Dr. Michaela Thorderson

I only have 10 minutes right now, and 10 minutes is still a meaningful amount of productivity to be able to be kind of like working away at that bigger picture.

Learning how much time things takes us is much easier because when we think about what we need to get done, instead of thinking, oh yeah, that's fast, or oh, that's going to take forever, I can think concretely about how

the amount of time.

So instead of relying on my sometimes impaired internal clock, I'm relying on my logic and learning about the facts about how much time things are going to take me.

Part of having ADHD is getting distracted.

You can map out routines or tasks to the exact number of minutes that it's going to take you and still almost every time below that time.

And you think to yourself over and over, how is it that this took me an hour and a half when I knew it was supposed to take me an hour?

And the reason for that is we didn't factor in any cushions for distractions.

So let's think about a specific routine, right?

Morning routines, we all do it.

We all have to get up, get ready and get on with our days.

We know exactly what we need to do every morning.

It's a pretty predictable experience.

And so you can break down that routine into really specific increments of time.

It takes me how many minutes to get dressed, brush my teeth, wash my face, use the restroom, right?

I love my electric toothbrush because it times it for me.

I don't have to think about it, I just know it takes two minutes, two and a half minutes, right?

I know exactly how many active minutes a morning routine takes me.

However, every morning, without fail, I manage to get distracted too.

So I'm doing something and, oh look, a text message.