Home
Creators
Search Recent Missing Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Book Stuff | Time Based Struggles & Accommodations (Patreon)

Published:
2023-05-04 16:55:04
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Hello Brains! 

It looks like we may need a few more quotes relating to time based struggles. Please be sure to fill out this form so that we can make this process as quick as possible, if you'd like to help us out here! 

We credit using first name, last initial. How would you like to be credited? (It can be a false first name and/or last initial for privacy!) 

We credit using age. How would you like your age to appear? (It can be different from your actual age for privacy!) 

We credit using location. What location would you like? (It can be as broad as your country and as narrow as your city! We leave it to your discretion.) 

If we use your quote, do we have consent to edit down your quote for length without needing to get further approval from you?

And finally... how are some ways you communicate your time-based struggles? How have you asked for time-based accommodations? What are some of the accommodations you've asked for? 

It's been a blast getting to see all the different ways you all have been answering these throughout the course of this book! 🧡 We are so so so so grateful for getting to hear and use your experiences in your own words and we want to thank each and every one of you for sharing!! 

Comments

Suzanne Strickland

"Can you tell the difference between 5 mins and 1 hour? I can't. It is all the same to me." This is how I try to help people understand my experience with time blindness. I consent to be quoted/edited/etc. Suzanne S 37 Alaska

Jennyusagi

Jenny K. 44, California You have my consent to use and edit. I finally decided that I had to get my ADHD officially evaluated when I failed to manage my time and calendar a SECOND time leaving a friend with a child and an INFANT waiting for me on my porch when I was not home with my child when I was supposed to be. I had tried using a smartwatch to be sure I could keep track of time and calendar items and even that failed. Twice.

wn7ant

“Imagine you are trying to time something. You are sitting in a room with 100 TV’s. All of them have different shows on, at different volume levels. The most interesting shows have the volume turned down so you have to strain to hear them. Random TV’s change to random channels at random times. How could you possibly tell 5 mins from 5 hours in that room?” This is what it’s like inside my head. I have an Apple Watch. Every time I start a process (like boiling water for Spaghetti), “Siri, set timer labeled (X) for (Y) mins/hrs.” Siri never lets me down. I consent to be quoted/flamed/nuked from orbit/etc. Everett V 48 Denver

Tony

Tony S, 47, NOLA USA, consent given. I often refer to my brain as a lazy Susan. I never forget anything, but neither do I always have the choice of what makes it to the front of my mind, or when it arrives. I may remember on time, or I may try to jam it up so one thought stays in front, but then I forget other stuff, or get easily distracted after the initial self-discipline wears off. When I think about it, I try to set alarms to help remember really important things, but if I don't use that, or any 'system' for a while, the idea to use it goes away also, even if it works. Another method I use at times is I try to remember the number of important things I need to take care of, then I try to remember what they are. It's not always a fun game, but it helps sometimes if you communicate to others how many things you're trying to remember so they can help you remember what they are. If I have commitments with deadlines, or need to be somewhere at a certain time, I try to think backwards from the deadline or time to figure how much time I need to spend on each task involved in order to be on time. I try to factor in a little emergency time for the things I'm probably forgetting about, but that doesn't always work if I'm not well versed with whatever I'm doing or where I'm going, but it's helped me get closer to dealing with time more successfully.

Faraday

Even in childhood, time felt different for me. My family always joked that I was in my own timezone. I was always late for everything, and the phrase "five more minutes" could mean anything from five seconds to five hours. Now that I understand ADHD and time blindness, I can use strategies to compensate. Phone alarms and Alexa timers help me stay on track during the day. Using something of known time quantity like "one more song" or "until the end of this video" can be more useful than minutes. I haven't ever asked for accommodations (unless "start without me" is one), I just try to explain the challenge and plead forgiveness. I consent to be quoted and feel free to edit/cut at your discretion. Lynn N, 45, Pennsylvania

Jason H

Jason H. 44, New York. Consent to use and edit. Minutes and hours are often irrelevant to someone with ADHD. Digital clocks don't help, because the numbers you see might as well be in another language. What does help, is being able to see time pass by, like on an analog clock or even an hour glass. Set up an hour glass, which is a very visual representation of time passing by, and I see things from a different perspective. It's almost the same as an empty cup vs. full cup of water. Saying you have 50ml of water left in a cup doesn't evoke the same visual representation as seeing a cup with no water in it. Time often feels very fluid. The more you look at the clock, the slower it appears to be. Even if 15 minutes in my head is 15 minutes in someone else's head, I don't feel it passing like others do.

Bryce Carlson

This is definitely something that my fourteen-year-old can benefit from and I shall make certain that they have access to it.

Marshmallow Opossum

I have a bizarre ability to know exactly what time it is without looking at a clock, but I have no ability to tell how long a task will take. I've learned to use a timer to keep myself from staying on a task too long. I also oftentimes bounce my to-do list off of my husband. He's wonderful at gently telling me if my plan for the day is overly ambitious. Jess O, AZ USA, 42, consent given

John Gnassi & Deb Sutliff

Consent to use and edit - OK Deborah Sutliff, 52, family of 3 with ADHD Fulltime working RVers - Anywhere & Everywhere, USA A few years back you recommended using the Toggl app. I got it set up for me and my daughter. She struggles with time management, as do I but I've learned a lot more coping skills over the years. I never really took the time to use it though, but she did quite successfully. With some OCPD type tendencies she enthusiastically got into using Toggl and tagging her time. She routinely tagged a minimum of 10 hours a day, sometimes 12, 16, or even 18 hours! She was so enthusiastic, we've paid for a full account for her for years now so she could do more data analysis. Several years into this now, I am so proud to say that when asked to do a task, even ones with someone else, she'll say how long something will take and make a judgement able how that will impact other tasks or routines. She knows based on the fact that she's timed most routine tasks multiple times before and she is so much better at estimating new tasks as well. Her ability to analyze her own data and understand it along with time blocking techniques on a Google Calendar has given her a tremendous amount of control over her day. It doesn't solve everything though. She still tries to do too much, but she's much more realistic. She's so good at her time estimates now that I regret not doing the same way back when. In my copoius free time (sarcasm), I plan to start doing it as well so I can reap the benefits too.

sarahbear69

Sarah T. 44, Illinois Consent to use and edit. I have to set reminders to set timers. I work as a baker so I have six timers on the wall there and I use my Apple Watch timer constantly, yet I still burn the cookies sometimes. My boss asked me what happened, did I get distracted? Yeah, ya think. I’ve told him numerous times that I have adhd and I am starting to think he doesn’t believe me because so many people “self diagnose” with adhd and they don’t actually have it. Oh yeah, timers!!

Selphis

Koen S, Belgium. Consent to use and edit. I'm rarely late or early anywhere, but that's not because I'm good with time management. I'm just also autistic and really focussed on when I need to leave and how long I'm going to need to get there. My problem is that I can't 'feel' time. I could think something will take me 15 minutes but when I look at my watch when I'm done, it's 2 hours later. Planning a 'normal' day is difficult because I could either plan too much things and be frustrated when I can't finish it all, or not plan enough and be annoyed that I could have done more... Same thing for work. That's why I usually give really generous time estimates when asked, but since I'm a deadline worker when it comes to motivation, there's more opportunity for procrastination.

Çağatay Aydın

In my experience, I haven't really requested any specific accommodations. Instead, I've developed my own strategies to manage my time and ensure punctuality. When I need to be somewhere on time, I use Google Maps to estimate the travel duration and add a 25% buffer to allow for any unforeseen delays. In situations where I arrive late, I usually avoid providing reasons unless asked. My go-to phrases are "Thank you for your patience" or "I'm sorry about the delay." Another crucial tool for me is timers, particularly visual ones. I routinely note how long it takes to complete certain tasks and add some extra time for contingencies. This way, I can plan more effectively and minimize the impact of my ADHD on daily life. Consent to share my story and everything else has been given. Çağatay A, Turkey, 27

Kae(NWPA)

Sometimes I have to do the thing now or it may never get done.

Watt Family

I had a great regional manager who allowed me to work from home one day a week, not fixed so I could adjust it to the rhythm of my workload. I'm a Manager of a Nursing Home. This worked without incident for 6 months and then he left. New Regional Manager wasn't happy with the arrangement and in a supervision session challenged 'What did I actually do at home?' and 'If you do actually have ADHD..' I am diagnosed with inattentive ADHD and medicated..which is on my HR record as it means having a controlled drug on me at work. I couldn't find the words to explain how it was different each time and that sometimes it was actually effective for me to be on the couch doing 'nothing' for 3 hrs as I would then be able to hyperfocus on a report for 4hrs at midnight which had been sitting on my desk untouched for three weeks. That some days I would be up at 3am to go through the last two weeks emails to just be sure I hadn't missed anything. They referred me to occupational health..with one of the questions being what adjustments would be needed in order for me to return to work or even a phased return. Thankfully the mental health nurse who conducted my review, thought the whole thing was ridiculous and recommended that they just let me carry on as before as it was clearly working and recommended that they all went on neurodiversity training. A good outcome and I'm still in role, however my working from home days are now less effective as I spend more time procrastinating over what I should be doing to evidence that I'm working rather than working to instinct as I did before, that I'm now miserable and anxious in a job I'm good at and used to enjoy. Not sure how much longer I will stay. Pete Watt, 52,Tadley, Hampshire, UK. Happy to be quoted and referenced however suits.

K Johnson

Time based struggles Kevin M (not real initial) Age about 65 Seattle, WA I was not diagnosed until about age 62 after an accident. Doing therapy while recovering, an astute clinician started asking the right questions which lead to the diagnosis. ADHD - the ability to pay attention to everything, all the time - was a super power in my role as a consultant, group facilitator, and speaker. However, on the other hand, years earlier, during a time I was part of a team of senior consultants, the team lead grew frustrated with what they described as my “time management.” I was tasked with attending a time management workshop charged with evaluating the instructor as a future team member. A couple of decades earlier I ran a company that did time and project management training for large corporations. We created the equivalent of what the Franklin Planner is before the Franklin Planner existed. I was clear on what “time management” entailed. It slowly became clear the team lead was frustrated because their view of time embraced one in which projects progressed in sequential, linear steps. They wanted “progress” reports. Of course, my brain works more holographically. And, some of the projects that they thought would take a week or more, I could do in a day when ready and focused. Alas, when asked for a project report, I didn't’ have much to say. However, I met deadlines and often exceeded expectations of our clients. In fact, others on the team casually suggested I was doing some projects too fast - adding that they didn’t want to be compared or held to that speed by the team lead. While sending me to a workshop was rather disingenuous on the part of my team lead, it did reveal that they felt powerless to understand a work style different from their own. In retrospect, they had little idea of how to interact with someone with a different brain. I would note that this team, including its leader, was highly skilled; you could goggle anyone on it and get pages of links with interesting articles, events, or accomplishments.

Jess Mazzola

Jessica M, 27, Norwood, MA USA - Yes you can edit if needed! When it comes to work, one of the labs I work in has a very time dependent process and I struggled with being able to prioritize the different tasks that the process required. At one point I decided to communicate that I have difficulty with time perception to my manager - I initially asked him if there was anyway I could get a timer in that lab, not for the purpose of rushing but just for better time efficiency and productivity and he did look into it but it ended up being a bit complicated with how our equipment use works. However he was able to find another version of the wall clock we have in the lab - one which shows the *seconds* passing with the minutes, and he got that put inside and it's been super helpful!

Jeffery Blair

Jeff B, 53 years old, WI; permission to edit as needed. I understand the concept of time, but I have no sense of it as a measurement of change. I use an alarm to tell me when I have to get up for the day, another one so I take my medication, a third to remind me to leave for work, one to tell me when to eat lunch, still more so I switch work tasks at the expected hour, and another so I leave early enough to catch the last bus of the day. Almost no time has passed for me since I left the house that morning. I’m simply more exhausted than I was several alarms ago. I relate that intellectually to the passage of time, but without any other tangible connection to it. Unless I’m bored. Then every minute feels like an eternity.

Kristian O M

My medication has not suddenly made me be on time - however it gives me a fighting chance to have that second reflection and realise that 20 min AFTER I should have left for the airport, is a bad time to start doing dishes. Kristian OM, 33, London (UK), feel free to edit or rephrase as you need

Todd Holdsworth

44 from Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Use whatever you want, however you want 💙 I have my work calendar on my phone, as well as my personal calendar plus Google calendar for reminders. All the alerts for these show on my Galaxy Watch. Without this, my time-blindness and selective memory would have me missing many things. The watch is a necessity as phone alerts can be easily missed.

chasemax808

Chase M, 59, Hawai‘i USA. Consent to use or edit. I use Siri on my HomePod, iPhone and iPads to keep me scheduled and on time. Try to set timers and alarms as much as possible as well as using the reminder features. When I'm getting ready in the morning, I will ask Siri at least half a dozen times "what time is it?".

Henriikka Halila

When working on my thesis I asked my supervisor to give me "hard" deadlines. So instead of just meeting him regularly to show what I got, he gave me specific goals. (Like, you need to show me a full outline by this date, have this chapter finished etc.) (I didn't even have my diagnosis then, just knew by then very well that deadlines set by someone else were a must.) Full consent, 42 years old, Finland

Lisa Gaudron

Lisa G, Australia, full permission to publish, edit as required, etc etc. I've asked for (and received) permission to use timers and alarms in a small office setting. I use alarms to remind me to take a lunch break, medication, to remember when to ring home to remind my kids of things they have to do and when it's time to pack up to go home. Visual timers that count down with a disappearing wedge of colour are more useful for shorter deadlines. My boss knows about my issues with hyperfocus and my lack of time perception. He understands he can "treat me like a deaf person" if I'm in the zone and haven't noticed my reminders going off. Or if I have, but have promptly forgotten them again. I've also got permission to use a Discord pomodoro-style body doubling channel as needed - really useful when the others are out of the office or if I'm working from home, especially as I forget how long it's been since I got up and moved / stretched.

G. Lee King

hi, I'm G. Lee, Melbourne, aged 66, undiagnosed but I think AuDHD, publish OK, edits OK. I have a system that works well for me but it's a 2-parter, and the 2nd part is based on privilege and luck. 1st part: a job that suits. I've had base-level work in factories, labs & shops, where the tasks were immediate and the time-keeping organised by machines or close supervisors. The work itself was boring but the responsibility for keeping track was not up to me which was soothing. Many years pass, now I'm PhD and researcher. This is where the privilege comes in: I'm self-employed and only get bits of work, so I have lots of time, I can set deadlines that suit me. Sometimes the deadlines get hard and I'm stressed, but I have time later to decompress. The privilege is, my partner has a good job and really supports my science even when it doesn't pay much, so my slow pace of work doesn't make me poor. I'm like some renaissance artist being sponsored by a Medici. In day-to-day strategies, I have to-do lists posted all around my desk, and it's way fun to crumple them up when they're done. I also regard my Piles Of Doom as physical to-do lists. Although maybe they're physical prioritisation tools? There's one near my right elbow that I haven't touched in 10 years, I think that's telling me something.

I HEART GIVING

Tony Hunt No Age Niagara Falls, NY Edit as you see fit. I dont not work in term of schedules, as much as I work in terms of milestones, tasks, and deadlines. I do have things that happen on schedule daily, but where time constraints come up I explain that my process doesnt fit a set time schedule and its better to assign me task X and gove me a dealine than it is to simply say "work on this during your schedule"

Luca

Luca H, 26. Perth, Australia. You have my full consent to use and edit. I am an Architectural graduate, finishing last year. I had struggles throughout uni submitting assignments on time. These were mostly large semester-long assignments that required good time management skills to complete by the allotted deadline. During my undergraduate degree the late penalty was 5% a day, which I copped. I submitted most assignments 2-3 days late and was still able to land a reliable C grade. At the time I started my Masters degree however, my university briefly increased the penalty to 10%. I couldn’t take this so applied for special consideration. With this special consideration, I was allowed to apply for as many extensions as required to complete the assignment. This resulted in me submitting all of my postgraduate assignments at least a week late. The stress endured was similar if not more than I experienced during my undergraduate degree. Without a formal deadline, I built up a highly perfectionistic attitude towards my work which now makes completing tasks quickly at my job difficult. On reflection, I think this was a poor strategy by my university which has been detrimental to my productivity and therefore employability.

Jabberwocky (Jan H. H.)

Time is my kryptonite! And since I am German it often can really be an issue that for me time is flexible and with hyperfocus I can sometimes get lost in my own universe, whereas people around me perceive time as linear and a lot is organised according to linear time with specific points in time when things "need" to happen. One of my best friends is Spanish and always calls it "You're getting Spanish" when I'm running late for an appointment etc. In Spain on average time in a social setup is much more flexible as in Germany (see e. g. "The Culture Map" by Erin Meyer). Luckily today I'm more relaxed with this and also speak openly about it. When I know I got an appointment after lunch/ coffee I ask people I'm closer to if I could set an alarm to leave on time. I also use a timer with three times on it for meetings etc. in particular if I have to run them and get through my schedule (can be started all together if needed). Teleworking makes this even easier and less awkward. I do need a lot of planning though, to get it right as I have little feeling for how long something might take. It used to stress me out a lot, being able to open up and share my struggles helped me a lot in the last time. Feel free to use Jan H. H., diagnosed with ADHD (late at age 41), 43, The Hague and fine to edit this quote.

Angie

I find the current Neurotypical schedule-based work culture to be too restrictive and ineffective. Many workplaces feel they must have everyone on the clock and in the office for the same 8 hours each day so that everyone is available at all times to answer questions and interact, regardless of workflow. I would personally benefit from working at least 1-2 "off" hours when no one else expects to reach me to truly focus without interruption, because interruptions are especially detrimental to the ADHD brain. It seems like schedule accommodation, like offsetting the hours, has not been offered because managers don't trust employees to manage themselves without direct supervision -- we're seeing that with the articles about remote workers being forced back into the office. Managers could micromanage less if they trusted more. If they hire skilled people and provide them the expectations (boundaries) and the proper tools, employees do better. If they don't trust their employees to do the right thing (their jobs!), then they should address their trust issues through therapy and effective communication. Angie T | 42 | Missouri Full permission to use and edit as required

Parker

I’m late to respond. But just in case this resonates with anyone else… I need deadlines too. But I can’t focus if I’m too close to a deadline because I get so stressed out by them rushing towards me at warp speed that my brain will refuse to focus. So I’ve learned over the years (I’m 56) that I need to set myself a deadline that is at least a week earlier than the actual one. When I was an undergraduate it utterly mystified me how the students around me could stay up all night working on something that had to be handed in the following day. I am incapable of working under those kinds of time constraints. Before the cumulative effects of all the stress on my body made me too ill to work, I was a special ed teacher. I dreaded the end of year reports I had to write on every student. No matter how many timetables I planned out for myself, how many times I tried to force myself to spend x minutes every weekend for x weekends, I ALWAYS ended up in the same hyper focused intense pattern of successive 14 hour days in whichever was the last bit of vacation time we had before the reports were due. So I ended up going back to work exhausted and wrung out. Anxiety dreams about missed deadlines were the norm. I have to have EVERYTHING written down, in at least two places. Copious notes…epic to do lists…multiple notes stuck on everything around me…timers…alarms…multiple clocks so that I could see one wherever I was. Like others have mentioned I now find my smartwatch and ‘Alexa’ helpful. But even with them, they’re only ever effective for part of the day. Once I start to get too focused on something then I begin to totally ignore timers and alarms when they go off. I’m early for appointments - I work out using Google maps (or doing a practice run if it’s somewhere unfamiliar) how long a journey will take me. Add 30 minutes in case of traffic delays. Get EVERYTHING ready the night before so I don’t get sidetracked looking for something or adding something totally unrealistic to the time I’ve allocated to get ready. I double the time I think it will take me to get ready and plan out how long each part of the prep MUST take me. So, 30 minutes getting clean, 10 minutes to prepare breakfast, 15 minutes to eat and digest etc. CONSTANTLY checking the time on one of the multiple clocks…if it’s a social occasion I’m always late. Because I invariably think I have plenty of time to also get x, y and z done before I leave. I was frequently in work for hours after the school day ended. I’d look up at the clock and realise it was 6.30pm but I still hadn’t done whatever it was that I was staying late to do. I was always in every school I ever worked in, the last person there. I always got to know the custodians/cleaners/caretakers really well because they constantly had to pester me to pack up and go home. I never understood why I struggled with everything that other people seemed to breeze along doing easily. Until recently when my therapist mentioned ADHD. NEVER once in over 20 years of teaching did I recognise that I had many of the same traits as the children I helped to learn. I masked so well even I didn’t see them. I also didn’t realise what toll the stress of trying to cope with a world that didn’t seem to be functioning in the same way as I did was having on my body, and I’ve been chronically ill since 2007. It’s only with therapy that I’m recognising how much I’ve been a round peg trying to fit into a square holed world. - I never asked for accommodations because I thought it was just me failing to manage my time properly and over the years figured out some ways I could manage to conform despite those failings/flaws. The relief I feel now, knowing a little bit about WHY I struggle with this stuff is…incalculable. Parker. UK. 56yo If this isn’t too late to be helpful, permission to edit however you see fit.

Jennifer Levenbook

When I was in graduate school for my Master's Degree, my advisor told me I had no choice but to have hard intermediate deadlines. "You are going to hate me with each of these deadlines," she said, "But you are going to really love me at the end when you only have to polish and shine." And she was right. I looked at the other graduate students not spending hours in the library the night before an intermediate deadline getting material completed for turning in and seething silently. But at the end they were all stress and I had very little to do. If it hadn't been for that advisor, I possibly would have been diagnosed earlier (she accommodated all of her advisees, diagnosis or no). This was my first introduction to what I later learned is called Universal Design: it may be an accommodation for some but it is helpful for all. ~ Jen, 40, North Carolina