Time

I have an on again off again relationship with time.  I think it's a combination of my ADD mixed together with my upbringing all stirred together in a complicated time soup.

I know for some people with ADD/ADHD they cannot get to a place on time ever.  My oldest daughter for example really struggles with time.  If you say we need to leave at 4:00, she interprets that as maybe she should start getting ready at 4:00ish.  She doesn't do it to be rude...it's just how her mind works.


For me it's more complicated than that.  I learned early on in my childhood that being on time was life threateningly vital...if I was late to something, humanity as we know it would be lost forever. 

So, as you can imagine, my family was very early to a lot of things.  I have lots of memories of helping to set up events.


Fast forward 30+ years and you can imagine the struggles of a mom who had an animal like instinct to being early and a daughter whose idea of early was not missing the entire event.

Then add a couple more kids to the mix and my general dislike of setting up and the idea of time gets more complicated.  I'm always trying to figure out things like:  What time to I need to leave in order to get there after several other people have arrived so I don't have to set up.  How long will it really take me to drive there (for some reason I always forget I don't have a flying car and traffic could be an issue)?  If I say I want to leave at 4:00 what is the likelihood of everyone coming with me being ready at 4:00 and did I take into account the time I would need to go back in the house several times for items I forgot.

You put this all together and I started being late to events which triggered anxiety deep within me.  All the way to the event I would stress and yell at traffic and generally not be very much fun to be around.  I'd arrive all stressed out and be mad at myself for being late.

So I have learned to adapt over the years.  But one thing I still do is manage to pack my schedule too tight on some days.  I'll have an appointments throughout the day and someone will ask me to do something and I'll say, yes, I have 35.6 minutes free, sure I can do that.  And then it will take 41.2 minutes to accomplish and I'll be a ball of stress because the rest of my day is thrown off.  A perfect example of that would be my wedding day which I will put into it's own post...simply because I think it deserves it :-)

The last ingredient that goes into my time soup is distraction.  I will have a schedule, I'll have planned out the time I need to leave the house, I'll plan out the time that I need to start getting ready in order to leave the house, I'll see I have a few minutes to kill until that time and I'll sit down to the computer.  Next thing I know it's 5 minutes after I was supposed to be leaving and the stress begins.

This happened a lot when I was having to pick up kids from school every day.  Thank goodness for the bus...I no longer have to be that late mom.

Motivation...where did mine go?

ADHD is often associated with distraction.  Perhaps that is why the AD part stands for Attention Deficit.  But what the name of the disorder is missing is the fact that it is also a motivation deficit order as well.  I guess ADMDHD was too long an acronym.  Plus when you add the forgetfulness, the frustration and everything else that goes along with ADHD the acronym might be longer than the alphabet.

On days that I have a schedule or a long list of concrete to do items I do pretty well.

On other days where I know I have stuff to do, but I am either overwhelmed, don't have specific deadlines, have too many priorities or wake up on the wrong side of the bed, lack of motivation kicks in.

Yesterday was one such day.  Here is the outline of my day:

7:00am Wake up.

7:01 get up and go to the bathroom

You didn't really think I was going to draw a picture of me going to the bathroom did you?

7:03 go back to bed to wait for my medicine to kick in...I can't eat for an hour after I take my medicine so when I'm not on a schedule I figure I can hang out in bed catching up on emails, Facebook and important games on my iPad.

As soon as I show any signs of movement the cats decide it must be time for them to come attack me on the bed.

8:30ish...think about getting up (got really involved in a new game)  realize I forgot to take my medicine at 7:00.

8:31 Get up and take medicine...lay back down again.

9:00 Finally decide that I've wasted enough time today and get up to eat breakfast.

9:37  After eating a leisurely breakfast and fending off the cat all of the sudden realize I have to take oldest daughter to work in about 3 minutes.

9:38 tell oldest daughter that I will get dressed quickly and take her.  Daughter lets me know that she won't be ready for another 10-15 minutes.

9:39  Being that 10-15 minutes is too short a time to shower or start working on my project for the day I sit down to play stupid addictive game some more.

10:15  Daughter finally ready to go.  I did have time to shower...grrr

11:00 Back and finally showering

I thought about putting a drawing of me showering here, but thought it might be inappropriate.  This is a family site...cannot have any naked stick figures here :-)


11:30  Sit down at computer to work on presentation I have to give at work next month.

12:15 Presentation too overwhelming...go eat lunch.  Play more of the game.

 1:00 Time to get ready for my interview I have scheduled for 2:30.

1:30 Need to leave the house in 15 minutes...no time for anything other than stupid addictive game.  Set alarm on my phone so I leave in time...good thing because once again I lost track of time.

Rest of the day...go to interview, go to class and feel generally productive.

10:00  Get ready for bed...promise to self that I will not do this tomorrow...play stupid game some more until I'm too tired to see straight.

Time spent productively not including scheduled items = 45 minutes
Time spent on stupid game = at least 4 hours
Finishing stupid game = not worth it

**Update:  I just realized I forgot to add the most important part of this post.  The part where I share with you my secret weapon for making it look you were productive when in fact you spent the entire day playing a game on your iPad.  Here it is:

At some point during the day yesterday I realized felt guilty that my husband had been hard at work all day and I had been wasting time.  So I looked around and noticed this:

This is our sink full of dishes.  The green squares are our plates and the happy face is my favorite yellow happy face bowl that I eat yogurt out of every morning. 

I thought...a ha...I could empty and fill the dishwasher and suddenly I would look like I had been slaving away all day long.

So I spent maybe 15 minutes doing the dishes.  (Emptying the dishwasher took about 30 seconds because we had been using the dishes from there for the last few nights)  And the result was this:

Nothing like a shiny sink to make you look like you have been motivated.