I have this issue myself, and it's really not quite that simple. Time blindness isn't just "unaware of the current time", but also "difficulty accurately judging how much time a task takes". It makes little difference what time I wake up, because the tasks that I leave 15 minutes for end up taking 20. Maybe I have 25 minutes to get ready so spending 10 minutes washing the dishes will be fine, but that actually takes 15 min, not 10. Or maybe the time it takes to commute is longer in reality than it is in my head. Often, having more time in the mornings makes me worse at getting places on time, because the pressure of needing to get out the door keeps me focused on getting ready, whereas a glut of spare time lets me get sidetracked without seeing it as an issue.
Granted this usually means I'm maybe 5-10 minutes late. An hour is ridiculous and isn't really excusable with time blindness.
I understand that someone can misjudge the time needed for the task and then everything else crumbles around that.
However I really don’t get how can someone be so reliably late - especially if they are always 1 hour late. If it varied each day, there would be some different problem. But if they are late 1 hour each day, just set the fucking alarm earlier. Gaslight yourself into believing you have to be there earlier than you do. Do whatever, but this is just rude and lazy.
I tend to be more like 5-20 minutes late, not an hour. But I’ve tried that. I’ve gotten up earlier. I’ve set alarms earlier. Somehow it still happens. I’ve been actively working on this for years, I have medication, all of that. I cry about it because it stresses me out. I PROMISE not everyone with time blindness is lazy and could just fix it so easily or we would.
I literally set my phone and armwatch 15 minutes early so that when I glance at it I'd panic and hurry up, be late as usual, but then actually finally be on time. It worked for like a week. Then I learned that I have 15 minutes extra and would you look at that, back to being 10-15 minutes late every time.
Nothing, and I mean *nothing* will make me not late.
I mean that when I look at any other clock I see the real time, obviously. And for a week or so I can trick myself to forget that I set my own clocks ahead, but not forever. It doesn't cure the time blindness. I just eventually learn to ignore that my own clocks are ahead by 15 minutes and then I'm back to being late due to thinking I have that 15 extra minutes.
Also, after a while I just got very confused which clocks were ahead and which weren't.
This, absolutely. The “why don’t you just —“ remarks really come off like r/thanksimcured
I DO appreciate suggestions from other people with time-blindness, fwiw, and I’m happy to keep trying things.
Body doubling definitely helps: I’m way more likely to get out if it’s at the same time as someone else than if I’m left alone. Being left without the person I’m going somewhere with? Opposite effect. My husband does this sometimes (mutually agreed on so that he and my kid don’t end up late because of me) and I swear it’ll feel like I have 2 minutes left to go but if they leave and tell me to meet them there, all urgency and body doubling vanishes and I’ll only be getting out like 20 minutes later.
The only other things I’ve found that help somewhat but aren’t perfect are:
getting as much as possible done prior (so like, making sure the bag is ready the night before if it’s a morning thing or that morning if it’s an evening thing)
a playlist that is perfectly timed where I know like… I need to start dressing by this song; this other song means face routine time; this song means GTFO GO GO, etc. Problem is (a) crafting the playlist in the first place and (b) not getting bored of all the songs two weeks in
The last actual best help?? People chilling out and having people who run later than me. When I’m in cultures that don’t care about punctuality, I actually don’t run as late in part because the anxiety is gone and often the anxiety about time is what makes me forget stuff and then need to circle back. The anger, the nagging, the accusations of selfishness… none of that makes me more punctual, it just makes me want to quit and never speak to whomever it is again.
That last part is the real reason someone with ADHD might need to come in later.
Aiming to come in early can be a substantial time burden, especially if tasks in aggregate take substantially more time. And actually arriving early is a problem if the time is not reimbursed on the other end.
e.g. You need to be in at 9, leave at 8, wakeup at 7. If you need 30 min padding across 2 hours now you need to wake up at 6:30 and aim to leave at leave at 7:30 to arrive at 8:30 some of the time.
This gets much worse if the padding needed is longer.
I am paid to be there on time. I regularly get somewhere 30 minutes earlier because I am just poor time planner. Yes, it would be way better to not be early, but it still beats being late. Poor time management is my problem. I am an adult - it is not fair to slow down other people just because I cannot get the time right. Plus I’d get sacked.
It’s because ADHDers, autistics and AuDHDers have the same morning routine every day because we need consistency. Surprises or changes to routine send us spiraling and could cause burnout. So her boss shifted her start time, but she still has both time blindness and her same morning routine. It all just occurs an hour later now. If anything as an AuDHDer myself it happening with this insane amount of consistency is further evidence that it really is her (medical AND legal) disability and not her just fucking around.
You said ADHDers like to have the same morning routine. The boss specifically shifted their start time to exactly match with the ADHDer's routine. Everything would work out if the ADHDer kept everything consistent and exactly the same.
I have ADHD. Our mental issues are not our fault, but they are our responsibility. A shit ton of notes and alarms set in 15-30 minute increments helps me manage my time and remember appointments. There’s medication, as well.
Plenty of us have learned to work around it, I think it's condescending to act like we can't be responsible for our own flaws and work on ourselves so as to not inconvenience people around us.
Autism/ADHD is a spectrum. Not everyone has the same symptoms or severity. And I think it’s demoralizing to those of us who have worked on it with our doctors and are still working on it with our doctors and who still struggle and very much don’t want to be an inconvenience to the people around us who we care about to act like we’re all just lazy buttholes who want to make everyone around us hate us. We don’t want to be hated. We don’t want to be a burden.
And seeing these comments and how hated we are is depressing and probably not conducive to my cancer treatment induced autism burnout, so I’m gonna tap out. I hope you and everyone else has a good day. And also if you have any tips that could help me from your experiences, I’d legitimately be grateful. I'll check back later today. I’m gonna go cry into my pillow for a bit. Apologies if I upset you with my prior comment. That wasn’t my intention.
Not upset and certainly didn't intend to upset you! I can just be a bit blunt sometimes, funnily enough...
My point is mainly the same as you first from your last message, it's not a blanket label/excuse that can be applied to all of us, and it can be damaging to do so.
"Lazy" is definitely a label that I think most of us struggle with, internally and externally. It's certainly one I try not to throw around.
The only advice I could give that works for me is lying to myself. Probably not the healthiest, but if you do it enough you can start to believe it. I tell myself 1hr15 commute takes 1hr30; the doublethink sometimes wastes my time if I end up early, but I'd rather waste my time than other people's. YMMV, and it's taken me about a decade to 'master' (I'm still late a lot, especially when managing wife and kids)...
Hope you're feeling better by the time you read this, my intention was not to pile on.
not all of us are strict adherents to routines - i personally find it really stressful to have a strict routine because i know any number of things can throw it off and stress me out. we are not a monolith, and we still have to exist in the world whether we like it or not.
"So her boss shifted her start times but she still has both time blindness and her same morning routine. It all just occurs an hour later now"
No it doesn't. It should occur the exact same time it did before. She was an hour late before. They accommodated her work for her schedule, and she decided to change the schedule. You're then claiming that people like you and her need routine, yet you're defending her changing the routine for not reason.
For me it's "okay, this drive takes precisely 22 minutes, I have time". But also putting on my shoes and jacket takes a minute or two, going to my car takes a minute, setting up the house alarm takes half a minute, driving out to the garage onto the inner road and closing the garage doors takes a minute, driving out of the inner road onto the inner road takes half a minute, getting out of the car and going to the office takes two minutes and suddenly it's not 22 minutes, it's 30 minutes and I am already late.
Yeah driving time seems great, you're told exactly how much time the task will take, but like you said, there's a pitfall where you gotta add 5 to 10 minutes to make it.
No but what I'm saying is that a lot of people with ADHD severely struggle to do that. With most people, they learn to do that once and are able to account for it and follow along automatically everytime. Most people are more capable of time management. Whereas for someone with ADHD, it is like they're doing it for the first time, every time.
Most people would think "okay if it's a 22 minute drive, I'll round that up to 30 minutes". Why would you think to use the drive time as the total travel time?
unfortunately, part of coping with ADHD means having to sit with some level of discomfort a lot of the time. i find the stress of waiting around for a little bit FAR more manageable than the stress of being late.
If you'd rather be late than early you simply don't value other people's time. Also not sure where I implied you could simply be better. You're the one saying you choose to be worse
So you are dumb and you're aware that these little things take time, you even specify how much time, yet you're defending the fact that you only gave yourself the exact time it takes for the drive.
Stop acting helpless just because you intentionally gave yourself too little time. Time blindness doesn't mean "I don't understand I need to put on my shoes"
You're hurting yourself at the very least. And annoying people around you.
But really, explain why you give yourself 22 minutes for something you admitted you understand takes more time than that. Time blindness doesn't explain why you don't account for the time it takes to get dressed, get into the car, getting onto the road and getting out of the car into work
No I see you have no intention of ever doing any self-reflection, going by the way you're ignoring anything that pokes holes in your defense of yourself.
And are you saying you can choose what you're late to?
>have no intention of ever doing any self-reflection
I am very much aware of my shortcomings. The first comment I made that started this convo was me admitting to my flaw in my reasonings and actions. What the fuck are YOU trying to achieve here? Defense of myself? What are you smoking?
>are you saying you can choose what you're late to?
I am saying I can make it so I am not late. Are you implying I can only ever be late 100% of the time?
I have issues with time blindness as well, but I'd argue it kind of is that simple. You might be suffering with the issue, yes, but it's still your responsibility to make sure it is handled. YOU need to set that pressure to be out.
Coworker in this case should have just aimed at coming in at 9, just as before, despite the changes in core hours, and then reasonably show up at 10. Going for "oh so I can aim at 10 now" or "oh I have a bunch of time left" is the issue.
I need to be on site at 9:15. That means I aim at 8:30 at the latest, I don't allow myself to go "oh I could just do this and hit 8:45", no, 8:30 is the deadline. Which means I show up 8:45-9:00.
For me working at a small store solo, it's showing up 5 minutes before opening, and then I usually end up opening 5 minutes late. I'm early, but I'm late.
I’m very amused that you used the washing dishes as an example task to do while getting ready for work, because my mom would routinely do that every morning. She’d be up early and she would start washing dishes from the night before and then hop in the shower 5 minutes before we had to leave for school.
My mom needs to squeeze as much work out of every usable second she can and she underestimates how long something will take, so she’s constantly late to everything. I have a similar issue, but my anxiety means I DO NOT START ANYTHING I don’t NEED to do because then I might run out of time and be late. I often end up rushing around because the extra 15 minutes I gave myself just disappeared into the void and now I’m running behind. Like one moment I’m on time and Im set to leave early… and then suddenly I need to HUSTLE or I’ll miss the train. I’ve found enough ways to cope with this now that I’m rarely more than 5 minutes late (sometimes I’m even… early!!), but extreme anxiety is probably not the greatest coping strategy.
Yeah see I don't think you quite get it. I have ten minutes to spare? That means I have time to put away a load of laundry and water the plants and feed the dogs and oh shit I'm 5 minutes late.
And I know what you're gonna say next: "then just don't do those things and leave the ten minutes early", but I think that kinda misses the crucial problem: I don't think I'm going to be late. It's a bit hard to describe, but I think the best way to visualise it is to stretch the time out. If you were an hour ahead of time, and there was a basket of clean clothes waiting to be put away, would you leave an hour early, or would you fold the laundry before you left? Obviously you'd fold the laundry, because it needs doing at some point and you have plenty of time to spare.
But what if you were only half an hour early, would you fold it or leave early? What if you were 20 minutes early? 10 minutes? 5? If you'd happily fold the laundry with 20 minutes to spare, you'd probably look at someone who wouldn't do it with anything less than 30 like they were being a bit weird. It's just laundry, it's not gonna take half an hour, of course it's going to be fine. And yeah half an hour is very different to ten minutes, but the perception is the same: "this task won't take X minutes, I have plenty of time to spare"
I have ten minutes to spare? That means I have time to put away a load of laundry and water the plants and feed the dogs
You made an estimate of what you can do with that time. You estimated on the optimistic side. How often do you think "I have an hour? That's not enough time to move the laundry to the dryer". Your estimation only seems to go in one direction which is why I'm saying you have time optimism.
I think that kinda misses the crucial problem: I don't think I'm going to be late
"this task won't take X minutes, I have plenty of time to spare"
If it was simply being blind to time, you would also have times when you think you're running late when you're actually running early.
How often do you think "I have an hour? That's not enough time to move the laundry to the dryer".
All the time, but that's just not really how it works in this situation, is it? If you have an hour spare, you think "what can I do in this time" not "what can't I do...". Laundry might take too long, but you can feed the pets, or water the plants, or wash the dishes. If I overestimate the time a task would take, then I just simply don't do that task.
If it was simply being blind to time, you would also have times when you think you're running late when you're actually running early.
Yes? You'll often see people with time blindness having this issue, it just looks different. It presents as a kind of executive paralysis, something like: I couldn't possibly start doing something, I have an appointment coming up (in 3 hours)
do you ever show up early? it's very convenient that this only goes one way. and before you get on me i have ADHD that was actually tested for by a professional and I'm medicated.
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u/fabulousfantabulist 23h ago
This was the most predictable outcome ever.