ADHD with heavy estimation/time blindness, how do you manage to set realistic deadlines and expectations?

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Take my first guess, double it, add 20%.

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I learned this from an amazing tech manager I worked with at my first job, and it hasn't failed me in 30 years!

I don’t 😭

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Unless I’ve run through that type of project it’s hard! I’ve started pulling project time to reference where we are and sometimes even compare with prior year to see if we’re on track.

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I’m in my 50s, female, with recently diagnosed, un-medicated, life-long ADHD. I find estimations very hard and I am certain that time is an illusion!

I rely on lots of communication, tracking, and reminders.

For estimation: I break things down into smaller parts and use previous timelines as a baseline. And I add 1/2 again to my estimate. (If I think it will take 5 days, I say 7.5.) If an estimate is going to slip, having it broken down and slipping in small increments is better than getting to the proposed end and being weeks behind. Better for me because it makes me rethink my estimate and better for my company.

For managing others’ expectations of me: I communicate often exactly where I am in a project and why - specific roadblocks, needs, and progress.

For tracking: Every new task assigned to me, at minimum, goes into a Notepad To Do list. I make it a color I like so I want to look at it. (This is SO IMPORTANT! It sounds silly but making it purple soothes me. Keeping it yellow unsettles me. But when I have a high-risk task, I’ll make it orange which annoys me so I stay on task until I can make it a soothing color again.) I keep it open on my desktop at all times and refer to it often. When I complete a task, I move it to a Done This Week list at the bottom so at the end of the week, I have a list of what I worked on. If it’s waiting on others, I move it to the Roadblock section. I review it often but especially during check-in meetings.

For reminders: I mainly WFH and rely on my Alexa Echo and my Siri a lot. If anything comes up, if I can’t type it up, I tell Echo or Siri to remind me. They regularly remind me to water my plants, update my To Do list, complete time sheets, etc, as well as many as hoc things.

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ADHD aside, rule of thumb for scheduling is make your best estimate for hours that it will take to do a job. Then double it.

It’s very rare that things happen on time.

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Kickoff
Hunt for materials not included in kickoff
Time to do 3 roughs
Review #1, pick the best one
Time to do feedback #1
Review #2
Time to do feedback #2
Final review A
Time to do feedback on final review A
Final review B
Time to do feedback on final review B
About 20 useless meetings and standups

Add all this time up, there’s your answer. It’s never, ever shorter. If you only do 1 fully-fledged solution instead of 3 roughs, multiply the entire thing by three because that’s literally how much work gets flushed down the toilet when going full tilt in the beginning.

You need someone to work alongside you to help keep some sense of time-anchoring. Try setting up frequent review sessions—both at the start and end of the day—or work in the presence of others. Doing live teamwork helps me the most.

Also, keep track of how much time it takes to complete specific types and amounts of work. For example, I know it takes me 1–2 hours to write a full page. I also know that in a seven-hour workday, I usually only get about five hours of truly focused work. So I estimate that I can reasonably get through two full pages a day. Even if a page takes me two hours, I know I can’t expect to finish three pages in a seven-hour window.

Wait you get 5 hours of focused work a day?
I'm over here doing a full week's work in 4 hours of panicked hyper focus on Friday afternoon after a wall of meetings the rest of the week.

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