ADHD Minds Are Trapped in Now (& Other Time Management Truths)
Adults with ADHD think about time differently. Our inability to anticipate future rewards and consequences, our remarkable ability to procrastinate, our inability to ignore the static around us — these traits all contribute to our trouble with deadlines, punctuality, and planning. Here, learn how to combat these ADD tendencies to get more done every day.
3 Comments: ADHD Minds Are Trapped in Now (& Other Time Management Truths)
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Sometimes the awareness of the future can be overwhelming though; ie. Trying to do more in a day than is healthy so that your eventual tomorrow/s might be cleared for some hobbies/life/family/fun. I’ve found this results in my present being rammed by my own diaries, schedules, and reminders, with the aim of future me reaping the benefits – of having a fun and secure life, less chaos and more fulfilling.
I have all of these exact same issues. However after reading through the tips and suggestions I do not see how any of them would help me.
My work schedule cycles by-weekly and bi-monthly between days worked and shift.
Mostly my most serious issues now are finding time to take care of weekly, monthly and annual responsibilities from grocery shopping and laundry to paying bills and handling things like the car maintenance. Also other things I really want to do like golfing, fishing, hanging pictures on the walls of our new apartment, decorating, furniture, maybe a flower box, and just stuff like that!
My time management for work is not an issue, I work everyday all day, productivity is not an issue- do as much work as they can give me as fast I can the best that I can every day. I got that in the bag.
It’s everything outside of work.
Understanding the “Now, not now” mindset of the ADHD brain was one of the biggest, brightest, not just lightbulb but full on flood light, moments of my ADHD education. It was a moment of not just liberation from trying to fix tardiness with ineffective methods over and over, but of self forgiveness. So nice to finally understand I was not all those negative adjectives used to describe the tardy, but that I had a different concept of, as they say in sci fi, the “space/time continuem” and even better, I CAN manage time, just not the way neurotypicals do. I must use methods, like those described in this article, that work for how my brain is wired. I use habit tracking and breaking tasks into small steps extensively now as I have found it gives me some immediate gratification when I can cross an item off a list or fill in a box, though the long term benefit and big pay off may be much further down the road. Thanks for a great read and I picked up a couple more good tips to add to the toolbox.