Autism and Time Management

Greetings Earthlings! 😀

You may or may not have noticed that I haven’t been posting as frequently lately to the blog as I have been extremely busy offline. As such, this week I’ve been inspired to discuss the topic of time management 🙂

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Time management is something that many people struggle with, however, as with several every day tasks, this can be even more of a challenge for an autist. Many autists have difficulty with information processing, understanding the concept of time and predicting the outcome of actions, which can make it tricky to organize and prioritize tasks.

For me personally, time management is something that I’m really good at (most of the time), but it can often be a source of great stress. Trying to wrap my head around the tasks to be completed, once plans are in place spending ages mentally going over and over the particulars, beating yourself up for not being able to achieve all that you’ve set out to do within a certain time frame- I can be pretty hard on myself for this. I’m capable of juggling so many balls at once I often get frustrated that I’m not juggling as many balls as I could be during my downtime (like spending the weekend napping instead of writing). This has perhaps been one of the hardest time management attitudes to break since joining the workforce 😛

I’m no expert when it comes to time management, but here are some tips that I’ve found helpful:

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Colour coding– colour coding different tasks for importance can be a great way to help you assess and prioritize tasks- with the added plus that this may also help you to remember your “to-do’s” through stimulation of the creative right hemisphere of the brain.

Write things down/get a diary– I don’t do this as often as I should; but it is a great way to organise both your tasks and your thoughts. Life became a whole lot easier when I took the extra few minutes to make a shopping list rather than frantically running round the shop back in college.

Focus on small, easily achievable tasks fist- as with studying, this can be a great way to keep from getting overwhelmed by the volume of tasks that you need/or want to complete and will help you learn to prioritize better. For example, today I need to pick up some groceries and walk the dog; that painting I want to finish off can wait until the weekend.

Set reminders/alarms– if paper’s not a good option for you, setting alarms or calendar reminders on your phone can be a great way to keep on top of things. I’d never make a meeting on time if it wasn’t for my Outlook calendar reminders!

Make time for you– this can often be the toughest part of time management for an autist in my experience. You can get so focused on all that needs to be done, you easily forget that just because something needs to be done, doesn’t mean it has to be done right away. Patience isn’t always an autistic virtue, in spite of the irony of the world needing to be patient with autists!😂 Make sure that in the midst of a heavy schedule, there are always “me moments” scattered throughout.

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