Why does time disappear when I am not looking?

You are not careless. Your sense of time is just quiet.

The short version.

There are only two times: now and not now

Anything past "now" feels far away. A deadline next week has no weight at all — until the moment it becomes tomorrow.

You do not feel time passing

Most people carry a background sense of how long something has taken. With ADHD that sense is faint. An hour and five minutes can feel the same.

Every task looks shorter than it is

"A quick shower" forgets the towel, the clothes, the hair. You plan for the middle of a task and lose the edges on either side.

Make time something you can see

A clock in every room. A visual timer that shows the minutes shrinking. If you cannot feel time, put it where your eyes already are.

Double your first guess

Estimate, then double it. Arriving early by accident is kinder to you than arriving late again.

Set the alarm for the switch, not the event

Not 3:00 for the meeting — 2:40 to stop what you are doing. Leaving the current thing is the hard part, so that is the moment to mark.

Count backwards from the deadline

Out the door at 8:30? Shoes at 8:25, bag at 8:20, showered by 8:00. One far-off time becomes several near ones you can actually feel.

Your clock is not broken, it is quiet. Make time loud enough to see. Dump the rest into my.adhd and get one thing back.

Adapted from our carousel series. A starting point, not medical advice — for that, talk to a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist.