Aspergers and needing a schedule?

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I have read in many different places that people with aspergers have a set schedule. I don't.

Do people with aspergers need a schedule to get things done?

I lose track of time constantly. if dinner closes at 8 (college dining hall) but I am playing video games, reading, looking on the computer, anything really, I will accidently miss dinner. I wouldn't say that it happens a lot but it is a common occurence. I am also fairly skinny so that doesn't work well. A little bit ago I checked my phone thinking it was around 12... and it said 4am!!

My room is fairly trashed which is kinda irrating so I just ignore it. It probably doesn't help that I have been diagnosed with add.

I'm not diagnosed but I enjoy making a schedule but then I don't do it or don't keep it up for long.

I'm fairly positive that most aspies need a day to day structure (schedule) to get things done efficiently. No, it isn't fun and sometimes I just want to chill and do stuff impulsively, but my life becomes a mess if I don't have a schedule. I usually make my schedule for the whole week on monday and me and my coach go it through on wednesday. I've been ill for a few weeks now and have been without a structure and it's really starting to show.

i think so. I end up wasting so much time doing nothing like walking around , thinking , doing stupid stuff, playing video games , going on the internet, trying to socialize with people, etc. When i have a schedule i am like a machine and can do things a mortal man cant do in his lifetime. Currently and for the last 2 years i havent been productive because i havent been scheduling. One problem i have is actually maintaining it. I dont like writing personal things down and i hate when my schedule isnt perfect so i end up without one. Sometimrs i make excuses by telling myself i dont want to be predictable to others. I guess that was mebeing paranoid and delusional though.

I love predicting things and hate it when i cant. I guess thats why i love science and math so much. And business too! Im so fascinated with game theory and forecasting. Anyone else?

I think this is a perfect example of something that gets misread and/or egregiously oversimplified by NT researchers, or is a "feel-good" fantasy they throw at the parents of autistic kids.

When I'm going on a trip, I might spend days obsessively planning every detail of it... then, more likely than not, completely throw those plans in the trash the moment I arrive, if not sooner. The plans are fun to make and reassuring to have, but would make me feel constrained and imprisoned if I were forced to actually *follow* them.

On one hand, I'm much more productive and/or less likely to forget to do things if I make a schedule. On the other hand, if I don't *have* to get something specific done, I'm happier and more relaxed when I can just wander through the day aimlessly. Some of my most fun and memorable afternoons have been spent roaming around some new city with no particular goal or plan in mind, and just kind of treating it like a large-scale theme park with interesting things to do. And woe to anyone who tries to forcibly disrupt a routine or schedule I've voluntarily made or adopted.

In other words, I break routines and schedules all the time with complete happiness... but ONLY when the change is 100% my own decision. If somebody tries to forcibly make me change, I dig in, get upset, and might even fight back. The main difference is that when I was a child, I'd do it as a matter of reflex, and just keep resisting & fighting for the sake of resisting and fighting. Now, I might start resisting any change out of reflex, but decide on my own that it's not a big deal a few seconds later and calm down.

Wow droid that sounds just like me. I love exploring the city!

I need a schedule, or NOTHING gets done, and I'm all screwed up for the whole day. I make my own schedule, but nevertheless it needs to be there, and it needs to be obeyed. Not only will I fail to get anything done if I don't follow it, but I will also somehow just get into a negative, failing, nonproductive mood overall.

With that said, as long as the "fundamental schedule" which I made is in place, I can swap out one activity for something else, but the template of the original schedule is still there. Case in point, I get up at sunrise, which screws me up badly when daylight savings goes on & off, but I eat breakfast, do my internet & eMail (about 45 minutes is social, and 2 hours business), then go to work out, then take a shower, and all of that will be finished by 10:30AM. At that point, I will have planned what I need to get done, and will do it. In the case where something else comes up, I can't just work it in, but I will cancel something else and insert the thing that came up. I can do that just fine, but it must fall into the same time slot as whatever the original plan(s) were.

Charles

If it is not scheduled it doesn't get done. I find a routine soothing and a schedule keeps me on track. I am also self employed, so I really need a schedule. In fact, oh no, I am already off my schedule. Joking.

I need routines thanks to the ASD but I don't enjoy them.

Lists and plans are an effort to make and can be quite boring to come up with, but in order to cope with the ever present assault of stimuli that I can't "oversee" or "overheard" because of my sensory issues, I need routines.

My brain is busy with so much more stuff that I see, heard, feel, smell and taste than what most other people are able to perceive of their environment (they usually go like "oh, I haven't noticed!" about way too many things that are right around them!) that my brain has trouble processing all that about my environment instantly while at the same time developing new "spontaneous" plans of actions.

You know, it's like this: turn on a radio, a TV and a music player and then focus on maths problems/something that requires your utmost attention. Most normal people can't.

They get overloaded by all the noise and while their brain tries to process all they hear, their brain struggles to also keep up the usually fast and efficient ability to read, speak, calculate or write or do whatever their brain can do easily at other times when they're not being driven insane by an overload.

I like to compare it to a computer. "How to slow down an efficient and fast PC?" -> "Overload it."

Because I notice a lot more than normal people (I sometimes wonder how people can be so oblivious to... everything) about my environment, I'm at constant risk of being overloaded which impairs the use of my high performance IQ/fast thinking and tendency to really enjoy spontaneity and make fast-paced but thought-through decisions on the fly.

Therefore, I need routines to ward off against brain "slow-downs" from the world asking of me to do much more than it asks of other people who can filter and block out most of their environment and "not-notice" the most obvious things that go on around them.

Everyone is different. Some people need to schedule their day down to the minute, others don't. Many of us can also be flexible when needed. I like to plan things, but can change if needed sometimes. Other times, I'm really thrown off if there is a change (usually from outside). I know that I like a stable work schedule and am thrown off if something changes. I can also get so involved in things that I lose track of time and forget to eat/sleep/etc., but I don't have any set eating of sleeping times. I know many others who do and would be thrown off if they missed dinner time. So it's different for each of us.

Yes, I have a schedule for most things otherwise I end up becoming so absorbed in something that I end up losing track of time or what I'm meant to be doing, I think people on the spectrum need routine and structure and having one can greatly help.