ADHD & Time Blindness
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- čas přidán 8. 08. 2023
- More than 30 years ago, I discovered in my research that people with ADHD have significant deficits in their sense of time and especially in using time to guide their behavior more effectively. We call the latter time management. And ADHD is among the worst disorders one can have when it comes to deficits in time management. Consequently, I came up with the concept that ADHD was a form of time blindness. That the passage of time did not influence their behavior the way it does for typical people. They also had a nearsightedness or myopia to the future, dealing only with events that were near in time and not those further away in time as other typical people are able to do. This problem with time and time management was found in children, teens, and adults with ADHD and so is a chronic difficulty for them. This video reviews this concept of ADHD as time blindness and discusses ways that one may be able to treat it or compensate for it. For more on this idea and what to do about it, see my books below:
Taking Charge of ADHD: The Complete Authoritative Guide for Parents (4th ed.) published in June 2020)
12 Principles for Raising a Child with ADHD (published in October 2020)
Taking Charge of Adult ADHD (4th ed.) (Published October 2021)
Treating ADHD in Children and Adolescents: What Every Clinician Needs to Know. (Published May 2022)
It doesn't matter if I have 45 minutes, 90 minutes or three hours to get ready, I will still be running late.
Omg 💯 me. Ironically I feel like I end up more late when I have more time!
omg same! @thetruthbehindthesmile1817
That's Me too!
... I'm 62 yrs. old, always wondered what's wrong with me
and just became aware of this?! It's not just me!! God Bless this Man for his knowledge and making this public information!!
Amen sistah!!
Dr. Barkley you have no idea how many people with ADHD you have helped. Sending you blessings.
YES ❤
Thank you!
You've helped me too, thank you
@@user-xr7zb1ze6x How he helped you guys?
I second that
At high school, a class in my year group did a mock awards ceremony for morning assembly, they handed out “awards” for biggest poser, artist, sporting prowess etc.
I was awarded a time management award, a toy watch but I was late for assembly and walked in shortly after my award to hoots of laughter! Afterwards people were asking if it was set up!
Likewise years later, I worked as a graphic designer for a newspaper and I was sent to another newspaper in the group to do a course on time management, I managed to get on the wrong train and I finally arrived for the time management seminar, 2 mins before the end, to uproarious laughter once again! I was finally diagnosed with ADHD, this year aged 47.
@Indiekid-1976 I got diagnosed 3 months ago; I'm 68. I'm so glad we both got diagnosed.
I was finally diagnosed at 56. I just turned 60 a few days ago. Welcome to the party! ❤❤❤@@Crystal_Blue_Persuasion
@indiekid-1976 😂❤ I love when we can laugh about ourselves and how society sees us. The award story made me laugh so hard. I could just see it! 😅
@@SFVgirl more tears than laughter unfortunately!
A poser award?
People don't realize how much time blindness affects ADHDers. I forget to eat and drink when I am not medicated and then end up binging because I am starving because I was wrapped up in something. I have a popup to remind me to drink something every 20 minutes but it also helps me process the passage of time. When I do not have that popup I will wake up and then it will be time to go to bed. I frequently say that time is an illusion because it does not seem real to me. And then there is the opposite where when I am having to do something I don't want to deal with or an appointment that is happening for the day. Then I am so aware of time that it turns to a crawl. It is very frustrating that there seems to be no in-between a majority of the time.
You and me both. I’m not formally diagnosed yet, and the NHS in Scotland is currently a shambles so it may be a long time before I can even get assessed, but this is one of the clearest patterns that I keep hearing about and matches my experience precisely.
I completely understand you I have ADHD as well! This world is not friendly with neurodivergent people but it definitely is for Neurotypical and they fail to understand us.
agree with you--with my first flip cell phone I was able to set those reminder alarms and my days improved so much
The funny thing is, I can usually guess what time it is when it occurs to me to do so - but I can’t conceive of how LONG a task will take and I manage to fritter away hours anyway.
Yes, same here! I used to do it as a "trick" in high school. And yet, no idea whether I have time to take a shower before leaving, nor when I should go.
It does feel very nebulous. Sometimes it goes fast, sometimes slow, and it doesn't feel like it's in my control. Of course, as an adult I realize that my actions are under my control, but the time blindness is an extra barrier for sure!
Same here! There's been so many times in my life I'll check the time somewhere and think, "I have time for one more CZcams video" or "I'll be able to get to this thing within this time frame", and time ends up going by much quicker than I thought to me. Sometimes I think it's because of CZcams addiction issues (I don't have very much social media, but with CZcams I can easily loose track of time a lot) and being in a stage in my life where I'm kinda aimless, but my time blindness definitely rears it's head a lot even when I'm away from an electronic screen and reading a book/drawing/etc.
I will do something that seems like a 10 minute task and before I know it, 2 hours has gone by 😅
I consider time blindness to be the number one most debilitating symptom of my ADHD. It’s probably the symptom that led to my diagnosis, because my inability to keep up with the demands of my career led me to seeking help. I maxed out the number of hours in a day that I could use to make up for failing at time management, to the point I started damaging my health.
This is my current situation with my health.
Im also at the brim of going insane
same
Same here
Ditto
Still listening to this but initially the clock that says 'who cares' made me ANGRY because this is what the majority of people think about us. Not sure if this is true for everyone with ADD but I REALLY do care.
*I CARE TOO!*
What the average neurotypical doesn't understand is that no amount of caring can make a time blind person be consistently on time.
Yes. I really enjoyed the video and found it very useful, but I didn’t relate to that. I care so much, but caring doesn’t do anything.
It really bothered me, I have enjoyed Dr. Berkeley’s videos for a while now but it seems like I do less and less recently. Just puts a sour flavor in my mouth. The clock and what he said right after felt like a slap in the face
Remove the words and it still gets the message across without implying we don’t care.
Dr. Barkley, I had no idea that you developed the term “time blind.” My utmost respect and gratitude to you. You are a true blessing to the ADHD community. Listening to your lectures makes me feel like someone finally understands me. Thank you for your dedication to this field and the helpful tools you have recommended to help manage ADHD. You are helping the lives of so many people. I actually bought the timer off of Amazon last week and it really does help tremendously. Thank you.
Thank you! If memory serves me correctly, I first used the term in my book in 1997, ADHD and the Nature of Self-Control. Be well
@@russellbarkleyphd2023very very grateful and appreciative of your work Russell, thank you. I look forward to purchasing and reading that book in addition to the one on executive functions that I already read a few years ago at 33 after being first
diagnosed with executive dysfunction at 19 but not being told I have adhd or rather said that it might be a comorbid symptom of mild depression and not adhd because I was doing well in school and didn’t fall too far below the means avg on attention but then I did when it required tasks with multiple steps and regulating oneself according to that. As such, I was never properly treated nor medicated and was just recommended to someone for regular talk therapy.
Anyway, I wish I had found all of this stuff out sooner so I could have take an informed science and behavior based modification approach. I look forward to learning more about all you’ve done and published both on a level of deeper understanding of the condition as well as what steps to take to better manage it. Thanks for shining the light on so many things no one has.
My daughter’s school doesn’t care that she has ADHD and she has actually been made to sit in in school suspension bc she took a small package to school that she thought had candy.
It wasn’t her fault totally bc the IBS medicine box is really colorful and she’s only 6!
I hate this for her…
It’s a real struggle to keep my composure when I constantly have to repeat myself due to my own very severe ADHD & BPD😢
@@lisarhodes8791 I am sorry to hear this. It is terrible what parents with ADHD have to endure :(
I hope it gets better!
@@lisarhodes8791 I was a Special Ed teacher for many years. Although ADHD by itself does not qualify a person to receive an Individualized Education Plan (IEP), nearly every student in my classroom had been diagnosed with the disorder.
I"m so glad you're finally on youtube. You changed my life. You even took the time to respond to an email 10 years ago when I finally got diagnosed at 30.
Time Blindness is a nightmare. It truly wrecks my life.
I feel you, my friend!
Here here.
Same here😞
It helps a lot to set an alarm on your smartphone that rings every 20 minutes. So you have like an anchor in time. And set 4 alarms for each of your appointments. Yes, I said 4. The first one rings the day before to remind you of having an appointment the next day. The second one rings one or two hours (or whatever time you need to get ready and prepare) before the appointment. The third rings 5 minutes before you leave and the fourth rings when you have to leave. Try it out, it helps a lot. Especially the "every 20 minutes alarm".
I'm terrible with time, I misjudge and end up doing something too soon and too late, and here I am listening to yet another video describing another attribute I never knew was part of ADHD.
This explanation of time blindness makes so much sense to me , even though i have recently diagnosed at age 37 with adhd i never understood what time blindness means exactly. Also this phrase "delay aversion" describes exactly how i feel when i think a task must done i have to do it asap and i feel great discomfort when other factors that i cant control are delaying me , needless to say that i will forget the task altogether later. Thank you.
Lol, impatience over the necessity to do a task then forgetting said task to do 😂we are insane
This explains a lot and why my ex husband would get upset at me for always being late… I have a scheduled appointment for ADHD evaluation… im 44yrs old
How'd it go? I was diagnosed at 48, myself.
Time management is beyond difficult for me. So very difficult. It has definitely cost me jobs and entire careers. 😢😢
Yep me too. I'm 71.
As someone with ADHD, I have had to develop specific techniques to have patience. And here's the thing most people don't get; I have all the patience in the world as long as I'm doing something engaging. I can sometimes hold a conversation for multiple hours without feeling an ounce of impatience. If I have absolutely no responsibilities for a while, I can sit in the dark and daydream, But if you ask me to sit and wait, where I have nothing external to engage with, and I have to be aware of when it's time to stop waiting, I have to resort to arbitrary counting and constantly checking a clock. I'll try to count seconds, and I can barely keep in sync while looking directly at the clock, unless it's the kind of clock where the seconds had moves smoothly rather than ticking. More recently, I've found some other methods if counting stops working. I've found eavesdropping on stranger's conversations to be extremely effective if the conversation is interesting, ridiculous, or funny. Another one is what I call "the noise game", where I give myself a point for each sound I can pick out of the background, and a point if I can identify the source. I also tried to "watch" Shrek in my head from memory, and was surprised by just how much of the dialogue I remember. I ended up laughing out loud at some point. Someone asked me what I was laughing at, and it was much simpler to just say "just some old memories"... Which was technically true, since I haven't physically watched Shrek in quite a while.
But if you ask me to make sure to finish talking in 10-20 minutes, I'm screwed.
Hi Dr Barkley. I am a middle aged woman diagnosed with ADHD. I don’t know if this is valid, but for me I am less “blind” to time but more “paralysed” by the stress of knowing the time is ticking! This might be a learned behaviour as I was diagnosed very late in life.
We tend to develop bad coping mechanisms to get work done.
Look into anticipatory anxiety.
I would recommend this book called Overcoming anticipatory anxiety.
Initially I thought it was task paralysis but it's mostly anxiety.
Replying so late, but just saw this and wanted to let you know that, for me, time blindness (while still present-) has become more manageable with coping strategies like those described in this video, once I addressed the ANXIETY related to it (constant clock-watching, and subsequent persistent FAILING to be timely in SPITE of my efforts, intermittent motivation and reliable procrastination and last minute flailing to get things done). I still have ADHD, but the anxiety was what I needed addressed first. Just something to consider, best wishes ❤
Wow this was a long time ago (no pun intended 😂) and I need to say that for me the anxiety and paralysis have improved SO much! I put it down to various strategies as well as medication.
What meds do you find useful? 🙂
Did I really just go from a Warcraft video into this one, and Russ still makes a great Leeroy Jenkins crack? Talk about contextual relevance. This doc is finding ways to pattern interrupt my distractions with useful knowledge - it's genius!
This has been a lifetime struggle for me and the source of so much anxiety. My iPhone is my time manager and I was an early user of the evolving stream of such devices. I’m now on 150 mg of Bupropion, but the most helpful thing has been (realizing at age 74) that I have ADHD. Understanding and managing my ADHD at this later stage of life has been incredible! Although I certainly wish I’d known earlier, I’m so very relived to know now.
Thank you for your work! And thank you for these shorter presentations! And thank you for “shredding” Jordan Peterson’s ignorance with such passion! You have earned credibility in this field and anyone with any intelligence should be able to see that!
Any major bad events in your life because of time blindness
Did you find Bupropion helped you conceptualise time? I have tried so many different medications, including stimulants to no avail :(
@@Neylena I’m 37 I take it I think it helps some haven’t tried any other adhd meds
💚
@@NeylenaI’m on buproprion and adderall. It’s been literally life saving. My mood has stabilized and has helped my emotions to stop being so “whirlwindy.” It’s also hugely helped time blindness. I still struggle with it and struggle being on time and completing tasks, but it’s much easier now to get started on work and other tasks. I will say that both drugs together work as a huge appetite suppressant and i got a stomach bug so I lost around 25 pounds. Building the appetite back up is difficult but after the first month of taking either drug the appetitive suppression should lower
As an adult (29) it is hard to find resources to properly explain to others how living with ADHD effects the many different facets of my life, both now and in adolescence. I cannot properly express the gratitude I feel for the clarity you have provided, not only for helping us to reach common understanding within our interpersonal connections but within ourselves as well.
This specific presentation has helped me to understand the frustrations I had no way of communicating while in the public school system as a youth, as well as the challenges I face with my own home now as an adult when it comes to keeping life in order.
Your videos and lectures have also helped to bridge the understanding gap between my partner and I to help develop better communication skills around these issues and to build a more successful and serene home together. From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!
My sister has been diagnosed with ADHD and this is helping me learn how to understand her world.
This was quite eye opening. Both my sister and I have ADHD and boy can I tell you about the suffering due to time blindness.
I was directed to your channel by another viewer, I'm going to have to doubly thank them because your presentation was easy to understand and extremely valuable to my life.
Thank you for making these videos.
I was actually starting to get really frustrated trying to get my head around the whole ADHD issue of mine and your videos have legitimately helped calm me down. Like you mentioned in this video, the being told to be quiet and wait is literally painful. It's an unexplainable pain because it's not like getting stung by a bee, stubbing your toe or even the pain of the heartache from losing someone you love deeply.
I know that I have reacted in a negative way in the past and it has caused me to develop Agoraphobia. And repeated injuries at work which many may be attributed to time blindness has caused me to develop Ergophobia.
I openly invite anyone to cite me as reference and credible source for the development of psychological issues due to neglect and indifference.
Real name: Steve Staley.
I have actually tried to encourage professionals to do a study on the long term effects of repeated homelessness and malnutrition in the North American child, but to no avail.
I am possibly the most messed up person who can still access the intelligence part of their brain given time to think about the issue or situation.
I used to say "on Mattie boys time" about my son when he was only 3 years old. Didn't realize how spot on we were about that until he was diagnosed with ADHD when he was 8. Dr Barclay, your videos were and are a life saver. Being able to understand it scientifically was so helpful. I have passed them on to many others. Thank you so much.
This explained most of the failure of my life😢. It all make sense now
Good luck
Me too. I'm 71.
Watching your videos has been an amazing help understanding my diagnosis, as well as viewing my past with a different lens, I greatly appreciate your work in your career and your continued persistence to be an asset to the world through your career and even your retirement. Literally my only complaint, is that I wish you would upload approximately 100 more videos everyday, I love to get that notification that you have a new lecture uploaded
Thanks for watching.
I couldn’t say it better. Just amazing how these videos really help me understand myself, and what’s what. And giving myself some grace and kindness!,,,❤🎉❤
Amazing.Also just so helpful to understand myself. Because of this I’m trying to be kinder to myself and differentiate the difference between my Sevier ADHD, and me. This video really hits home! Thank you so much, such a blessing. For so all it was thought to be “only concentration”, and I just thought I was dumb, way to emotional, oddball, crazy, so many negative things. And I would try and try, all kinds of tricks to help, coving up and masking myself because of huge huge fear of rejection or criticism of any kind!!!!!
Oh my gosh! Thank you so much for this. I only recently discovered my ADHD. I'm 45. My whole family had been previously diagnosed, but I never showed impairment as a child or teen and was never even screened. I was gifted throughout my school years, but impairment began to show quite quickly as I entered my college and adult years (by the time I was 23). I've heard, as I've learned more about ADHD, about the time-blindness, but no explanation reconciled the intense emotional distress and frustration that came with waiting. Also, I always took my lack of time awareness as a personal failing, but was never able to overcome it. This explanation is the first that allows me to understand that it's not a personal failing, it's a neurological one. I still have to take responsibility for it, but now maybe I don't have to beat myself up over it.
I wish more people understood this. But then again, they don't have to deal with time blindness.
My high school Psychology teacher assigned reading George Orwell's 1984 outside of class during Spring quarter of my senior year. There was a worksheet to guide us through every section, however I didn't complete the worksheet. I also never submitted the final paper, and to this day have never read the book that was assigned to me in 1973.
This is exactly why I'm totally fine most of the time with running late or showing up late, because by the time i get there, there's no waiting. I don't have fidget and twiddle my thumbs waiting for the action to happen which is utter torture!!!
As a self employed time blind tradesman pricing jobs at a fixed price based on the job taking a certain number of days and that regularly turning out to be way off (plenty of times the job has actually taken twice as long as I priced it for or longer) has led to me earning a lot less than average for my trade and contributed to getting badly in debt years ago. I’m very regularly late too. Hope the medication might help once I can save up for a diagnosis - only realised I have ADHD recently in my early forties. Thanks for the many useful and helpful videos!
Can relate dude, I'm a handyman and had the EXACT same thing. . . . . . . Oh, I can do that in two days, two weeks, two hours, whatever.
I've worked for a guy for like fifteen years and he started asking me for estimates lately. I tell him, no frickin way, forget it! So, now I tell him, look, we have a long working relationship, he asked me for help, I didn't come to him looking for work. I've always been fair with rates, so I believe that's worth something. So, if you want an estimate, fine. Go get one from somebody else first, then I will gladly give you a SECOND estimate that beats theirs! He hasn't done it yet.
I know a highly skilled mason that never gave estimates, and he was always busy, excellent work. He was the guy to get, and he just said I'll just do the job, and give you the bill, I don't do estimates.
I routinely overestimated jobs do to my time blindness lol. I always thought a job would take way longer than it did so I either didn't get the work or I made good profit. Try to overestimate!
Thank you for this one! I’ve heard you talk about time before, but the quick reference nature of these shorter videos is fantastic for bringing it top of mind again. (Also a well ordered and stellar rebuttal of the current trend of “People in authority making fun of time blindness”)
Thanks. I think these short videos convey an idea like this better than embedding them in hour or lore length videos.
Never ceases to amaze me how many elements of our current understanding of ADHD were conceived by you, Dr Barkley. I heard about being time-blind when I first realised I might have ADHD at the age of 53 and the whole concept resonated with me - as with so much of the knowledge you've passed on in those lectures that got uploaded to CZcams. Deadset legend, as we say here in Australia.
Thank you!
0:00 Intro
1:44 Initial studies on time blindness
5:01 the increasing importance of time management with age
8:55 What to do about the time blindness
Damnnnnn Dr. B 🔥🔥
You're killing it with these regular uploads. Maybe you should add 'CZcamsr ' to the end of your email signature 😉
Thanks for everything you do, your dedication, passion and contributions to helping mean everything to so many of us
(Amongst so so many other things)
You helped me convince my parents that my emotions were ADHD related and I wasn't just choosing to react for nefarious means. 😂
It took 20+ years but we got there eventually
Anyway have a great week!
Repping from the United Kingdom ADHD community
Sam
Fascinating idea. Are boomers allowed to say that? LOL. Thanks!
ADHDers in the UK: Represent!
@@russellbarkleyphd2023 Yes, and can add Influencer as well.
Nah... "CZcams *_Gold Member"!_* 😊
It’s referred to as ✨Content Creator✨
Impulsivity and lack of future-sight are tremendous obstacles to ADHD Brains. I've been using the expression "elastic sense of time," in that the perception of how long something will take and sensing how long it has been will shrink and stretch, relative to one's sense of urgency or impulse.
Practicing "time analysis" can help.
• I have a task, i think it takes this long.
• Write that down, set the stopwatch, finish the task and check the stopwatch.
• Was my estimate close? realistic? startlingly wrong?
• Do this several times with several tasks and compare your results.
• Use the results as your guide for placing the task into your daily/weekly routine.
Yes! I did a chart where I timed how long it takes to get dressed, brush teeth, shower, do hair, etc, and wrote down the number of minutes it took. I was startled!
But when I refer to that list, it's very helpful to get me places on time. 👍
It’s not really “who cares“. It’s more like “can’t care.”
We need more therapists that actually know how to help people with ADHD and not just pass a course and get a certificate that says they do.
I am 57. Had ADD my whole life, Even before it was known as ADD. Back then you just weren't applying yourself. You 100% nailed the time issue. I was late 42 days my Senoir year. We has a 30 page book report due in 6 months in the 9th grade,..I did it all in an "all nighter" the night before it was due. Then was late to school that morning of course. 1of 1000 examples.
Wow, 10/10. You sir have exceptional understanding about ADHD. Especially when you said "it's painful to wait", which is 100% true.
Thanks again for these videos.
The visual timers are so useful for ADHD adults. I have one on my desk. I divide my working day into hour chunks and get 15 minutes 'me' time in between to exercise, switch off, or do a hobby as a reward.
Social accountability really works, one of my employees helps me with prioritisation and accountability.
I just discovered you. I am 58. I was diagnosed mid-40’s. I am only now learning the various ways this has hindered my entire life.
I’ve hurt people and destroyed relationships because I was late and completely unaware of the trouble I put people through. Lost jobs because I couldn’t complete projects on time. It wasnt a problem when I could work off the clock to finish (because I got my beat work done when office was empty). When my new boss was a clock watcher I couldn’t perform.
I’m not working now and everyday I wake up in a panic with so many things to do. Living in a cluttered chaos and overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of the tasks before me. ( my husband is disabled so everything is a nightmare me). I want to cry but that’s not helpful.
I’m sorry I’m not alone in this because I would wish this brain confusion and self loathing on anyone. I will continue watching your videos and hopefully will find some strategies to help me move forward. I’m almost 60 and I want to live some life before I die.
Samantha Martin. 344, give yourself grace. Take time very early or late for quiet “me” time. If that means crying some days, so be it! You have to process your feelings. Eat right. And most importantly the night before write down five things that you want to get done and put a ⭐️ by the most important. If that’s all you accomplish then it’s been a good day. And see if there is friend or family to step in to help sometime to alleviate some of the pressure. That way you can run errands, make important phone calls etc. It can get better. You build a support group of knowledge of your cognitive condition and people that can be there for you. You just have to try on some various new skills to better manage life, even if it means jotting notes, tips, little post-it reminders or prayers or sayings that boost you up. Good luck. You love your husband, love yourself too.
Sit and make lists in your journal of positive things, memories, wishes. Then set a generous time limit for you to make headway. Break the process into micro-steps, then acknowledge your many little successes to reach your big goals. Enlist others help
Thank you for explaining me to me! Yesterday i learned i am ADD. Today i understand my timeblindness. If the cashier row ist too long, i drop my items and go to another store. I have no clue why i am 62. Birthdays of me or others i dont care. Birthday is not existing, because the people are the same. Beside of that i am an asperger too. And an engineer and MD.
Doc, this has explained something I’ve never been able to actually articulate to anyone!
I’m an industrial electrician/mechanic(multi craft). In the course of my career I’ve had multiple performance reviews that highlighted that I either worked too fast, or too slow and seemed like I lacked attentiveness, but my work quality has never been questioned. I’ve tried mimicking co-workers to get around this (matching cadence, flow, even timed some of them) and I seem to never quite fall in the “sweet spot” or as your experiment seemed to suggest “struggle recreating”
This concept crushed me when I found out about it because I had no idea that people could live any other way.
The lack of fairness in that really hurts. Life would be so easy with a relationship with time.
Dr. Barkley, it was about 4 years ago I first saw your "This is how you treat ADHD based off science" video. When I heard you use the "Time blindness", I finally understood the ups and downs in my life and how I could struggle so much in one workplace but excel in a different (highly structured/tightly scheduled) one. Thank you so much.
oml... discussing the example of the book report my anxiety immediately went up and I got a shiver down my spine like it was the description of a horror film.
Recently so many youtube personalities were completely dissing time blindness and passing around a video of a young woman who was complaining about not getting accommodations for her time blindness at work. It was pretty sad the way they all scoffed at what is a very real issue though the young woman presented her case with a bit of arrogance and not enough problem solving which probably lead to her conflict. Regardless, it doesnt make people with ADHD look good to the rest of the world when influencers openly mock the symptom. Thanks for this video presenting it in a scientific way and addressing that despite the struggle people need to learn to use tools outside of themselves.
You are welcome. I saw those comments about the woman who had trouble at work and no one understood that problems with time can have a basis in ADHD and it’s neurological underpinnings.
I was wondering if anyone else was going to mention this. If not, I was going to. I was personally shocked at the hate this girl received for expressing a legitimate concern. Wouldn't you be worried if people were telling you that you'll never be able to hold down a job because of your time blindness/ADHD? I think people misjudged her as being entitled and arrogant simply because she's young. It's really sad.
I'm sorry if asking is inappropriate, but how would I find that video? And gosh, stuff like this sucks. Some people legit have no idea regarding our struggles and prolly never will *sigh*
@@Chizuru94 Search time blindness girl you'll find it. I find it pretty gross and I had to unfollow someone for their ableism in the situation.
I have been struggling with time blindness in this lifetime for as far back as my memory goes. Thank you for this video.
thank you so much for putting a name to this aspect of my life I have always felt bad about and struggled with. Now it has a name it has no power over me.
Typically I'll be so early for something I'll have to find a way to pass the time. Naturally I'll get so distracted I'll be late.
Or simply forget.
I used to track the time constantly to track how much time i had left to screw around. Its something i did since i was a small child. I still track the time all the time but there isnt anxiety or guilt. I actually enjoy being able to get out of the house and get stuff done now. I ask my girlfriend at the start if the day what were doing now with anticipation instead of dread. I want to shop for a vibrating watch like you suggested. I have a lot of skills to learn but im determined to have a happy and productive life from here on out. You're helping me a lot with your knowledge thank you sir.
Did you ever find the watch? Asking because this is the first time I'm considering getting something like that too
Dr. Barkley, I’m 50 plus and recently diagnosed with ADHD (not a big surprise) and ASD (that was a surprise). Would it be possible for you to cover ways in which ADHD and ASD together change everything? And to up the ante, how menopause throws a wrench into everything.
Perhaps the video I have here on ADHD and ASD might be informative. There is so little on how sex hormones affect ADHD especially in women that it does not yet warrant a lecture but what is available suggests that such changes in hormones in women across the month and lifespan have an adverse effect of symptom expression. See my lecture on sex differences. Be well
Time management has ALWAYS been my downfall. It has blighted my life....and that of my children's when they were dependant on me. I am 69 yrs now, so other than appointments, time management isn't such a problem for me.
Hourly time reminder in routine life helps a lot in ADHD to be aware about time.
The part about the book report hit me pretty hard. The teacher would ask for it to be done in let's say 4 weeks like you said. I would want to have the whole thing done in maybe 2 days.
In middle school, I did no homework. At the end of the year, I wanted to go on the class trip, but it required schoolwork being done. Teachers cut me a deal if I managed to finish, I would get full credit. I did the entire year worth of homework in a single week.
Time delays are painful. The small units and such really dont hit the mark for me. Just let me finish the whole thing and be done with it.
Regarding time I say "what's the point in being early"......or "fashionably late"........and regarding losing things the item is not lost but "temporarily misplaced".
Better late than never amiright?
ERO reminds me of MRUs "motivation reaction units". This is something I use when writing novels to make sure everything make sense to the reader. First you have the motivation, then you have the reaction. You don't say "Mary walked into the room and called for reinforcements when she saw the biggest spider of her life" because the reader will process the motivation and reaction out of order and it will just feel wrong. You want to put the spider/motivation first. "Mary walked into the room and saw the biggest spider of her life. She called for reinforcements."
LOL. Nerd author alert.
❤ I love Nerd Author. Could you please do CZcams videos for authors with ADHD? My ADHD Coach tells me there are lots of us around.
I will be taking notes from both Dr Barkley and you from now on. 🤓🤓🤓
Thank you for this nerd author moment! 😄❤🤓Writing is magic! I wanted to write novels since high school, but never had any mentoring about how to set goals and reach them (and zero inherent insight about it ; - ). The little chart for entering a daily word count that came with a writing kit I bought for National Novel Writing Month (#NaNoWriMo) gave me literally my first experience of ERO goal getting when I was well into adulthood. Amazing! Success is a vitamin we all need and deserve!
Cause and effect play a huge role in time organization for me. Thats also the reason for why I sometimes drop off somethinf I were doing without feeling guilty.
I appreciate this so much! It's one of the main ways my ADHD brain struggles and there is SO much pain from the judgement from others in my lifetime who did NOT understand how I struggle. One thing I would add.. the clock images in the beginning.. the one for the ADHD brain.. Saying "who cares?" puts a moralistic judgement on the ADHD brain because society already looks at ADHD folks as being lazy or not trying hard enough.
I for one, care VERY much about the situation my brain struggles with ALL the time! Hard not to when there is so very much pain from others about this as well as the pain of dreams I can not follow through on due to this challenge and declining health as a result too. I care a LOT about time. My brain struggles with it in the ways you explain though.. so perhaps it is not that the ADHD brain doesn't CARE about time, rather that the ADHD brain is overwhelmed attempting to process self and time without the capacity to do so.
I had That same initial reaction to the clock with the who cares statement. Thank you for voicing that. I’m here to learn about timelines for our son, I think it affects me a little bit as well. But I appreciate you speaking up about the judgment that is often held against those with ADHD.
You already had my attention, but with "I won't go full Leeroy Jenkins" you got my heart. ❤
And, as a more important note, thank you so much for your work, Dr, and your didactic and helpful videos❤️❤️❤️
(Edit: typos)
My pleasure. At least I got chicken, said Leeroy. That little video clip on him is hysterical.
@@russellbarkleyphd2023 I had to go to sleep during this video but lost track of time. I reckon i had a 33.33% chance of success; repeating of course.
Source:www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10126718/
@@russellbarkleyphd2023 😮🤯🤣Holy Incredibly Unexpected Yet Excellent Mashup, Batman!
Dr. Barkley... As someone with extreme time blindness which led me to fail out of college and ironically/coincidentally become a highly-addicted (yet very powerful 😂) World of Warcraft player during the era when the Leroy Jenkins skit was actually originally recorded...
Holy mackerel, I cannot overstate my satisfaction hearing you whip out his final line! This was such a weird and unexpected way for my day to become suddenly amazing!
And separately, equally importantly but more seriously:
Thanks for all you do. It's clear to everyone here that you've positively impacted more souls than the vast percentage of people on this earth ever will.
Being an educator myself, I consider you a phenomenal role model for genuinely passionate speaking, applying critical thinking, good-faith arguments, and a spirit of open-mindedness, just to name a few. Thank you for your guidance.
[And if you never see this, that'd be a shame. I might even just rewrite it into a letter and figure out some way to get it forwarded to you!]
Signed,
Just a fellow human out there trying to help people live more fulfilled lives
Thank you so much for presenting this aspect of ADHD. I have suffered with this all my life and have never been able to explain this time problem. I will be sharing this with family and friends.
What a well-explained, clear presentation. I cannot thank you enough for this kind of content - I actually pursued an ADHD diagnosis after watching several of your talks, as your explanation of the symptoms made so much more sense for adults than "being inattentive" or "hyperactive". I can now see how the debilitating time blindness negatively affected all my actions. Now that I'm diagnosed and properly medicated, I'm happier than ever. Thank you so much for your work!!
I am currently being put for a meeting to decide if I am going to lose my job in regards to lateness, i have severe ADHD and these videos help me a lot to try and explain this to my employers. thank you
seems to me that you will have grounds for medical discrimination ❤
@paularamsey2009 tbh I just don't have the energy or mental strength to fight that :( thankfully I got a final written warning but still now I can't be late or sick for next 6 months
This happened to our son and it breaks my heart. Trying to learn more about it so I can help him figure it out. No matter the outcome, don’t be too hard on yourself. Just know that you can keep moving forward with the help of good people like the Dr. here. Good luck to you.
Thank you. I’m sorry this also happened to your son. I’ve left the job now of my own choice because it was not an environment that was helpful to my ADHD. I’m now going to pursue things that make me happier. Good luck to your son
I can definitely relate with ERO. I learned over the years I’m best suited at emergency response maintenance work where I can begin a task and see it through to completion in one sitting. So now that’s all I do 👍
I just discovered your channel. I'm the parent of a child with ADHD and this is all very enlightening. It's making me pause & think about how I best help my son & how we improve our relationship. Thank you
Dr Barkley thank you so much, hearing you speak sounds like my childhood and adulthood. Waiting in a line is so mentally painful I can not begin to describe. Everything you describe, thank you for the tools. Yes can play games for hours and sports, I just need things to be moving but not literally, hence why sports and games and house music are all up my street, because they are all going at the speed I need them to again not literal speed. Thank you very much, being able to understand myself as I was one of those who was not diagnosed in school and recognising I have adhd helped make sense of all the things dyslexia couldn’t explain. Understanding one’s self is half the battle.
Waiting in the ADHD mind is like lying in an MRI tube that's 3 inches from your face.
I work in a 1st grade classroom and getting students with adhd to transition is an ongoing challenge. Example 3 more minutes to finish this activity then clean up for a transition. Kids with adhd seem to just slow walk it at all times. It feels like you have to give reminders. It's time to clean up, it's time to clean up; its time to clean up, etc...
Thank you for your work. It’s extremely validating to have recognition and support for an issue that typical people do not understand.
My poor time management skills have ironically made me better at time management. I show up early to events as opposed to on time or trying to be on time and being late.
That's the best video on adhd time management I've seen. Helps a lot to understand why doing those prolonged tasks is so hard and how it can be improved.
Sir, you saved my life with your research, your theories and practical explanations. You put into clear, understandable words what I was feeling since my early childhood, but couldn't appropriately formulate. This feeling of "not beeing in controll" is excactly the result of a impaired working memory and consequently the lack of a sense of time.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR WORK!!!
I have problem with anything that includes numbers. As soon as someone speaks numbers or time I just can't focus. Its like they spoke another language. Thank you doctor you're the best truly ur lectures are gold.
Dr. Barkley you saved my life with your conferences and now videos. Thank you
I set my timers, so they'll go off a half hour before I need to leave to be somewhere. I miss many appointments due to my ADHD. It's embarrassing to make an appointment, reschedule and then miss THE SECOND APPOINTMENT, AS WELL. My ADHD has worsened since the TV and Internet have made Americans operate by thousands of different SOUND BYTES blasting constantly at us. I have less patience for reading novels. Very good video! Thank you, sir!
My mom is a alchoholic, and i think she has adhd too and self medicates with wine. The intro made me think about all the other adhd folks who self medicates with alchohol, who may start thinking about drinking, when they see your glass of wine.
I find the wine in the video inappropriate, too.
Always look forward to your weekly commentary! Time Blindness being a favourite of mine to try and grasp.
Thanks Dr Barkley!
It’s essentially a problem with being governed by a sense of time or a myopia to the future but blindness seems to make the point as well. Thanks!
I’m 78 have struggled all my life!! Just now figuring out this is what is wrong with me!!! Think God for our phones other wise I would still be in the dark!! Love the comments of any subject the most!!
Thank you, Dr. Barkley. I am in my late 30's and found your "30 essential ideas about ADHD" video about 6 or 7 years ago. It was like hearing someone put into words how I feel every day in this world and was an emotional experience to say the least. It's allowed the family and friends who love me most to feel much more connected to me. But the biggest blessing your videos have given my life are in regards to my niece. She is the exact same as me. She sees and feels the world in the same way I do. I shared your videos with my sister all those years ago in hopes that they would help her and my brother-in-law understand what my niece goes through every day and help her build the habits to be happy in this world. My niece will graduate from highschool with honors this spring and will be attending college in the fall. My sister often about how helpful your videos have been to them as parents and how glad they are that I sent them to her. And for that I will be forever grateful.
Procrastination has destroyed many opportunities in my life 🙃
Dr Barkley is such an amazing man. What an inspiration. I have been following his work for many years since my children were diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia. The context in which he transmits information is not only relevant but profoundly informative. Thank you for your contributions Sir. From a dedicated mother across the pond in the UK who is continually perceived ‘too much’ for wanting to educate myself on how to best support my children’s needs and give them a fighting chance in a world that is unequivocally unprepared and unfit in relation to inclusion. ❤️🙏🏼
Hello Dr. Barkley. Thank you for the tremendous energy and dedication you've put towards ADHD and for sharing so much. I'm 48 years old and was diagnosed with ADHD only last year. However, I have not only known "something was different" for as long as I can remember, but more specifically, have been fascinated with and have spent a tremendous amount of time and effort researching and learning about the nature of time and time perception (because it was clear to me that everyone around me seemed to take what I call "mediated" time way more serious than I did). I dug into everything from physics and philosophy to psychology and culture. After my diagnosis and learning about Time Blindness (from one of your older presentations), I've put some thought towards the mechanism behind why "it happens." I believe that the difficulty in self regulation, which affects the ability to "control" attention, in turn affects the ability to create memories. Memory is a fundamental part of time perception, right? I can't tell when 5 minutes are up because I haven't been able to regularly string together 5 minutes worth of undistracted, stable, focussed perception, and practice the "writing to memory" thereof…. And so have not developed that as a facility or subconscious ability, nor a set of tangible memories. I say to my partner that I do not have a tacit understanding of time. "We're leaving in 5 minutes" doesn't mean anything to me; unlike, say, "it'll be 30°C this afternoon." Interestingly, the gauging of distance is, while not as bad as time, also affected, due to the fact that we experience space by moving: velocity = distance over time. I only very roughly know how far away a kilometer is. But because we can see distances, or heights, I can evoke "yardstick" memories to give me that rough understanding.
As I write this, I realize I'm not sure the "visibility metaphor" is entirely appropriate though. It is not that I am blind to or myopic of time. It is there. And I can see the consequences (lifetime of coping strategies to deal with that), imagine the steps. I just can't focus on them and "situate them in time"… I "see" time, I just don't have a solid, reliable construct or model of it in my mind. A calendar is just a grid with numbers, a clock is just a disk with numbers. (A ruler or a thermometer, on the other hand, has very tangible memories and meanings-experiences-attached.)
One last note: professionally, I am a designer (information technology / digital media primarily). Design is all about imagining how something might be in the future and then working towards making that future happen. ADHD and time blindness do not affect my ability to imagine the future and all the steps required to get there. I just struggle to situate anything in it (like client or project schedules eeek!).
I could go on forever, like why boardsports such as snowboarding are so rewarding since they "put me in the now" (ERO surfing!), or why things like the "OODA Loop" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop) are fascinating.
Anyways, very happy to see you positing regularly now and I am catching up on your last few months of posts. Extremely valuable, thank you so much again.
Excellent video. This deep dive into one aspect of Adhd with a specific example is so helpful. I am saving this video to my playlist so I can listen to it again. Thank you!
I feel so seen! Even the driving examples!😭Thank you Dr. Barkley.
ADHD warps my sense of time. I do not know how I am able to time travel to the future and not do everything I had to do. I procrastinated through my bachelors towards master's, personal goals. I have books that have been sitting on my desk for years, unread, and everyday I intend to read them but it is always too late and I'm too tiered. I learned several languages and then I stopped advancing in my studies, leaving a gap of 2 to 4 years without learning the language, then suddenly I regret that I could have continue to take more advance courses and regret that I could have been almost fluent. It was the same with my master's and computer programming languages. Then after a time gap I have the urge to go back and continue from what I left off. I have video games I have been wanting to complete 10 years ago. Metal Gear Solid 4 is still inside my PS3 and I have not touched the game for years. I am always reminded that I want to complete all of these things but I can't ever.
To me learning a second language was a total blessing, in order for me to do it I had to be concise (cramming did not work), and stayed calm down (since no one would understand me if I was rushing to speak), so I did my best for years, I learned to prioritise and joined some groups that keep on motivating, but I still struggle to compare myself to others, I know others could do it better, but I wanna learn to keep on learning while taking care of me, that is being disciplined and respecting my decisions, 🙏!
Outstanding advice. Easy to understand. Usually I just lose focus in lectures by academics. Really excellent
Thank you Dr Barkley. This is helping me come around to the idea that I am time blind after hearing my son throw the term around about himself for quite a while. My husband is also a GP (family doctor - I don't know what your term for them is over there) and I pass on all the info I am learning.
Time-blindness has been one of the MVP’s of my life with ADHD!😂 I’ve managed to create a false-urgency for things on my task list. It takes a lot of practice but it works for me…most of the time. As far as forecasting project timelines…well, I just add 30%-50% to whatever my overly-optimistic initial forecast is.
Can you give an example of creating the false-urgency? This could be really useful. I've tried it before myself, but never succeeded. Maybe another's approach would be of benefit to me.
Ive tried this too, in desperation, lol. Most of the time I forget about my false urgency plan before the project is due then its too late.
@logicalfuzz6325 and @brynnlamont765 I can't say it's a particularly 'healthy' process, at first. I suppose it's just a version a 'forced hyper-focus' where just about everything else in my life will suffer a severe lack of my attention, BUT, only for the duration of that task or clump of tasks. Phone will go unanswered, texts/emails unopened, wife and kids 'ignored', etc, you get the point. Communicating this to the people in your life will be important so they don't think you're just being a dick 🤣. Now, it does not work all the time and to be straight-up, nothing works ALL the time, regardless of meds, nutrition, sleep, etc. Acknowledging that was important, for me.
Thanks for such a useful and informative video. The short duration of them makes it bitesized and very accessible. I've been diagnosed recently, as the challenges of family, work and social life seemed to simply pile on and interfere with my methods that previously were functioning well. All my life has been 'do it right away, or not at all'. I often had the time to do this, but lately I have to keep up with so many things that staying on top of them all seems impossible. From the outside, it seems that I'm thriving. In my head, though, it's a complete and utter chaos. Planning the things that I can do 'now' is hard when I have more than two or three. I also completely suck at gauging how long something should take me. Over the past two months I procrastinated on finding an envelope and an address to post a form I filled three months ago. It took two minutes. Yet, it became a monumental task for some reason... Part of it was that I forgot it at some point.
Getting diagnosed has been one of the biggest eye openers of my life.
Thanks for all your work! It's tremendously useful!
Dr. Barkely, thank you for your work.
Oh my GOD..... i thought i would get super annoyed or bored with this, but the "time binding" really really hits home, *THANK YOU!* ❤️
Killing me softly with his words. I have a higher IQ so I was able to finish most homework in class. I ALWAYS failed when we had a book report or Jr or Sr thesis essay & they would tank my score. I almost didn't graduate even though I was doing well in my classes up to those points carrying A+ on in class work & Cs on homework I didn't like. I often thought if I just had a different school that understood me. I have been fired for tardiness while excelling in my work. I may be late but I'm 100% present when I am there. Now, I work from home. It's the only thing that has saved me, but it's still a struggle now that I have a kid to get to daycare. What careers are out there that we can even do & be successful at? I've tried all the tricks I can think of. Clocks all over the house. Set the clocks forward, but I would know I set them forward so that doesn't work. I set multiple alarms as it gets closer to clock in time as warnings. I heard that a combination of time blindness & having a positive outlook...optimism of what I can accomplish, compounds this. Is there any hope for me?
Thank you so much Dr Barkley - love your videos and all the info you provide to us as parents of children with this conditions.
My wife got frustrated because I put off projects she wanted me to do until the last minute. She started giving me earlier and earlier requests in an effort to help me get things done. Eventually, I was frustrated, too. I said, “Don’t give me extra time, tell me it’s an emergency and I need to do it now!” It worked! It worked even when I knew it wasn’t an emergency! That was years ago, and it still works.
ERO.. interesting. That explains why the first event is always a struggle for me to be on time for, but I am fine with the following meetings/events of the day, unless there’s a long break in between. Thanks Dr. Barkley. No one else has demonstrated a better understanding on the topic of ADHD than you. Thank you so much!
Really valuable, thank you! All my life I thought I was just incorrigible, I thought it was a character flaw. ❤😊
7:28 amazing point, i never thought of impatience this way
Damn this channel is a blessing, I'm trying to learn how to live with my ADHD bf and everything is much clearer
The way this Video Starts really hooked me instantly with my adult adhd haha, this man is a Hero 🎉🎉🎉
Playing Counter Strike as a teen has taught me a lot about time, simply because I were hyperfocused on the game and proper timings for running around a map were a crucial advantage. I do however lose track of time when in a car, when walking or doing anything that I also hyperfocus on.
I will get late if I dont want to attend something.
Anything longer than a day is just abstract for me, as if it resets each sleep cycle.
Thanks so much for your videos, you're helping lots of people around the globe🙏
I just discovered your channel while I was doing a 10 minutes decluttering watching some CZcams video + 10 minutes playing Tomb raider (yes I'm not young anymore) on my PC. And my Alexa is reminding me of the 10 minutes change. So I guess I just discovered why do I need to do that. Thank you for your explanations. You got a new subscriber 🙂