Do other Aspies have trouble with time management?

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Butterfiend
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08 Nov 2014, 2:19 pm

I have trouble balancing stuff I need to do, and getting it done when it needs to get done, which makes college a struggle for me and I am overwhelmed with anxiety. Do other aspies have this issue?


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paxfilosoof
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08 Nov 2014, 2:23 pm

Butterfiend wrote:
I have trouble balancing stuff I need to do, and getting it done when it needs to get done, which makes college a struggle for me and I am overwhelmed with anxiety. Do other aspies have this issue?

Yes, 100%.



Butterfiend
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08 Nov 2014, 2:27 pm

paxfilosoof wrote:
Butterfiend wrote:
I have trouble balancing stuff I need to do, and getting it done when it needs to get done, which makes college a struggle for me and I am overwhelmed with anxiety. Do other aspies have this issue?

Yes, 100%.



How do you cope with it?


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paxfilosoof
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08 Nov 2014, 2:30 pm

Butterfiend wrote:
paxfilosoof wrote:
Butterfiend wrote:
I have trouble balancing stuff I need to do, and getting it done when it needs to get done, which makes college a struggle for me and I am overwhelmed with anxiety. Do other aspies have this issue?

Yes, 100%.



How do you cope with it?


Well, I'm not actually, I just fail because of my fear of failure/anxiety at my university at the moment.
Sometimes I try to put my laptop off etc. But it doesn't always help me.



PaulHubert
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08 Nov 2014, 2:43 pm

Yes, many books on AS write about school and work related issues with time management; it is a combination for weak sense of time, our inclination for impulsivity, our craving to complete and perfect a task (no matter how long it takes), and our weaker ability to switch focus. One approach is to put yourself in a position to where you have limited (while not minor) responsibilities, some relationships involve clearly defined roles; for example the bread winner husband and the stay at home mom, or visa versa, not both partners splitting all responsibilities down the middle: not at one partners demand but because of the respective personalities and preferences of the two (this is where choice of partner comes in). I didn't read this thread until after I just made my own minutes ago, but alluding to that: at times, the very obsessiveness that hurts our time management can be quite beneficial when it comes to knocking out large singular tasks that are daunting for others. I'm not a great time manager myself, but when I only have to worry about work or school, the difference in my productivity and anxiety is night and day; of coarse this would involved taking on more from the chosen responsibility.



linatet
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08 Nov 2014, 5:39 pm

BIG YES
And like Paul Hubert said, most autistics are like that, both about anxiety and time management (I think the time management thing has to do with poor executive function).



MysterMe
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08 Nov 2014, 7:03 pm

Another big yes. I'm doing it right now actually, by procrastinating on WrongPlanet instead of writing/editing my work.

*bangs head on desk*


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Lumi
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08 Nov 2014, 7:20 pm

My sense of time is very low.


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auntblabby
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08 Nov 2014, 10:22 pm

the older I get the more time just slips away from me.



a_dork
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09 Nov 2014, 1:36 am

Poor time management was the bane of my college life. I wonder how I passed my classes.


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rebbieh
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09 Nov 2014, 1:40 am

Yes. I have a lot of trouble with that and it makes university really difficult. I'm incredibly stressed out and anxious about it pretty much every day (weekends included). It's 07:40 on Sunday morning over here and I woke up feeling anxious because of it.



andrethemoogle
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09 Nov 2014, 1:42 am

auntblabby wrote:
the older I get the more time just slips away from me.


Same. I tend to lose track of time in my own thoughts and end up not doing much somedays. I'm working on getting better at finishing things quicker.



Zajie
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09 Nov 2014, 6:10 am

I have this issue



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09 Nov 2014, 8:23 am

YES, what's been described here so far is a BIG problem for most of us on the spectrum, myself included.

I believe, as others have pointed out, that it's due to a combo of factors: the monotropic Aspergers brain, the desire for detail and perfection, the failure to "see the big picture" and that other items may need to be accorded more diligence sooner...so it's a perfect storm 8O

IME, in the workplace it abounds with unstated expectations as to what priorities should come first given finite time to complete assignments; I have been subject to mockery and hostility over this. It's as if I have to ask my boss or colleagues what they consider to be the top priorities right now, and ask them how much time / how much detail I have to spend on it...while likely leaving them bewildered that "how could this seemingly intelligent person not know this, it's so obvious, are they just being perverse with me??"

Basically it's due to us lacking the "NT triad" of pragmatics, Theory of Mind, and central coherence. Barbara Bissonnette speaks to this in her Aspergers Workplace Survival Guide, which I've read through three times - it's very helpful.

I didn't have as much trouble with this in university; I avoided procrastination due to not having many friends to hang out with, and if I did procrastinate, it was more due to depression and playing video games to blunt the emotional pain.
Fortunately I still got my degree.

What you can do sometimes, is write out evaluation criteria for a set of tasks, then rank them, then decide how much time you'll spend on each. Having taken project management courses, I can tell you this can also apply to a home (non-work) context. The downside is it may seem a bit too mechanical and lacking spontaneity, which we need to get a handle on to succeed in the NT world - but it's a good starting point before you, hopefully, get more of an intuitive "feel" for which tasks demand more time allocation.



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09 Nov 2014, 9:16 am

I'm a procrastinator, and it takes me longer to do things than it should, and I don't have a good sense for "good enough", so I'm always anxious about something that isn't done. Fortunately, in my line of work, I have a knack for taking the right approach, so when I'm "on", I get things done right the first time, and to people's satisfaction.

I had things I needed to get done both Saturday and Sunday, and here it is Sunday morning and I'm going to have to do both, because yesterday I farted around on the internet.

A normal Sunday for me.



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09 Nov 2014, 9:54 am

I have big problems with this and no particularly good solutions.

In my job, I am able to compensate somewhat by hyper focusing on my work once I am in it. But I have a very hard time estimating how long things will take and have to rely on formuli to make estimates.

The actual experience of passing time seems completely variable to me with some minutes seeming very long and full of events and some hours seem to flash by in an instant.

Things that help (this is very personal list, tailored to my life and it may not be that helpful to you):

1) alarmed appointments and events in my digital calendars/reminder systems. My tablet, phone and PCs will all beep at me 30 minutes before any event that I put in, which is a lot of events. This saves me over and over again.

2) lists and maps of procedures with notes on associated timing.
e.g., "Process X has seven major steps. Times: 1-0:30 , 2-0:15, 3-4:00, 4-3d, 5-2:00, 6-0:15, 7-0:45"

3) I can do something that seems like procrastinating when I don't know how to begin doing something. I just get stuck sometimes. I find I need to make diagrams of procedures to overcome this and there are times when I have to call people to learn how to begin the new thing-for some reason this is very, very hard to do. So I have a "stuck" procedure which is basically an instruction to call a series of people to consult about how to get it done.

4) I need to keep records of how I have spent my time and I find doing this breaks my concentration and is difficult. I find quick notes on paper through the day and entries in a software log helpful for this. I still sometimes miss days when I am hyperfocused, but having a system helps.