ADHD and: Time perception

It’s a scenario some women with ADHD know all too well. Glancing over at the clock after being so immersed in a project or task and realizing that hours have flown by. This common occurrence is often referred to as trouble with time perception, or time blindness. 

In this episode, listen as Dr. Monica Johnson explains the link between ADHD and time perception. Discover why some women with ADHD have trouble keeping track of time. And learn practical strategies to help manage time more effectively.

We love to hear from our listeners. Email us at podcast@understood.org.

Related resources

• ADHD and “time blindness”

• ADHD and: Time management

Timestamps

(00:39) What is time perception?

(02:35) Why can time perception be a struggle for women with ADHD?

(06:07) Ways to manage trouble with time perception

Episode transcript

Dr. J: Ever had one of those days where you think you have all the time in the world, justifying yourself racing against the clock at the last minute? For many women with ADHD, time can seem to fly by leaving them wondering how they're ever going to catch up.

This is "ADHD and," where we talk about everyday life and ADHD. I'm your host, Dr. J. I'm a licensed psychologist who works with people with ADHD. Today we're talking about ADHD and time perception.

(00:38) What is time perception?

First, let's come up with a working definition of time perception and the different aspects of it. Keep in mind that the research is limited, it's nuanced, and there's definitely more than one way to talk about this topic. Time perception is a subjective experience of the passage of time and the process of arranging your life according to your own internal cognitive clock.

There are many aspects of time perception that can be impacted by ADHD. Here are a few examples. Time estimation refers to a cognitive process by which an individual predicts or judges the duration of an event, a task, or a time interval. It involves a subjective assessment of how much time something will take or how much time has passed.

Time estimation can be prospective, meaning estimating the duration of something that's ongoing or in the future, or retrospective meaning estimating the duration of something that happened in the past. Next is time reproduction. This is where a person is asked to reproduce or replicate a previously presented time interval. Another aspect is time production. This is where a person is asked to generate or produce a specified duration of time without any external cues.

For clarity reproduction, they show you something that you have to replicate in the same amount of time, whereas in production you get no example to copy. But what may happen is they will ask you to engage in a task for 10 seconds and then let them know when that amount of time has passed by doing something like pressing a button.

Lastly, there is duration discrimination, which basically refers to the ability to distinguish between two time intervals of different lengths. Again, I want you to keep in mind that the research in this area is very limited, it's subject to change, and your individual experience may vary.

(02:35) Why can time perception be a struggle for women with ADHD?

Now that we have that out of the way, we can talk about what the research is leaning towards in terms of ADHD and how it impacts these four different time perception categories.

It seems that currently ADHD is linked to poorer time estimation and duration discrimination. So, what does that mean exactly? It looks like people with ADHD have difficulty estimating how long a time period actually is. They may be able to replicate the amount of time a stimulus has been presented to them, but where they're really going to struggle is really identifying how long something takes.

In terms of duration discrimination, it looks like people with ADHD have a hard time making distinctions between small periods of time. What that can look like for people with ADHD is they might not be able to tell the difference between one second and a second and a half. That may not sound like much. But there are a lot of seconds in a day and it can pretty quickly add up to a problem for people.

I'm sure many of you have had a few moments in your life where five minutes would have made a huge difference to your day. So, now I'm going to talk you through a few examples of how ADHD can significantly affect time perception for women.

For example, they might plan to complete a work assignment in one hour when it actually takes them three. Or conversely, they may overestimate the time it takes to complete a simple task like sending an email which can lead to procrastination.

The second thing I'm going to mention is inability to feel the passage of time. Women with ADHD might get absorbed in a task and lose track of time, and this can lead to being late for appointments or missing deadlines. This can also impact daily schedules. For example, you might take a break for 15 minutes to scroll on social media only to realize later that an entire hour has passed.

The third thing is difficulties with future planning. So, due to a skewed perception of time, women with ADHD might struggle with long-term planning because that either seems too distant or too urgent. For instance, they might delay starting a long-term project because it really doesn't seem pressing only to panic when the deadline approaches out of nowhere.

The fourth thing that I want to mention is chronic lateness. Being consistently late is a common challenge for people with ADHD. For example, they may often underestimate the time needed for travel or preparing to leave, which can lead to them being in a rush or arriving late to things.

The final thing I'll mention in this area is inconsistent time management. There can be days when things seem to fly by and others where everything takes forever. This inconsistency can create stress in balancing personal and personal commitments. For example, a woman with ADHD might find herself completely overwhelmed with small tasks on one day and then on another she's hyperproductive, but she's unable to replicate that efficiency on a regular basis.

These challenges can be particularly impactful in areas like work, education, parenting, and relationships, making it difficult to meet societal expectations for time management and punctuality.

(06:07) Ways to manage trouble with time perception

Improving time perception for people with ADHD typically involves using a set of psychological strategies to help compensate for the brain's natural tendencies. Here are a few effective techniques.

The first couple of strategies I want to mention, I'm kind of lumping under the header of time awareness strategies. So, essentially you're going to be using a lot of timers and alarms. Setting timers or alarms can help folks to stay aware of the passage of time. For example, if you use a countdown timer while you're engaging in a task, it can help you stay aware of time and prevent hyperfocus. This is especially helpful for those who lose track of time during activities.

The second thing that I want to talk about is finding ways to externalize time. Using visual cues like analog clocks, clocks that change colors, or timers that show time elapsing can make time feel more tangible or real to those with ADHD.

The next thing I'll mention here is time mapping. Writing things down on a calendar or on a to-do list can help you to visualize your day, making it easier to manage time and also to know how time is distributed amongst different activities.

The third category I want to get into is chunking tasks. So, the first thing here is to break large tasks into smaller ones. This is probably something you heard before and you'll hear it again. Breaking things down into small, manageable steps helps you to maintain awareness of how much time each step is taking.

By doing this, it can help you to improve your ability to improve time estimation for larger tasks. Breaking things down into small and manageable steps helps to improve focus and provides opportunities to check time. This reduces the tendency to misjudge how long a task will take.

The next strategy here is the Pomodoro Technique. This technique encourages working and focus intervals. For example, 25 minutes on and then a five-minute break. This can help with your time awareness and also prevent burnout from focusing on a task for too long.

The fourth thing I want to talk about is building a routine. I talk to my patients about this on a daily basis. Creating a regular routine reduces the cognitive load because you don't have to spend time deciding when to start or stop a task or how long it'll take.

And the last thing I'll mention here is morning and evening check-ins. So, essentially what you want to do is take 5 to 10 minutes at both the beginning and end of your day to either plan or review tasks. This allows you to get a better awareness of how you expected things to go versus how they actually went. Even for me as a girl without an ADHD diagnosis, I use many of the strategies that I spoke about here because so much about life is meeting yourself where you're at, regardless of your starting point, and taking things step by step.

Remember that you're not defined by your struggles. You're defined by how you respond to them. There are going to be hard days. Try to have your general mantra be something along the lines of I'm learning to understand and manage my time more effectively each and every day. If this is the mindset, then there's always going to be an opportunity for improvement. And who knows, maybe one day in the future time management will be easy mode for you.

That's it for today. Thanks so much for listening. What's a strategy that I've mentioned that you plan to try? Don't forget to subscribe to the channel and I'll catch you on the next episode of "ADHD and."

This show is brought to you by understood.org, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. Learn more at Understood.org.

"ADHD and" is produced by Tara Drinks and edited by Alyssa Shea. Our video producer is Calvin Knie. Ash Beecher is our supervising producer. Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director. Our audio engineer and music composer is Justin D. Wright. Our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Seth Melnick. And I'm your host, Dr. J.