ADHD time blindness: tips for tracking time

Time management can be tricky, especially if you have ADHD. Many people with ADHD experience something called “time blindness,” which means they struggle to sense the passing of time or to estimate how long tasks will take. This can make it hard to stay on schedule or meet deadlines. This factsheet offers practical tips to help you manage your time better and overcome some of the challenges that come with time blindness.

In this factsheet, you learn strategies for:

Planning your time effectively
Prioritising daily tasks
Time-blocking
Keeping track of time passing

Read more about ADHD symptoms, how to get an ADHD assessment, and ADHD treatment options.

Tackle time blindness by planning your time

Planning your time by writing to-do lists is a common habit that can help you reach more of your goals each day—provided they are realistic ones. Regularly completing tasks can leave you with a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day, helping to boost your confidence at work, school, or in other important areas of your life.

Developing a consistent routine can be beneficial for people who experience time blindness. Having a consistent time to prepare your to-do/task lists is a useful strategy. It can help to take 15-20 minutes on Saturday morning to do your list for the upcoming week. This way, you will have time to get items that you might need for Monday morning. For example, if you wait until Sunday night to make your weekly task list, you might not have enough time to go to the shop and get lunch for the week ahead.

You are more likely to complete the tasks on your to-do list if the goals you set yourself are realistic and manageable within the time you have available. Three actions that may help you ensure that your to-do lists are achievable include: starting on the right foot, breaking tasks down into smaller steps, and prioritising your “non-negotiables.”

Start on the right foot

Research shows that people are more likely to complete a to-do list if they start with tasks they can easily accomplish. The first items on your list should be things you already do. For example, starting with “get up, brush teeth, get dressed” allows you to check off three tasks right away. This creates a sense of achievement and increases the likelihood of continuing with the list. On the other hand, starting with bigger tasks like “clean the house” or “write a report” can lead to some tasks being left unfinished.

Break tasks down into smaller steps

When you set tasks for yourself that are too vague or broad, you might find that your to-do list leaves you feeling overwhelmed. This, in turn, might lead you to procrastinate. To avoid this, it can be helpful to break broad goals into a set of smaller, concrete actions that feel doable. For example, “clean room” can be broken down into the following actions, and you don’t need to do them all in one go:

• Remove dirty dishes from the room
• Gather up dirty laundry and place it in hamper
• Dust and clean all surfaces
• Make the bed
• Reorganise books on the book shelf
• Sweep, mop or hoover the floor space

Prioritise the ‘non-negotiables’

When planning your schedule for a day, week, or month, it’s important to decide which tasks are most important and which need to be completed first.

• Tasks that have fast-approaching deadlines (e.g., a work task or school assignment due tomorrow) should be tackled first
• Tasks essential to your overall well-being, such as preparing healthy meals and maintaining personal hygiene, should also be given high priority, even if they do not have specific deadlines
• Tasks with distant deadlines or those you hope to complete but are not critical for the smooth functioning of your relationships, household or work/education should be ranked as lower priority

To visually distinguish between high and low priority tasks, consider colour-coding them: use amber or red for high-priority tasks and green for lower-priority tasks.

High-priority tasks you plan to complete that very day should be added to your daily to-do list and scheduled in your daily planner or calendar. Lower-priority tasks do not have to get forgotten or lost. Instead, transfer them to a ‘master to-do list’ that you can draw from in the coming days or weeks.

Use a ‘master to-do list’ and a ‘daily to-do list’

If you are new to task planning, first prepare a ‘master to-do list’ by writing down all of your existing obligations or tasks. Next, prepare your to-do list for the day containing all of the tasks that you identify as high priority. It can be helpful to keep your list in a location that is easily visible. Whiteboards can be useful, especially when kept in the kitchen or by the front/back door (so you can see them as you are leaving the house). It is very common for people experiencing time blindness to write many to-do lists, only for them to end up in a drawer with tasks not completed.

Here’s how to go about creating a daily to-do list in steps:

• Before starting the day’s tasks, find a quiet space free of distractions (or put on a pair of noise cancelling headphones if you have ones)
• Grab paper and pen, open up a spreadsheet on your computer, or pull up the Notes feature on your phone—The simpler the action, the better
• Transfer your high priority (green) tasks from your ‘master to-do list’ to your to-do list for that day. Include any new high priority tasks that might have just come up and are not on the master list
• Give yourself a minimum of 10 minutes to write the list—Having enough time to complete the planning exercise minimises the anxiety you might feel if/when your mind wanders

The ritual of planning your time for the day is more likely to stick if you choose the same time and place each day, making sure that both feel manageable and sustainable for you.

Start time blocking to manage time blindness

Managing time can be challenging. One effective method is “time blocking,” where you divide your day into chunks of time dedicated to specific tasks on your to-do list. It can be helpful to overestimate how long it will take to complete a task. For example, if you estimate that a task will take an hour, consider blocking off 2 hours to account for the time management challenges that often come with ADHD. If the task ends up taking you 1.5 hours, you are less likely to feel pressured or rushed for the next activity on your list.

Use a daily planner or calendar app

While the daily to-do list records your goals and priorities for the day, a daily planner maps these tasks onto time blocks (i.e., windows of time in which you hope to work on a certain task) throughout the day. You can schedule items from your daily to-do list in your daily planner. While your to-do list may break these tasks down into specific, smaller steps, the daily planner just contains the overall tasks, providing more of a bird’s eye view.

You can think of your daily planner as “the cloud for your brain”—the book, app or spreadsheet that remembers all of the day’s tasks in the order that you hope to complete them. With a planner that divides the day up into blocks of time and the task(s) planned for each block, your brain can focus on the task at hand without having to keep track of what comes next. Scheduling easy-to-complete tasks as starting or end points can boost your sense of accomplishment and confidence in your abilities. You can carry these “small wins” with you into the rest of your day or evening.

You can use your planner to keep track of whatever tasks are important to you, including work and school commitments, as well as recreational activities, and self-care tasks. Reviewing your daily planner early and often throughout the day can help you to stay focused on what matters most.

There are a whole host of task planners available, from paper planners to digital task planning apps. Choose the system that works best for you while managing your time blindness.

Give yourself more time than you think you need to combat time blindness

Defining start and end times for tasks can help you to get to most, if not all, of the items on your to-do list or daily planner. Time blocking does not necessarily come with the expectation that you complete the task within the time block, but simply that you work on a specific task for a given amount of time. Sometimes, you might complete a task within the time block, but not always.

When working on a larger project, you might only have the capacity to focus on a single part or step of the project, minimising distractions for that period. Try redefining your goal to focus on working on the task for the set time block, rather than finishing it completely.

Many people with ADHD can have different perceptions of time or “time blindness,” where they experience difficulties sensing how much time has passed or providing an accurate estimate of how much time a task might take. When in doubt, it’s best to overestimate the amount of time it will take to complete a task. A good rule of thumb is to assign a time block to the task and multiply your first estimate by 2. For example, if you think a task will take 1 hour, allow yourself a two-hour time window to complete or work on the task.

Buffer time

If your tasks are going to be realistic and achievable, it’s also important to leave enough time between tasks for rest breaks and self-care activities. It’s also possible that unexpected duties might crop up throughout the day and demand your immediate attention. While difficult when experiencing time blindness, leaving this “buffer time” between tasks allows you to:

• Deal calmly and effectively with the unexpected
• Take time out to care for yourself
• Minimise the risk of feeling anxious, trapped within an overly rigid schedule, or burned out.

The approach you take for planning your day needs to be sustainable. Your Daily Planner should feel like a tool—something that is making the day easier, not harder.

Be flexible

Over time, you might find that planning your main tasks for the day helps reduce stress. As it provides structure and routine, you may begin to feel more grounded and stable than before.

However, some people find that when they loosen a tightly organised schedule, they feel out of control or fear losing the ability to organise at all. Despite these challenges, developing flexibility is important for adapting to unexpected or necessary changes in our routines. Instead of trying to stick rigidly to your planner on days when circumstances change, use it to help you adjust your plans more effectively. If you’re worried that relaxing your schedule might lead to becoming disorganised, start by giving yourself permission to reschedule or change plans when needed.

For example, if an important family commitment comes up at the end of the day, checking your planner will remind you of any other events you’ve scheduled, like a meet-up with a friend. In the past, you might have forgotten the meet-up and missed the chance to reschedule. By referring to your planner, you can call your friend and rearrange plans.

For some, flexibility is key to maintaining positive mental health and preventing burnout. By staying attuned to your body’s needs and being open to adjusting your schedule when necessary, it becomes easier to ensure you get enough rest. For those with ADHD, the energy required to stay focused throughout the day can be draining, making socialising more difficult and sometimes leading to avoidance of social activities. Allowing yourself the flexibility to adapt can help you balance activity with self-care, reducing the need to skip socialising or other enjoyable activities outside of work.

Schedule unstructured downtime

Just as it’s important to plan for daily chores and responsibilities at work or school, scheduling unstructured downtime is also important. Downtime can be difficult and even distressing if you find it difficult to relax or be idle for any length of time.

However, if you are solely prioritising structured work time, you risk feeling burned out and less motivated over time. Engaging in hobbies and recreational activities can replenish our motivation for the non-negotiable tasks, like study, work or household chores.

Scheduling downtime can also have the added benefit of ensuring that you do the things you really love on your days off. This might leave you with a sense of having taken full advantage of your time outside work or school.

Become a clock-watcher to cope with time blindness

People experiencing time blindness often struggle to know how much time they’ve spent on a task. Time blindness can make it difficult to estimate how much time remains until an upcoming appointment or meeting. There are a number of ways you can become more aware of the passage of time.  Some of these include:

• Glancing regularly at a wrist watch or a wall or desk clock
• Setting a timer to go off at the end of a time block to help with switching from one task to another
• Setting a timer to go off in the middle or at regular intervals throughout a time block to remind you of how much time you have remaining on a task
• Setting daily reminders on your phone or calendar to indicate the start of meetings and appointments
• Setting reminders to keep track of important dates, including anniversaries and birthdays

Experiencing time blindness can be challenging, but you may find some or all of the tips in this article helpful. For further guidance, visit our article on accessing supports after a late ADHD diagnosis.

For support and information on other common ADHD challenges, check out our tips on getting started with tasks and managing communication difficulties.

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