Dr. Stephanie Sarkis

You know that there's traffic.

You know you need to leave early, but somehow you still are not able to get out at the right time.

Or you think, you know what, this project is going to take me about 10 minutes to do, when in fact it's an hour.

It's a large discrepancy between what time should take and what you actually estimate it to be.

Well, that's the other thing that happens when people are chronically early.

That's the part of time blindness that we don't really talk about as much, is that sometimes people will show up super early because they know they tend to run late.

And that's also not an efficient use of time, right?

So if you're sitting in a doctor's office for an hour early, there are other things you could do.

And you know that if you just go get some coffee and come back, you're still gonna be not arriving on time.

So it really hinders how people live their lives.

And so one of the things you can do is do adaptations, block schedule your calendar.

Also use timers.

Have a partner or friend that checks in with you to let you know, hey, are you going to that thing in five minutes?

You probably got to leave now.

And also, if you think that this is a sign of other things, like if you're having other brain issues, like difficulty with remembering things, difficulty with motivation, difficulty with anxiety, it may be worth talking to a mental health clinician to get an evaluation.

That's part of it.

And ADHD also, again, has to do with the executive functions of the frontal lobe.

So that means an issue with motivation, difficulty with time estimation, regulating your mood.

So it's part of a cluster of different symptoms.

A lot of shame.