system. And actually, if it was just due on Monday, then we would know and we could work backwards and be late or not.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

Yeah, it's got there's a clock in my living room. It got set five minutes fast somehow. I don't exactly know, and it's a little bit complicated to change the time. And so now I look at that clock and I go, I don't think about it in terms of that's the time. I think about okay, what is that time? Five minutes.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Yes, yeah. So you're just doing extra math.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

Yeah, and I'm like, I'm not you the the five minutes ahead does not help me. It just makes it another step to figuring out the time.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Mm-hmm. Yeah, a hundred percent. I used to work back in the day with students who were given extra support for their ADHD. And one of the things that they would get was they would get extra time on their assignments. And it didn't help because of this exact problem.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

And so, yeah, I think that is something just for us to keep in mind in that more time doesn't always equal better results for us. It's more about understanding, like it's exactly that time estimation piece, I think, is the most important to go, like, yeah, we are bad at doing this part, and that's going to be our Achilles' heel here. It's not the amount of time, it's not any of those other processes in getting something done. It is that we are bad at figuring out how long something's going to be taking, and we're relying on the motivation of that deadline to be the dopamine for finishing the project.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Exactly. Exactly. And and this is really is where it comes to the the if you're struggling, if you feel unmotivated to do a task, this is becoming very practical today, but I love it. If you feel unmotivated to do a task and you feel like the answer is you need to give yourself more time, like, you know, clear the time that you need, the actual answer to your problem is sit down, give yourself all the dopamine you need, go to a coffee shop, have a drink, whatever you need to do, you know, have a coffee, and break down that task. Break down those tasks. Even if you're doing it like with the AI, in front of the TV, with a coffee and a sweet treat, like whatever needs to be done. Once you've broken down the steps of that task and you've assigned it how long it's gonna take, then you're in a more realistic time estimation mode and you can actually get a sense of whether you need to ask for a deadline, how long that should be, what you actually need to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:47

And perhaps set an artificial deadline where you're meeting with someone to go over your stuff before it's due. So then if the time estimation is off, you can be like, oh, I have built in extra time be because you know, I had to do this other thing with this person.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Yep. Sub sub-deadlines are better than fake deadlines that you always push. Because you have a reputation. You know, I work with business owners and they're running giant companies and they're always, always late on their quotes, you know, and it's it affects, you know, we don't think it does, or we hope it doesn't, but it does affect your reputation over time.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

Yeah, I think that's one of the things. Like if you're going to set an extra deadline, there needs to be something there. It can't just be, oh, I just want to get it done by this time because that's it's too easy to push.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

And usually that needs to be a meeting with a person. So it needs to be, you know, we're gonna review the quote, we're gonna go over the process, we're gonna ask some final questions. You won't do it unless it's something that's a bit external to you.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the ADHD Skills Lab. If you liked it, leave us a five star review. It helps other people learn more about us. And thank you so much to our wonderful team for making us sound good, look good. We couldn't do it without you.