GET A GRIP ON TIME
You Can Develop a Time Sense
Most people with ADD report some kind of challenges around time. They may be late for appointments, or can't meet deadlines, or try to get too much done at once. Strategies to overcome these hurdles are customized, often addressing organization, procrastination or a tendency to say "yes" too often.
But what if you just have a poor time sense --- if you can't tell the difference between 20 minutes and an hour? Believe it or not, you can train your brain to exercise time judgment. It just takes some deliberate observation of your assumptions about time.
DO THE TIME-SENSE EXERCISE
Start by learning the level of time accuracy you truly have. For at least five days, three times a day, pick an activity to make observations about. It's best to choose a variety of activity types that you do often. Carry a notebook with you to record notations in seven columns.
- Activity Description. Write a phrase to identify the activity. For example, "Home to Work Travel," "Phone Conversation with Mom," or "Internet Research for Air Conditioner."
- Start Time. The exact time you begin the activity.
- Estimated Time Needed to Complete. Before you begin, guess how many minutes or hours you'll need.
- Guessed Amount of Time it Took. At completion, without looking at your watch, guess how long it took. Base this on how much time you think elapsed from the beginning.
- Reality / End Time. Check your watch and record how long it really took, based on the end time.
- Reality Gap for Estimating. The difference in minutes between (3) and (5), indicating how well you can estimate and plan.
- Reality Gap for Time Accuracy. The difference in minutes between (4) and (5), indicating how accurate your sense of time is.
LOOK FOR PATTERNS
Note any patterns within groups of similar activities. Perhaps you're not bad at timing project tasks, but much more inaccurate at gauging travel time.
The very act of doing this little exercise on a regular basis will increase your accuracy level. As you become more aware of your "reality gaps" with time, you'll automatically begin estimating more correctly.
KNOWLEDGE LEADS TO CONTROL
Once you know how your time is spent, you can plan your day efficiently, based on real time (not "ADD time!") Since you know it takes three hours to write your monthly status report (rather than the 20 minutes you imagined), you can block the time in your schedule to do it. Now that you know a phone call from chatty Liz lasts on average 30 minutes, you won't take her call right before you have to pick up the kids.
Time sense is simply time knowledge. But it can have a powerful impact on your life.
TECHNOLOGY TOOL TIP:
Excel Spreadsheet
Thanks go to Connell this month for showing how he made maximum use of the Time Sense Exercise with an Excel program.
Using EXCEL to record the seven columns, Connell was pleased to discover how he could improve his efficiency at work, simply by noting how his time was spent. So he used an Excel spreadsheet to further plot out his day and week in time / project segments. Once he had a handle on how long tasks took, he used the spreadsheet to list all sub-tasks, with a column to check them off once completed.
Connell says he has been able to leave work on time now, gaining him an extra two hours in the evening to do what he pleases.
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