Time Blindness: The Hidden Barrier to Time Management

Why do some people care deeply, mean well, and still struggle constantly with time? In this episode, we explore time blindness — the often-overlooked difficulty of sensing, predicting, and mentally holding time in mind.

When time does not feel concrete internally, planning, pacing, starting, and finishing tasks can become much harder than they appear from the outside. What is often mistaken for procrastination, carelessness, or poor discipline may actually reflect a deeper struggle with how time is experienced.

We unpack what time blindness looks like in everyday life and share practical strategies that can help make time more visible, more concrete, and easier to manage. Because when time is hard to conceptualize internally, the goal is not blame — it is building systems that actually work.

#TimeBlindness
 #TimeManagement
 #ExecutiveFunction
 #ExecutiveFunctioning
 #Neurodiversity
 #Procrastination
 #FollowThrough
 #Productivity
 #BrainBasedStrategies
 #EducationPodcast

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Transcript

Introduction

Vinita 0:00

When time feels invisible, the answer isn't more discipline, it's more support. Plan for those buffers. Pairing time with an action. Welcome to Net Collective, where we navigate everything together, from classroom to college, to careers, and beyond. I'm Kate McBrudy, core coach, and founder of Wonderful Partners. I'm Vinita Patel, school psychologist in private practice. I'm Ruth Hayes, education professional and founder of Full COP. Net Collective, navigating everything together. One conversation at a time. Hi guys. Hey, how are you doing today?

Ruth 0:38

Doing pretty good.

Vinita 0:40

Awesome. Well, I think it's about time we talk about time.

Ruth 0:46

Wordplay.

Vinita 0:50

So what are we going to talk about relative to time? Okay. So let me ask you, Kay, have you ever looked at the clock and thought, how did it get so late? And then find yourself in a bit of a panic because you didn't get the things done that you thought you could get done? No, never. Never. Okay, yes, yes, I have. What about you, Ruth? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That happens. And and we all do that. That's really in and of itself. If it happens once in a while, busy days, they happen. That's not a big deal, right? Um, but for many of us, that tends to become a pattern where we don't see time as something that is um important and urgent. Okay. So before we talk about what that really looks like in real life, let's talk about time as a concept. And I don't want to get too nerdy here, but time is something. Let's nerd out. What's that? Let's nerd out. Let's nerd out. Let's nerd out about time. I mean, how nerdy can you really get when you're talking about time? But yeah, time it's a conceptual, it's a conceptual phenomenon, right? So much of what we do is tied to time. Okay. Like, how long will it take me to get there? How long is this episode? How long will it take for me to write this essay? Or how many more days until we leave for vacation, right? How many times can I hit the snooze button?

Kay 2:15

That's right. Still make my morning routine.

Vinita 2:19

Exactly. And not miss the bus. And, you know, if I do miss the bus, then I'll get in trouble from my parents because they will have to rearrange their schedule, you know? So so much of our daily activities are tied to how long something will take, when do we start, when do we end, etc. Right? So many of us can can estimate how long things will take us, right? For many others, um they suffer from what's called time blindness. What's that? Okay. So time blindness, and and by the way, if you suffer from time blindness or experience time blindness regularly and it becomes a pattern, it's hard for you to manage time. And so that's what we're gonna be talking, talking about today. Time blindness and then what to do about it and manage your time. Okay. Okay. So you ask, what is time blindness? Time blindness refers to a difficulty, the difficulty predicting how long something will take you. Um sensing time is really not on your radar. Thinking about time is not on your right radar. And if you can't do that, it makes it very difficult to plan things to pace yourself, right? To allot the correct or correct enough amount of time to start a task, to do a task, and to follow through with something.

Kay 3:47

So, like for example, I'm thinking of some of the audience might have a student or student might be in the audience where they have different assignments that they have to get done. And they might think, oh yeah, that only takes 10 minutes. Right. Or it's a on the other side, it's a big project and they're like, oh, it's not due for a week. Yes. And they don't break it into small pieces and they just think they can slam it in at the end. Are these like real examples? These are real examples.

Vinita 4:14

Okay. These these are absolutely real examples. And what you're kind of alluding to is that time urgency, right? Like we all should have a healthy concept of time urgency, not urgency in a way where it's going to give you anxiety. Although I have to tell you, a little bit of anxiety is a good motivator. But I'm talking about people who experience time blindness as a pattern and regularly, they tend to lack that sense of time urgency that is the enough enough amount of urgency to get you to do something, you know, to get you to initiate that task.

Kay 4:54

Is there a way to tell if you might be susceptible to this or if you know someone who is?

Vinita 5:01

Like how what do you do? Yeah. Well, before we get into what we can do about it, there are a couple things that I do want to just make sure I say it's not because of laziness. It's not because you don't care about the task. Right. And many people will interpret it that way, like your mom, or you know, a teacher, or your boss. Like, you really don't care about this project that you've got to do because otherwise you would have just done it and you would have just done it on time. You know, maybe sometimes you don't care about it or you don't give it the importance. Um, but oftentimes it's not because you you lack the discipline or you lack the motivation or you don't care about it. It's because you don't have that sense of urgency and that time as a concept that it is important and that it does matter. Okay. Got it. And hence you, you know, experience this phenomenon called time blindness. Okay. Um and I guess one visual, if I can give you, it's imagine if there's music playing in the other room, okay? And it's quiet, it's it's like maybe a little whisper. You know it's there, but you don't really hear it. You don't know what song is playing. Okay. Um, so technically it's there, but the signal is weak. And it's easy to miss unless something suddenly turns up the volume on full blast, and then you're shocked with this, oh my gosh, that song, you know. Right. That's kind of that's an analogy for how period uh people with time blindness may experience, you know. So like time is a little bit of a whisper until it's really louded in your face and you've missed a deadline, or you're nearing the 12th hour, and then panic sets in because you know, you're about to miss, you know, a serious time deadline. Okay.

Ruth 6:53

I like the idea of time as a signal. I hadn't thought about it that way before.

Vinita 6:56

Yeah. It's a signal that can really help um motivate us to take that next step if you're aware of it. Okay. So then, um, and it also time blindness can fuel procrastination, right? And we know that procrastination, which we will have an episode on, but we can put that off. Okay, my kids are listening to this. Sorry. I know that that was a cringy joke by your mom. But anyway, yes, so so time blindness can really impact procrastination. And we know that procrastination can also become an emotional thing, which you know, that that is an upcoming episode. So, since for people that that experience time blindness, since time is more of a distant whisper and not urgent to them, we have to try to make time more predictable. Okay, and there are things that we can do about that.

Ruth 7:51

And so, where are some ways that that unpredictability shows up before we get into that?

Vinita 7:55

Okay, so like real life, like what does it really look like? Yeah, great. So um people with time blindness tend to overbook themselves, you know, and not realize that, you know, or maybe there's an overlap. You know, if something ends at five o'clock, you probably don't want to set the next thing for five o'clock because there needs to be kind of like a transition time, right? Okay. Um also you tend to um people with time blindness tend to either underestimate how long something will take them or overestimate something, you know, how long something will take them. So oftentimes in my practice, I see students who will say to me, you know, I thought I was doing really well on this test. And then um the teacher said five minutes left, and I still had like 25% left to go. So they didn't really budget the time properly. You know, they got really stuck on, say, you know, problem five and six, and then forgot that you've got to go all the way to 10, and now you'll you still have half the test to do with a little bit of time left, you know? So they underestimated how long the entire test would take them.

Ruth 9:04

So it sounds like there are a lot of different skills involved here, right? Because you have to be organized and make sure that you're planning out the future properly. Um, it's about perception, it's about being able to um understand what's happening in the moment and be sensitive to it. Um anything else that goes into it?

Vinita 9:20

Yeah, well, and you're absolutely right about that because time management is an executive functioning skill, right? Yeah. And what we do know about our executive function skills. We talked about organization last time. We're gonna talk about the other skills. It's a system and all of these skills work together. So, to your point about you know, time management does involve organization. It does involve planning, it does involve prioritizing, it does involve monitoring what you're doing at each one of those steps. Okay. Um, so also someone with time blindness can also um tend to run late. Do you ever have friends where you just know that, you know, they're just gonna be late. Let's just, if we say 7 o'clock, we'll tell them that, you know, 645, 6'45, you know, or sometimes, you know, and also sometimes the whole running late thing is also cultural. It can be cultural. Like I, you know, I come from a culture where we have what's called Indian standard time. So if we have a party, you know, like that's starting at seven, you know, no, that it's not starting at seven. Uh I will be lucky if we're eating appetizers by eight, you know. So sometimes it's tied to that culture that can spill or you know, it's tied to that culture, but can also spill into other parts of your life. Okay. You know, it may be acceptable to be fashionably late to a party. It is not acceptable to be late to a meeting or, you know, to glass or zoom, etc. Exactly.

Ruth 10:48

So there's also social skills involved.

Vinita 10:50

Absolutely. And and to ask yourself and and to really monitor yourself all along the way. Like, is it appropriate, you know, for me to be. I tell my my clients, you know, if it's a professional thing or an academic thing, if you are on time, you're already late. So, so plan for that. Okay. Um, and then also procrastination is another symptom of people who suffer from time blindness and also lack of follow-through because you're rushing, you know, there's a sense of just rushing and rushing. So the follow-through kind of falls to the wayside. And then that can also, that can also impact productivity and the the actual work that you want to do with integrity.

Kay 11:30

So, what if you are listening to this going, ooh, maybe I have time blindness? What what does someone do?

Vinita 11:37

Yeah, let's talk about that. So, the first acknowledge it, okay, acknowledge it, and say out loud to yourself or write it down somewhere that I want to understand how to be more aware of time. Okay. So time we want to build those time awareness skills. And how do we do that? We start with making time more predictable, okay? Because think about it, if time is invisible or unreliable in your mind, then the strategies have to be externalized, right? Because if you can't rely on time to measure time in your mind, then what do we have to do? We have to find a way to use the resources around us. Okay. And so let's start with building that time awareness. Okay. Number one, practice your estimation skills. Okay. So I often tell my clients, how long do you think this task will take you? Okay, write it down in parentheses how long you think it'll take you. So, for example, I have a math worksheet to do. Okay, I think that'll take me 10 minutes. Okay, great. Let's do the math worksheet either in here or on your own. And I want you to measure, time yourself, how long it took you to take it. And then look at the difference. And if you do that enough times, find a pattern for what the difference is between your perceived time estimation and the actual time estimation. Okay. You're bringing that to your awareness. So you can make this into a game. It can be fun, especially for the younger kids. Like, oh, how long do you think it's going to take us to get to grandma's house? I don't know, two minutes, okay, or five minutes, whatever. When in reality, grandma lives in the city and it doesn't take two to five minutes, you know. So, so anyway, you can do this at any age, really. So practice those time estimation skills. Perceive, write down what you perceive, uh, how long a task will take you and then how long it actually took you. You know, oftentimes I know people get lost in the shower, right? That's where I do a lot of my thinking, whatever. I'm like, oh, I'm just gonna take a five-minute shower. My showers are never five minutes, right? So sometimes I'll say, okay, well, I'll play the music. If you've got like a, you know, a radio proof or uh a waterproof radio or whatever. I'm giving myself two songs and then I gotta get out of the shower. You know? So so think about that. Think about how long your perceived time is and your actual time for whatever task it is, okay? That should help build your time awareness and do that consistently, do that regularly, okay?

Ruth 14:06

And I'll also just add, I I do the exact same thing with my students. Yeah. Right, done, how long do you think it's gonna take? And then I'll also do that as part of chunking. So yeah, if you know you have a huge research project, for example, take a piece of that and think about how how long each of those is going to take.

Vinita 14:20

Right, exactly. Um, and that's right. So that's called maybe time blocking, or we'll talk about that. So let's talk about that, time blocking. So decide ahead of time what you're gonna do when and commit to it. So, for example, I'm gonna brainstorm my idea for this thesis from 6 to 645. You know, you're blocking that particular time out of your day for that specific task. So, is there anything this week that you two or either one of you need to time block for?

Ruth 14:48

Hmm. So, yeah, I do have something I need to do this week actually. I need to shop for a birthday present.

Vinita 14:54

Okay. You need to shop for a birthday present. And is that something you've been putting off? Or is that just something because of the weather?

Ruth 15:00

It's cold and exactly, you know, and I always think I want to walk around and just find something organically, and then the time is passing, so I have to kind of make a more of a plan for it.

Vinita 15:10

Okay, so I would suggest you have a good idea of what type of gift you want to get this special person and commit to going shopping at a certain time and block that time for that specific task.

Ruth 15:24

Yes. Okay. And you know what I've discovered recently is that I have to block time for the thinking. I didn't know that before. So if I have to think about what I want to get the person, that's one time, and then I can actually go do the thing.

Vinita 15:36

Yes, and planning things out definitely helps your time management skills. A hundred. So think about the gift that you want to get your person. Think about what stores can deliver that gift, or not deliver literally, but you know, helping find that. Yeah, exactly. Follow through with that time. Yes, and so think about it and have some ideas, and then go specifically to those stores that can meet that need and block out that time to do that. Well, and you probably need to block the travel time too.

Kay 16:04

Exactly. And that's the other thing. Sometimes you're like, oh, it only took me a second to pick this up. Absolutely. But you forget that it's 10 minutes to get to the store, you know, five minutes to walk to the store from the car for parking, if you know, all that kind of stuff.

Vinita 16:17

So think about things that can come up. We call those interferences or buffers. Okay. Yeah. Think about those buffers. So, Kay, what about you?

Kay 16:25

I need to um finish a chapter for the book that I'm writing.

Vinita 16:29

Wonderful. Okay. And um, about how long do you want to devote this week to that chapter writing? Probably three hours. Okay. And remember, three hours is a long time. You want to take breaks in between and all of that and manage your time. Right.

Kay 16:45

So that you can be effective and thinking maybe not three hours back to back because I have a very short attention span. So I thought maybe like three one-hour chunks. Three one-hour chunks on different days different times. Different days or different times. You do one. Okay. But I need to commit to actually putting those on my calendar. Yeah.

Vinita 17:04

And so we talked about last time, our last episode on executive functioning, we talked about organization and using those planners. So I would today get out your planner and commit and time block three chunks, one hour at a time, for you to work on your book chapter. And if you know what you're writing about, if you have an outline, you know, ready to go, that's gonna help with initiating your task. Perfect. Right?

Kay 17:30

Yep. So what happens? I mean, you alluded to it just a second ago, but um being that I want to write, I'm doing the podcast, I have my clients. I also have family and friends who sometimes like to call and it might not be it might be during one of my time blocks. What do I do when that happens?

Vinita 17:48

Yeah, that's called life. That's called things happen. And as as beautiful as a plan you have, and as committed as you can, you know, want to be, and you have it written down, um, you have to plan for those buffers. So if something comes up that is of higher priority, like you know, someone gets sick, or you know, we all look if we have an aging parent or someone calls from one of our kids called from school, or we have a client in crisis, priority sets in, right? So then you readjust, you know. Part of also having strong executive functioning skills is having that mental or cognitive flexibility. So substitute that one hour that where you were interrupted, you know, for good or for bad, whatever reason, and then you find another time that suits your needs.

Kay 18:37

Interesting. I think about some of the younger listeners or the parents of younger listeners, and I will see um clients working on something and then their phone starts lighting up. Text messages, Snapchats, those types of things. And they view those as a priority. Oh and that ends up, I think, derailing them sometimes from what maybe they ought to be focused on. So, how do you how do you get someone who may be addicted to the little tiny screen that's in front of them? Right.

Vinita 19:12

So if we want to be efficient workers and we want to do, I keep using the word integrity and value, right? If you want to do your homework or write that work report or whatever it is that you're working on, if you want to do it with high value and integrity, distractions are going to happen. Some are within our control, some are beyond our control, right? The phone in front of you is within our control. And if you know that that's a distraction, you have a choice to make. Put it in the other room. Because here's the thing, especially if you're a student, I'm talking to my teens and young adults, college students out there, sharing your attention when our brains are still growing is not a great way to show up with integrity for whatever you're working on. So it comes down to where's your value system? It comes down to making the right decision. And the phone's not going anywhere. If you put it in the other room where it's out of sight, you know, out of mind, when you take your break, go check your phone. You know, it's still going to be there. So to answer your question, I would say to especially my young ones out there is make the right choice so that you are always showing up with a strong value system. And um, if your distractions are becoming too distracting and you can't, you know, really you don't have the capacity to share your attention and the stakes are high with whatever you're working on, get rid of the distractions that you can get rid of temporarily. Temporarily, okay?

Ruth 20:49

So, question there. Um, what if, and I've heard this from several of my students, what if you're you're multitasking? Oh, yeah. So that's that's the way you work best, like texting your friends and with the show on in the background, and you're that's how you really focus.

Vinita 21:02

Okay. Well, I would ask, I would challenge that thinking and say, do you really best focus that way, or is that really the way that you feel like you're staying most engaged? And I would reframe the question too, what is my goal here? What is my goal here? Is my goal here to do it all in this time span of, you know, whatever, 30 minutes? Is it is it to keep in touch with my friends and to finish my Netflix episode and to write my paper? Is that all something that I can do well? If the answer is yes, then I would say you are uh you have a super brain, and you know, I would be really um surprised at that. That doesn't mean the Netflix episode goes away. That doesn't mean the phone goes away. What that means is there's a time and a place for all of that. So you really want to prioritize, which is an Another part of our executive skills is we want to prioritize properly what is in front of us. So I would say right now, don't multitask. You know? Yeah. I mean, now if you're multitasking, you're listening to the radio and you're folding your laundry and maybe answering an email on your phone, okay, that's a little different. The stakes there may not be so high. But if it is work-related, academic related, make that the priority. Okay, so the other thing I want, I think that's really important for people who experience time blindness, is you got to make time visual. Because if you can't see time passing, it's it's if you, I'm sorry, if you see time passing, it's gonna be harder to ignore. Okay. So there are things like countdown timers or even like your iPhone. Make time such that you can see it if there's a way to make it colorful. I know there's this uh wonderful website called timetimer.com, and they make both big and small visual timers for people that really need to see the passage of time. Okay, like you can set it for 30 minutes and it's nice and big and red, and as time passes, it becomes less and less red. Okay, so that's just an example. So make it visible, make it something that's tangible.

unknown 23:17

Okay.

Vinita 23:18

Um, all right. The other thing is, you know, Ruth and I, you and I have talked about this. It's called called the Pomodoro technique. Yes. Which, by the way, is such a you know, pomodoro is Italian for tomato. Um let me explain what it is first and I'll tie it back to the tomato. Um, the pomodoro technique is you know, pick the task that you want to do, work on the task or allot a certain amount of time to that task, take a five to seven minute break, and then restart and just keep doing that on a loop. Okay. So for example, I want to work on my, well, let's okay, you want to work on your book. Okay. So you can set up a time, you know, that you're gonna work on your book and whatever specific tasks you have related to the book for 45 minutes, okay, in your in your office. And 45 minutes is a long time because you're you're you're using a lot of mental capacity there. So maybe 45 minutes, you can decide if that's too long or not. Okay. What what I'm gonna let you allot the time. How long would you want to work on it for? I know earlier we said an hour, but I can do 30 minute chunks. Okay. Let's do 30 minutes. Perfect. And and I think that that's a really good number. So you'll work on your book for 30 minutes and then you'll take a break. And then you'll even think about what you want to do for that break so you don't get so sucked in to a break. Breaks shouldn't be more than you know, five to ten minutes, maybe twelve, fifteen, if you know, you really have to get something else done. Okay. Okay. But think about what you want to do for that break too. Okay. Okay, whether it's, oh, I'll just go check my emails. It really should involve getting up, moving. You know, you you want to, and even maybe leaving the room that you're in if you can, okay? Take a quick dog walk. That is up and down the street. That is perfect because you're getting the fresh air, you're moving, you're you're you're in a different environment than the work environment. And the reason that that's important to do is because it re-regulates our body. Our minds and our body work together. So we want to re-regulate and we want to really take an actual break that feels like a break, not just sitting there and opening up another screen or opening up another window and doing, you know, a different type of work. That's not really a break.

Kay 25:35

Okay. It's funny, listening to this. Yeah. And we've had countless conversations over the last years. Taking a break, I never schedule breaks. Really? I don't schedule breaks. Oh, yeah. I know people say, I know people say to take them. Yeah. And so I think that going to the bathroom is a break. Or, you know, or or emptying the dishwasher is a break. And that's it's it's it's a break from what I was doing, but I'm still doing something that I perceive to potentially be more necessary in the same way. You're still kind of in the grind. Right. Well, okay, so it's not a pleasurable break, but it still is a break. But I don't even schedule those. I'm just saying they happen naturally. Do you know what I mean? And now I'm listening to this, going, oh, well, that's pretty basic. Like, why haven't I scheduled breaks? And people talk about them all the time. So now, I mean, I have my little aha moment here. So thank you.

Vinita 26:25

Yeah, and and you can, you know, get a snack. You know, I worked with a client recently and he said to me, he's like, Well, what if I don't need a break? What if I'm locked in to what I'm doing and it's been over an hour and I'm fine? And I said, Well, it may seem like you're fine, and that's great that you're locked in, but boy, are you using a lot of mental energy in that large amount of time and be ready for a mental fatigue crash? And we don't want that to happen. Okay. And the fact is, or the truth is, is that if you were so locked in for that hour, hour and a half, or whatever it was, you're probably gonna be able to get re-locked in after you take a break and your integrity will be better. Okay. Yes. So so take the and and why is it called the pomodoro? You have any idea, Ruth, why it's called the Pomodoro technique. I do actually. You tell the story.

Ruth 27:18

So it's Italian, which is funny because it's a Japanese method, right? But Pomodoro is the Italian word for tomato. And so um, when you write this out visually, you're supposed to block out your time in chunks, so you'll have maybe a 20 or 30 minute chunk of work time and that'll be colored in red. And then you have like a five or ten minute break, and that'll be in green. So it's like the red is the tomato, and the green is like the little leaves on top of it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, funny.

Vinita 27:41

So so that that's our little pomodoro fact there for you. Okay, and then the other thing is uh pair time with an action. So, for example, when the alarm rings, I'll open up my laptop. Okay, when the song is over, I'm gonna start to fold the clothes. That is, by the way, my least favorite chore is folding the clothes. I don't mind doing the laundry. I can push a couple of buttons on the machine, but it is the folding of the laundry. So tedious. I have to really rev myself up for that. So I have to say to myself, okay, you know, when this song is over, I'm gonna, I'm gonna continue to listen to my music or my playlist. But when this particular song is over, I'm gonna go and grab the clothes and start folding them or start sorting them, whatever. Yeah. Okay. Or while my coffee brews, I'm going to review my to-do list. So what you're doing is you're pairing time with an action. Okay. Um, and then there's also anchoring time to known events. So linking a task to a predictable time marker, like um after dinner, I am going to email my teacher and follow up, you know? Or when I get home from practice, I'll allow myself 15 minutes of chill time before I start my homework. Okay. So you're anchoring that time to an actual event. Okay. Um, and then back to our point that we talked about earlier. Whenever you're planning something, whenever you are thinking about how much time to allot to a specific task or activity, um, plan for those buffers. Weather, traffic, getting calls, you know, that you didn't plan for, getting things ready. You know, people say, you know, like my clients will say, Oh, practice starts at seven. Okay, well, let's plan backwards. What time are you leaving? How long is it gonna take you to plan, you know, to get your gear ready and in the car, you know, and you know, fill up your water bottle. You gotta think about all those things when you are planning your time. Okay. Um, and then reflect on all of that. Continuous improvement, right? Yeah, exactly. Continuous improvement. And so if there's one thing I hope you guys take away from this episode, it's this struggling with time doesn't mean that you don't care. It means that time isn't showing up clearly in your mind. When time feels invisible, the answer isn't more discipline, it's more support. So externalize those supports and use those resources around you. So instead of blaming yourself, start experimenting with ways to make time visible, predictable, estimate your time, externalize it, because when time works with your brain, not against it, then everything gets easier. And we will have um a link to the strategies on our website, netcollective.org. If today's conversation resonated with you, please share this episode with anyone who may need it, and follow us at netcollective.org or wherever you get your podcast so you don't miss what's next. We are Net Collective navigating everything together, one conversation at a time. Thanks for listening.