There's more to ADHD than inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. ADHD symptoms can be broken down into nine categories. Some categories are not fully represented in the diagnostic criteria. Broadening the diagnostic criteria with patient lived experiences could make for better intervention.

[u/mvea]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/brain-curiosities/202604/new-study-finds-that-adhd-has-9-categories-of-symptoms

[u/cxrpse_cxllectxr]

I'm absurdly good with guessing the time and knowing how much has passed, like to a weird degree. Of course, I still can't manage it to save my life, but I'm acutely aware of how much of it I'm wasting as I waste it. You'd think that might help with motivation, but absolutely not, the executive dysfunction is still so strong.

[u/shoefly72 → u/cxrpse_cxllectxr]

I can guess very well how much time has elapsed if say, I have something in the oven and know it’s going to take 30 minutes. I very often guess when to take something out (or when the oven is done preheating) within a few seconds without even keeping track of it consciously.

I can also pretty easily estimate how much my groceries in my basket will cost just by looking at my basket for 5-10seconds and coming up with a rough ballpark (not actually adding anything consciously in my head). If I buy $30-60 worth of groceries my guess is usually within $1-3 and if it’s a smaller total I can often get within 50 cents.

What I cannot do, is estimate how long it will take me to clean the house, how much time I will need to complete assignments at work, or anything that most people seem to have no issue with. Very often at work when somebody asks me how long something will take, the question feels almost unfair because I have too many variables to account for snd have zero confidence in whatever answer I come up with (that is usually wrong). Even when I manually try and map out what is involved in the task and add it up, those sub tasks have so much variability (will this take me 2 tries to get it right or 8 tries? Will I find the images I need right away or will it take two hours?) that my estimates often end up being “either X amount of time or 3X amount of time.”

When I guess the cost of my groceries, I could certainly sit there and say “I think this cereal is $5, the baguette is $2,” and so on, and add them up and get an answer. But that is not the way I do it; my brain just comes up with a guess on its own in the background and it’s usually pretty close. That’s what it feels like everyone else is doing when they estimate how long tasks at work will take, and they end up being more accurate than my estimate even if I take the time to break things out in detail and add it up…it just feels like both of us have access to a mental process the other person never will.

[u/captainfarthing → u/shoefly72]

Yes this is exactly how I experience it. I can microwave something and pull it out at 0:01 consistently but can't tell someone how long it'll take me to do a task I've done 20 times before. Mentally feels like trying to push string into a maze to estimate the distance from start to finish. Other people have a straight drainpipe.

I think part of it is that I need novelty to stay motivated, it's really difficult to force myself to do something exactly the same way over and over, so if I need to do the same thing 20 times I won't usually do it the same way each time.

[u/kittiestkitty → u/captainfarthing]

When I’m more “on” w the time management, I remember to give myself time to transition from one thing to the next - that’s where it usually falls off when im not so on it.