Ive noticed that my perception of time is far different than others. I feel like time in general (short-term or long-term) seems to go by SOOO FAST. For instance, getting ready in the morning is very difficult for me to do quickly. On average it takes me 2 hrs to get ready and leave. To me i feel like im moving fast, but when i look at the clock ill find that hrs have passed without my awareness. Or in class (im a college student) i will feel like im working quickly when in reality, i am behind the rest of the class. I am a slow mover and a slow thinker.
I am constantly in surprise at how quickly time is moving throughout the day. At first i thought it was just the speeding up of time as we get older. However i am pretty sure it is related to my ADD. I have Inattentive type ADD, but im sure ADHDers can also relate.

Another problem i have with this is my frequent tendency to underestimate the time it takes to do tasks. I'll tell myself, "it will only take 10 mins" but ill take 30min without realizing how much time is really going by. This is another reason for my frequent tardiness to everything. Deadlines and appointments are always a mess for me.

Almost everyday, i ask myself "where did time go?" or "what the hell did i do in during all this time?" It is very frustrating. I feel like my life is moving way too fast and its just getting faster and faster.

I feel like i am in one of those video clichés where a person is moving normally, or slowly, while a crowd of people around is zipping by quickly in fast forward motion. (I think the movie Stateside has an example of this)
I would rather be in that other video cleche where I am the one moving normally or fast and the world around me is frozen in time. (The movie Over The Hedge has an example of this)

I can never seem to manage my time efficiently. I have tried scheduling the tasks in my day with a planner. But it always seems like i never have enough time to finish any tasks in the day.

I truly wish there was a way to slow down my perception of time or to speed up my pace of movement. I have heard that medication can effect your perception of time. Maybe this is the reason. Im not sure.


I am just wondering if anyone can relate to this, and if this is a common issue among others with ADD. If so, what are some things people are doing to improve their problems relating to a scewed perception of time. Can anyone offer any solutions or suggestion to help improve/resolve my issue?


BTW… Writing this post felt like it only 15 mins. But looking at the clock I see that it has almost been an hour. 54 mins to be exact. WOW. I hate this.

I'm not sure if it's something common among those with Attention issues, but I know I can relate to alot of what you talked about.

I know a few things I have done are I force myself to get up an extra hour early, so that I allow myself time for distractions...with having allowed myself the time for those distractions I would normally have...I seem to leave the house earlier and make it to work on time.

As far as work and the interesting claims papers that come across my desk...I have my outlook calander set to pop up with the message once an hour "are you on task?" Like you, I just thought I had some huge time distortion, but in reality I didn't realize how often I was getting distracted and off task. Once I started working with the outlook pop up I realized that I get distracted a lot more than I realized. It's like I would remember doing the task, but I couldn't seem to remember getting distracted while working on it; so I always thought I was just working the whole time.

You might try something along those lines to see if you are getting distracted and not remembering it or even relating it to what you were working on.

As far as using a day planner...it's great...until you over book yourself...or you have plenty of time to do all those things, but there are little distractions that take up 10 minutes here or there and it throws you off later in the day. Anyway, I hope it helped, but if it didn't I can at least relate lol

T-RSX,
I definitely have those kinds of issues myself. I graduated from college (undergrad) about 3 years ago, and now I'm working full-time and taking grad classes. My udergrad was REALLY difficult, because I hadn't realized my problems were related to ADD yet. That being said, now that I'm aware of what's causing my issues, taking a low dosage of meds, and developing some new strategies... things are going much better. Of course I still have plenty of issues, so I do my best to work around them. So, maybe some of my strategies could help you out.

First of all, it might help to come to terms with how long some tasks will take you to finish and to plan around that. I have the most success when I plan what seems like wayyyy more than enough time to finish something. Also, if you're having particular trouble managing your time for a class, make sure you talk to the professor about your ADD issues (if you haven't already).

You can also set some non-aggressive mini-goals to accomplish for a task. For me, writing a paper or doing a large task can be overwhelming unless I break it up into small pieces. Something like: today I'll just outline what I need to write about, next day I'll just write some headings, then I'll just fill in some initial content for each section... Usually I end up doing more than I planned because it allows my brain time to warm up.

I noticed you said you've tried using planners before, but that it didn't work well. I tend to get more done when I don't plan too many things. For example, don't try to schedule unrealistic things like finishing an entire paper or homework in one day. You'll just get frustrated with your progress and it will slow you down more.

I think what happens is people with ADD issues like us wait till the last second (for lots of reasons), then we are pumped up and ready to work and we think "OK, now I'm thinking clearly I can totally get this paper done by tomorrow". And then we work nonstop until the deadline and we can't understand where the time went. The thing is, even people without ADD can't get that kind of work done in such a short period of time. I think it's important to realize that you're just as capable (if not more) than the rest of your classmates. The difference is people like us need to plan differently.

I think there are some things you can do to get ready faster in the morning. If you find that my ideas help, you can probably apply it to other similar situations. I think the main thing you can do in the morning is to greatly limit the number of things you have to do to get ready. Are you just getting ready for class or for work when it takes you 2 hours? I find that when I have a lot of different things to focus on in the morning it takes me forever to get out the door to work. If all I need to do is shower, get dressed and walk out the door... I can do it in like 30 minutes. However, if I need to shower, get dressed, put together a lunch, cook myself breakfast, make coffee, put the dogs in their room... its about an hour and a half to get out the door. It just takes me too long to shift my focus from thing to thing. It's a hard thing to get used to, but the only way to get around it is to get everything ready the night before. I tend to require extra time just to shift my focus... so the best thing is to limit how many times you have to do that.

I think the way you are experiencing time is pretty normal, for both ADD and non-ADD individuals. The problem is that once you get behind on things you want/need to do it's really hard to get out of that cycle... so you're always stuck in "catch-up" mode. When you're constantly in crisis mode, time is going to fly by. I've definitely been stuck in that mode for long periods of time, especially in college. What I found was, even though it seems counter-intuitive, is that if I'm doing work constantly I actually have more time to relax and do things I want to do. I hate the fact that I need to start working on a homework the day its assigned and every day until its due... because at first it feels like "all I'm doing is work, this is a miserable way to live, etc". But, it turns out I actually end up freeing up a crap load of time. It takes away a lot of stress, I don't have to spend multiple nights working past midnight to finish things, etc. And when I can manage to do this for long periods.... time seems to slow down alot. I won't pretend its easy to do with my ADD though, I've been working on it for a long time and I'm still learning every day.

Good luck! Sorry about the rambling, long reply, hopefully some of it helps.

Nick

When I went back on medication for ADHD I realized how much my perception of time changes, mine usually goes too fast unless I am bored, then a second feels like an hour.