Supporting High-Achieving Women with ADHD and Line Managers

Understanding and Managing Time Blindness

Time blindness is not just a challenge for those who experience it—it also impacts the entire work dynamic, from meeting deadlines to maintaining team harmony.

This condition, often associated with neurodivergent thinking, especially those with ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), affects one's ability to perceive the passage of time, leading to chronic lateness, missed deadlines, and a sense of disorientation. 

For high-achieving women who’ve excelled in their careers, this can feel especially disorienting when their natural drive clashes with the difficulties of managing time effectively.

For line managers, it’s important to recognise that time blindness is not a lack of professionalism or commitment, but a neurobiological challenge that can be addressed with the right strategies.

By understanding how time blindness works, you can foster an environment that helps high-achieving women recently diagnosed perform at their highest level.

In this blog, I want to address the unique challenges that high-achieving women recently diagnosed with ADHD, may face—particularly time blindness—and how line managers can support them in improving their executive functioning.

What is Time Blindness?

Time blindness is not an official medical diagnosis, but it describes the difficulty in accurately perceiving the passage of time.

For individuals with ADHD, this manifests as chronic lateness, missed deadlines, or losing hours in hyperfocus, often leading to frustration and misunderstandings at work.

Time blindness is rooted in executive dysfunction, affecting one’s ability to organise, plan, and manage time effectively.

It manifests as an inability to consistently estimate how long tasks will take, often resulting in feeling as though time has "slipped away" without notice. 

Why is this Important for Line Managers and High-Achieving Women with ADHD?

For line managers, recognising that time blindness is a real, neurological challenge, rather than a sign of disorganisation or laziness, can help you provide the right support.

For high-achieving women recently diagnosed with ADHD, understanding time blindness can be empowering.

You’ve likely managed your career through sheer determination, but now you can advocate with confidence for the specific support you need to unlock even greater potential.

Causes of Time Blindness

Time blindness is often tied to several neurological factors associated with ADHD:

• Executive Dysfunction: Difficulties in planning, prioritising, and managing tasks make it harder to track time effectively.
• Hyperfocus: A hallmark of ADHD, hyperfocus involves becoming so engrossed in a task that all sense of time is lost. While this can lead to bursts of productivity, it often disrupts awareness of time passing.
• Lack of Internal Time Cues: Neurotypical individuals often have an innate sense of time passing, but those with time blindness lack this “internal clock,” leading to difficulties gauging time during tasks.
• Poor Time Estimation: It’s common to misjudge how long a task will take—either drastically overestimating or underestimating the time required—leading to missed deadlines or rushed work.
• Emotional Regulation: ADHD can also impair emotional regulation, making it difficult to start tasks or remain focused when overwhelmed by feelings like anxiety or frustration. In my opinion, addressing anxiety and frustration can have the biggest impact on time blindness.

Effects of Time Blindness in the Workplace

For a high-performing professional, time blindness can create significant disruptions:

• Chronic Lateness: Underestimating preparation time or losing track of time can lead to being consistently late for meetings or deadlines.
• Difficulty Meeting Deadlines: This not only causes stress but can also affect professional reputations, leaving high-achievers feeling like they’re underperforming.
• Procrastination: Time-blind individuals may delay tasks, either because they feel overwhelming or because time feels too abstract to act on immediately.
• Strained Professional Relationships: Consistent lateness or missed deadlines can frustrate colleagues and supervisors, even though the issue stems from time perception difficulties, not a lack of commitment or respect.
• Self-Criticism and Anxiety: High-achieving women with ADHD often internalise these struggles, feeling inadequate, which can increase anxiety and damage self-esteem.

5 Strategies for Managing Time Blindness

While time blindness can be challenging, it is manageable with the right tools.

Both line managers and employees can work together to implement these strategies and create a more supportive environment:

1. External Cues and Alarms: Use alarms, timers, and reminders as external prompts to stay aware of time passing. Set alarms for transitions between tasks, or reminders to check the time, so the person can stay more on track. A project management approach, with interdependencies create s accountability and gives wider visibility.

Manager Tip: Encourage the use of timers or suggest tools like calendar notifications to provide regular, gentle nudges throughout the day

2. Structured Routines: Developing consistent routines helps anchor time more predictably. For someone with time blindness, having a set start time for tasks and meetings can create a framework for better time management.

Manager Tip: Provide clear, predictable structures for deadlines and tasks, and check in regularly to see if additional support is needed in planning time. Try to avoid cancelling or rescheduling meetings where possible and try to stick to the same day and time each week

3. Task Chunking and Time Blocking: Breaking tasks into smaller steps and assigning specific time blocks to each task helps bring more focus and order. Rather than working toward open-ended deadlines, this method allows individuals to work within manageable timeframes.

Employee Tip: Advocate for this approach with your manager to structure your workload in a way that plays to your strengths. I use the GC Index to support both line managers and individuals in understanding their strengths

4. Visual Timers and Apps: Visual timers, such as countdown clocks or Pomodoro-style apps, offer tangible representations of time, making it easier to track. Tools like Forest can make the experience more engaging by linking task completion to visual rewards.

Manager Tip: Recommend apps or provide visual timers for use during meetings or important tasks.

5. Accountability and Body Doubling: Having a colleague or accountability partner can increase focus and keep tasks on track. Body doubling—having someone physically or virtually present while working—can also help reduce distractions and promote time management.

Employee Tip: Request check-ins or accountability partnerships from your manager to enhance focus and build external time cues

For organisations to thrive, it’s essential to create environments where all individuals, including those with neurodivergent conditions like ADHD, can perform at their best.

Understanding and managing time blindness can significantly improve productivity and reduce unnecessary stress in the workplace, especially for women who have recently been diagnosed.

RECENTLY DIAGNOSED WITH ADHD

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