Could You Have Time Blindness?

According to a recent estimate, the number of students reporting ‘time blindness’ has almost doubled in the last five years. There are correlations between diagnoses in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)  and estimates of adults experiencing time blindness, but some adults report experiencing time blindness without an ADHD diagnosis. However, despite the apparent growth in time blindness, particularly among students in further and higher education, there remain limitations in the scientific understanding of the condition and its impact on our day-to-day lives.

The general descriptions below outline common forms of time blindness. If you suspect that your performance and goals are significantly impacted by the condition, you might want to seek a clinical assessment. If you’re looking for help and advice on how to manage time blindness, follow the links at the bottom of this page.

How to Understand Time Blindness

The term time blindness refers to a set of conditions that can present individually or collectively. Scientists and clinicians generally refer to the human experience of time as ‘temporal flow’ or ‘flow of time’. In neuropsychology, we know that humans don’t experience time directly; rather, we have a range of mental processes that keep time for us. There are several brain networks that mark time. Time blindness may result from dysfunction or disregulation in these systems or from their interactions with the brain’s reward systems.

There are different ways of characterising time blindness, but the scientific accounts of the causes and effects are still being clarified by neuroscientists and neuropsychologists, particularly in the context of ADHD. The five kinds of time blindness we find most often are:

Circadian-linked time blindness presents as difficulty establishing a ‘normal’ sleep pattern, so-called delayed sleep phase syndrome. Recent scientific studies estimate that 75% of people diagnosed with ADHD have problems establishing a regular sleeping routine. Example: Do you sometimes fail to wake up even with an alarm? Do you struggle to fall asleep even when you’re tired?ccording to rescent estimates the number of students reporting ‘time blindness’ has almost doubled in the last five years.

Future time blindness is characterised by difficulties in estimating the time required to achieve future goals. This often leads to poor planning, lack of confidence, and impaired performance. Example: Do you have repeated problems estimating how much work can be accomplished in an hour, a day, or a week? Can you reliably estimate how long a specific journey might take without using an app?

Present time blindness is experienced when we lose track of time, unaware of how long we have been doing something. This can result in spending excessive time on tasks that might be unnecessary or unwanted. Example: Have you spent much longer than you intended scrolling through social media or watching YouTube? Do you sometimes have the experience that you’ve ‘lost’ time?

Past time blindness leads to limitations in how we remember time intervals, often making it difficult to develop a coherent view of the past. This leads to problems relating past experiences to the present. This indicates a possible failure to integrate past experiences. Example: Do you find understanding the timelines of previous actions challenging?

Interval time blindness often manifests as an inability to estimate the time interval between two moments. This is also linked to limitations in planning and structuring. Example: If you close your eyes, could you estimate when 5 minutes had passed?

How to beat time blindness here.