It’s About Time!

ADD’ers are challenged by time.  Estimating time, predicting time, passage of time…you name it, our internal clock doesn’t tick to the same tock as the rest of the population.

“Let me just finish this… OOH, I can get this done before I leave…

Just one more thing… Aghh, I thought I had more time.”

Russell Barkley suggests that one needs a sense of oneself across time, and that a person with ADHD has a sort of time blindness.  Children (and adults) with ADHD are helped when they are reminded about the passage of time.  In this way, they are encouraged to become better able to budget their time.  (Review of BARKLEY video)

If you want to read a clinical study to explain how this works, click here.  Their results point to “perceptual deficits in time discrimination.”  The research team identifies the likely part of the brain that demonstrates “deficits in basic internal timing mechanisms.”

Whatever the cause, the bottom line is the same:  ADD’ers lack the ability to judge time accurately.  They do not as a rule have a problem telling time or reading a clock.

The real question is “What is the clock telling me?”

  Instructing an ADD’er to get in the car at 8:00 is a wasted breath, unless you add, “That is 10 minutes from now.”  And, consider whether your ADD’er relies on digital clocks or analogue time pieces.   To this day, when I read a digital time clock, I still convert it into the analogue clock-face picture in my mind.

For years I relied on the minute timer that I kept in the kitchen (hub of busy household).  As long as I paid attention to the beep-beep-beep, and didn’t ignore the signal that it was time do whatever, I was ok.  But, can you guess how many times I turned it off, and then tried to get just one more thing done?

To the rescue, now we have www.timetimer.com !  You gotta check this out.  Time Timer is a fabulous visual tool with an optional audible signal.  Set the analogue dial to the number of minutes which appear as a red wedge.  The wedge diminishes as time elapses. 

 Experience the passage of time. 

Time Timer is available in assorted sizes, various wristwatch styles, software for your computer, and by golly now there is an app for that too!

See ya’ next time!

Debbie