If you have ADHD, time management likely gives you nightmares. As an ADHD coach I spend much of my time teaching clients how to manage their time. In coaching we focus a lot on things like planning, being on time, procrastinating, perfectionism, scheduling and staying on task.
In fact, long-time ADD Success subscribers may remember a survey I did a few years ago asking about reader problems with living with Attention Deficit. The survey showed that ADHD time management plagued readers almost as much as getting organized with ADHD.
You can read some of my other ADHD time management tips and tricks here on the ADD Success Blog:
- How To Stop Procrastinating and Start Living
- What Happens When I Break ADHD Time Management Rule #1
- How I Control My ADD Symptoms and Manage My Time (You’ll find a photo of my darling pups, Carly and Buddy, on this one.)
Today let’s talk about a universal challenge of ADHD time management – everything takes longer to do than we ever imagine.
It seems most people, ADHD or not, have trouble estimating time. But, with adult ADHD on board knowing how long it will take us to do something becomes even trickier.
ADHD Time Mangement Challenges
- We get exceedingly optimistic about how long it will take to do things.
- We forget to factor in distractions when planning our schedules.
- We have a hard time thinking projects and tasks all the way through in advance. We tend to build the parachute after we’ve jumped off the cliff.
- Also, for many us, especially my Inattentive ADD sisters and brothers, it just seems to take us longer to do things than it does our non-ADHD friends.
That’s why my rule of thumb for estimating how long it will take an ADHD adult to do something is to take a guess at how much time you think you need and then triple it.
For example, think it’ll take you 30 minutes to pack your suitcase? Plan on 90 minutes instead. Sound like too much time? What’s the worst that can happen? You get it done ahead of time and can get something else done, too.
Can you imagine getting things done ahead of schedule? Sounds like ADHD time management success to me!
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