ADHD Tip for Time Management

There are a lot of tips out there for time management, and even more time management advice. Most of it is aimed, of course, at the public at large. After all, time management is one of those things that plenty of people have trouble with whether they have ADHD or not. Like many other symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, the difficulties of time management with ADD are often extreme versions of the issues non-ADD folks have with time management. However, many of the time management tricks used by the general population can be very useful ADHD tricks for ADDers as well.

This post will be short because, as a follow-up post will show, I have already spent way too much time “off task” today. I haven’t been screwing around, per se, nor have I been wasting my time. Most of the tasks and functions that I have tackled this morning have value and will benefit me in one way or another.

However, as is often the case with focus problems, there are other very important tasks that I should be doing right now instead. In fact, when I sat down this morning there were some “must do” tasks on my plate that have not yet found their way to my fork – metaphorically speaking.

One of these many sideline tasks that have been distracting from important tasks is re-finding, downloading, and installing an old ADHD tool that I used to have on my computer that I forgot about when I did my upgrade to a newer, faster system with Windows 7 installed.

ADHD Tools Timers

One of the tough things to swallow about all the ADHD advice and ADD tools or tricks thrown around is their mind-numbing similarity. After a while of reading about attention deficit disorder and the research being done for ADD, as well as the number self-help books and other books for ADHD, you start to see a lot of the same things mentioned over and over again. Sometimes, that is for good reason. Many of the ADHD tips given by these resources are good ones that are particularly effective. Sometimes, on the other hand, it seems that the conventional wisdom is just being repeated within the mental health community echo chamber and that all innovation in the realm of helping with ADHD symptoms has ceased.

Using a timer is one of the most common suggestions for helping ADHD time management issues. This tip occupies both of the realms mentioned above, being both a good tip, and one so rote as to be wholly unhelpful to many people. Which is why I wanted to pop up a post about one computer-based ADHD tool that has proven helpful for me to some degree.

There is a small Windows utility called Multi-Timer 1.1 which is freeware. The guy who developed it has also written a fancier, nicer looking version, but that one is not free, and as ADHD tools go, sometimes simpler is better.

What makes Multi-Timer so useful for ADHD time management is that it shows multiple timers at once. Obviously, the ADHD mind likes to do more than one thing at a time. Sometimes this stream of multitasking works well, and other times, not so much. Either way, it is very likely that while working, an adult with ADHD will encounter another task that is just as important or more important than the one being worked on. Having multiple timers allows for the original timer to keep running (or be paused) while the timer on the next task starts.

Even more useful, this timer utility allows for both count up and count down timers to be used simultaneously. This provides the ability to both time how long something takes, as well as provide a time structure for something that should take a certain amount of time. By default, Multi-timer displays 10 timers at once and each time can be selected individually via a tab. I like to set the 5 timers on the right side to my most common count down timer periods. For example, I have 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 5 minutes, and 1 hour as my count down timers. (The last timer is the one I use for variable times like 25 minutes if I need that for some reason.)  I use the timers on the left as my count up timers, starting one for each change of task or setting as appropriate.

Ironically, some of the best ADHD help comes not from the timers themselves, but from seeing the timer application on the screen counting down (or counting up) and become embarrassed, upset, or disturbed by what is showing on the timer. This can be a stunningly effective way to refocus. Imagine that you have a writing project that should take 30 minutes. You start a timer and hammer away. Later, you get distracted by other tasks. Eventually, you close enough windows that the timer shows through, and you notice that the time spent on the task so far is 55 minutes. This can make you stop looking for that Jim Croce song you just remembered you love so much and get back to finishing the writing, because you aren’t going to let it go over 1 hour!

Try downloading the timer and see if it works for you. Often the toughest part of using it is remembering to start it up in the first place and then remembering to trigger the timers themselves. Even so, it may work just often enough to make your days more productive.