Time Management in Navigating the Workplace

In the workplace most things are time driven and for those with ADHD/ADD who have a particularly hard time tracking time; this represents a unique set of challenges. Some of the challenges of time management include: the awareness or the ability to track the passing of time, noticing what time it is, remembering to stop one activity to start a new activity and being able to foster the focus toward each scheduled activity.

Some jobs have a built in factor of time being tracked for you most of the time. For example one client, a psychologist, has the benefit of her clients showing up at the appointed therapy time and, in some sense, tracking their own time of when to show up, start and end a therapy session. However, once she was promoted into a supervisory role that includes some of the therapy sessions, reports and overseeing the activities of other therapists; she found that without an external trigger she was falling behind on her administrative duties. It was not an issue of ability or skill to complete any of the tasks. It was simply a matter of time management. Once she took a class pertaining to time management strategies, she found external triggers such as pop ups and bells on her computer, her supervisor scheduling meetings with her and occasional reminder phone calls that she was able to quickly get on schedule with her reporting.

Time management for those with ADD/ADHD is unique because their brain works differently. Working with a typical time management expert (one who has studied the art and science of time management) usually gets those with ADD/ADHD overwhelmed, frustrated and ultimately in trouble. But when time management is taught around the way someone’s mind works, wherein the first point is discovering how the client’s mind works and then developing systems to work around the person, everything changes.

So if you want to be on time and know what to do when, I invite you to sign up for my Be On Time tele-forum class offering.

Also, I am presenting this weekend in Minnesota at the ADHD Spring Conference. For more information on my presentation on Navigating the Workplace, feel free to call me at 1-800-929-4127.