The ADD sense of time leads to intense "now or never" sensations, wild outbursts of creative activity Article plus footnotes and two sidebars Dave deBronkart "When it came to perception of time, [Edison] was lost. Experiments were timeless . . . in Edison's mind events blended and telescoped into each other, and he misplaced even fairly recent events by as much as three months. `I have got no memory at all for dates,' he confessed." Many modern Hunters report a sense of time like Edison's. They have no sense that time is slipping by, yet once they get started on what Thom Hartmann calls "Hyperfocus," they have an extraordinary ability to bring things together "all at once." The result can be unexpected and creative results which are often produced in a mad flurry of activity. This script, played out over and over again, can leave other people shaking their heads in disbelief (or dismay). Many ADDers grow up with a string of such episodes, which invariably end in remarks such as "See what you can do when you apply yourself?" But it's not a matter of will power. A behavior pattern this strong and this consistent, occurring in so many people, is rarely a matter of laziness. It suggests there's something in the structure of the situation that makes it happen. I propose that this pattern is caused by the ADD sense of time, in which there are only two moments: "Now" and "Not Now." (Not Now is also known as "Some Other Time.") Two traits are important, and each has multiple consequences in the ADD sense of time. Main subhead: Trait 1: "All at once" sense of time Minor Subhead: Time is irrelevant to the Hunter's mind When the Hunter's in the hunt, no other time is important: the only time that matters is Now. The Hunter must not tire, either physically or mentally. Nor must thoughts be devoted to what's happening next month. In contrast, agriculture requires a sense of time. As Hartmann pointed out in his talk at the Adult ADD Conference in Ann Arbor (May 1993), when it's time to plant the seeds, it's no time to go off pursuing some fascinating new idea. An agrarian has to do things at the right time, and has to know when the time is right. The Hunter lives in the moment. Either the time for something is Now, or it's Not Now. There are no shades, no subtle gradations of time between now and next week. For that matter, next week doesn't seem much different in urgency than next month, and next month doesn't seem much different from next Fall. (That's why many of us start our Christmas shopping in mid-December -- at the earliest!) When it's Now for the Hunter, time isn't a factor: nothing else matters, just the pursuit of the goal. And when the hunt is Not Now, then time doesn't matter, either. In fact nothing matters until the moment is Now. Minor Subhead: Seeing things "all at once" means we have no "depth perception" for the passage of time The everyday experience of depth perception has a strong parallel in how we sense the passage of time. Depth perception lets us sense when something is approaching. Whether it's a car on the highway or a beast in the bush, we need to know when things are getting closer, and we need to know how fast they're approaching. Survival depends on it. Similarly, most people have a sense of how rapidly dates are approaching: how many shopping days until the holidays, how long until that paper is due, how much time before supper. But not everyone has that sense. Some people live their lives constantly running up against deadlines. Year after year they end up wondering what stores are open late Christmas Eve. Or they wait until the last minute and pull marathon project all-nighters, over and over and over again. Or they're chronically late for supper even when they WANT to be there on time. Why? Because they simply don't notice the time going by. Like someone with no depth perception, they have no sense that an object (the date) is approaching. It's just as if each moment had no connection to any other, so changes in "distance" were not apparent. Minor Subhead: The alternative: peripheral vision lets you be aware of more, "all at once" But depth perception isn't the only way to survive. You can also prosper by being aware of what's going on all around you. In the vision metaphor, that's called peripheral vision. Some birds, for instance, have eyes on the sides of the head. Their two visual fields don't overlap so they don't have depth perception.[See note 1] Instead, they have more peripheral vision: they see more of what's going on around them. They're more aware of everything going on all at once. My sense of time is like that: peripheral vision, with lots going on all at once, but no "depth perception," little sense that anything is getting closer. Now let's look at how this trait - no sense that time is passing - unfolds in the life of an ADD person. Effect 1: Endurance (if the topic is interesting) When most people start working on something, it "gets old" after a while. But if you have no sense that time is passing, and the work is interesting, nothing can stop you except physical exhaustion. Effect 2: No sense that the future is getting closer. Consequence 1: Impatience. "I want it *now*" is commonly heard from ADD mouths, from board rooms to baby's room. Why so impatient? Because to someone with no sense of time, "in a little bit" simply means "Not now." And to someone with no sense of time, "Not now" is the same as "Never." Consequence 2: Intensity. If there's no future (just Now), then there's nothing to save your energy for. When you're "on," you're on all the way. Quite literally, ADDers sometimes feel such intensity that they say "It's now or never" and throw themselves into things passionately. (And they LOVE the stimulation they get from such intense experiences!) Consequence 3: Time slips away, imperceptibly. Major subhead: Trait 2: Easily triggered orienting response. The hallmark of ADD, the easiest thing to notice, is distractibility. But as Hartmann explained in his book, that's just another name for responding to every signal in the environment. This trait has many implications in the ADD life, but I suspect none are more powerful and pervasive than its effects in time. Consequence 1: One is constantly being interrupted, either externally or internally. Consequence 2: This means one never gets any experience of how long a task takes. We learn from what we experience. I can tell you exactly how long it takes to drive from my home to Boston, because I've done it hundreds of times without stopping. But I have no idea how long it would take to drive from home to the supermarket to the sub shop to the pharmacy to the gas station and home without stopping, because I've never done that. An ADD person who's constantly switching tasks has one basic problem: s/he is constantly "driving" in short bursts, and never gets any experience of how long the total trip takes, uninterrupted. This has a major, sometimes catastrophic consequence: Consequence 3: Such a person has no way to predict how long a task will take. (See sidebar, "One, two, many.") Having never made the trip, the person is powerless to do anything but take a wild guess. Major subhead: The setup for deadline crisis Connecting the two traits where we left off, we get this picture as a project progresses: 1. With no idea how long it will take, the worker feels "There's plenty of time." Of course, with no sense of the size of the project, that's natural enough. 2. Meanwhile, time is slipping away imperceptibly. What a setup! As if by magic trick, the time slips away and the project (which seemed to fit the schedule easily) sits untouched. SUDDENLY THE DEADLINE HITS! All of a sudden the time to do it is NOW! At last. There's no time left to put it off, no choice to be made, no question that the work must be done Now. And just as suddenly, the other characteristics kick in. Intensity takes over, gripping the mind, and endurance kicks in, enabling the worker to put in 48-hour stints or more. We have hyperfocus. Does this sound familiar? Major subhead: How to harness these traits and put them to work as we want Does this mean an ADD life is doomed to pandemonium, to out-of-control deadline crunches? Maybe, maybe not. The first question to ask is, do you *like* the way your life is? If so, then don't change it! If you enjoy your life and you're not messing up the lives of those around you, then why change? If you do want to change something, then decide what it is, and think about these tips: [each tip is a minor subhead] Tip 1: Understand that you don't sense the passage of time as others do. Self-awareness is powerful. Once you realize that others see things you don't, you immediately understand why they act differently and expect things differently. This alone takes away some of the tension. Tip 2: Ask others for estimating advice. This can be done easily, even if you choose not to disclose your ADD to co-workers. (After all, the issue isn't ADD, it's your performance, which in this case refers to estimating ability.) One ADD/Hunter executive routinely asks co-workers (above, below, and at his level) "Boy I've got a lot on my plate. I'm trying to get a reading on where I sit, schedule-wise. Could we toss some thoughts around for a few minutes?" It may take a few tries to find the "estimating partner" who's just right for you. But if you'll be patient, and experimental, you may find someone whose opinions are better than yours. Tip 3: Build up your experience of how long things take, by addressing your distractibility. Whether you do it by self-awareness, medications, or other therapy, develop the ability to shove distractions aside when you choose to. Once you do, you'll be startled at how rapidly your estimating ability improves. After all, how many times would you have to drive the market-pharmacy-gas route before you knew how long it takes? Tip 4: Be much more conservative in the commitments you take on. When somebody asks you to add something to your to-do list, be careful! You may not be qualified to answer "Do you have time for this?" "[Edison's] intentions were usually good, but he had trouble turning anyone down, and kept committing himself to far more than he could accomplish. . . . clocks and schedules were nuisances." Conot, p. 111. Tip 5: Set up your work life so timelessness is fine. If you can't stand punching a time clock, don't get a job supervising a 9-to-5 staff! [Footnote 2] Consider piecework, too, so that your "binge" tendency can be explosively profitable for you. Explosive binges are like the lion's hunt: they can produce enough "nourishment" to provide for long periods of low activity in between. Now look at the structural changes we've created: 1. Being aware that our experience is different from others, we understand why we need to approach deadlines differently; 2. The work situation may have changed to make time immaterial; 3. By being aware that time slips away imperceptibly, we know to do a "reality check" more often, and to enlist the help of a partner. Result: Time *doesn't* slip away imperceptibly anymore. 4. By accumulating some experience at not being distracted, we build up our first-hand knowledge of how long things take. So we work both aspects of the setup: the feeling that "There's plenty of time" and the tendency of time to slip away imperceptibly. The result can be a marked decrease in unwanted, unexpected deadline crisis. Whether you want to be like Edison (making amazing discoveries though constantly off schedule) or be more like those you work with, knowing your own true nature is an invaluable first step. Once you understand your ADD sense of time, you can work with it instead of against it. And that's bound to make your life easier.