Okay, so here’s the thing—I’ve got ADHD, which means time and I are not exactly on speaking terms.
You know how normal people can just look at a clock and think, “Oh, I’ve got an hour until that thing,” and then they actually use that hour?
Yeah, no. For me, if something isn’t happening in the next five minutes, it might as well be happening next year.
This is called having a short “time horizon,” which sounds all fancy, but it basically means I can only plan for like… right now. If it’s beyond that? It’s like my brain just throws it into the void.
Time horizon is just how far ahead we can plan or think about stuff, and mine’s about the size of a goldfish bowl.
So I’m always late because my brain’s like, “Oh, I’ve got 20 minutes before I need to leave. That’s practically eternity. Let me just… scroll through my phone for a few minutes.”
Then suddenly, 25 minutes have passed, I’m still in my underwear, and now I’m hurrying out the door like I’m in some kind of escape room.
I swear, time hates me. It’s like I know things are coming, but they don’t “feel” real until they’re about to slap me in the face. Time horizon? More like time cliff—everything’s fine until, whoops, I’ve gone over the edge again.
This is why I fill my calendar with alerts leading up to an appointment. It keeps the appointment feeling present, urgent and makes it difficult for me to get lost in something else.
Each alert may require me to transition bit by bit from what I’m doing because my brain doesn’t simply stop and switch my attention to the new thing. If I’m asked to transition too fast I freeze and sometimes find it difficult to talk. It sucks, don’t ask me to do that.
This is one strategy that has helped me be on time far more often. Without these alerts I’d sail past appointments on my calendar only to realize hours later what happened.
So do me a favor, next time, give me a heads-up and don’t expect a quick pivot. I promise, we’ll both be better off!
