Audio Transcript:
This video is a reminder to routinely set quick alarms and timers on your phone when you are planning. I know this information is obvious to some of you, but in case it isn’t, or in case you tend to forget to do this, like I have in the past, I mention it here. If you don’t routinely use the alarms and timers on your phone, this information could change your life for the better.
So, let’s say you are planning your day, and you see in your Monthly Planner that you have a dentist appointment at 1 pm today.
Sometimes folks with ADHD have trouble arriving on time for appointments because they have some degree of time blindness. We have a tendency to get caught up in what we are doing and lose track of time. We either forget about the appointment or we don’t accurately estimate the passing of time, so we tend to work (or play) right up to the last possible moment, and then rush out the door, whereupon we suddenly remember all sorts of pre-steps to leaving (shoes, brush teeth, keys, paperwork, whatever), then we feel pressure to drive too fast, and we often arrive late for the appointment: basically an all around stressful situation.
So I have gradually trained myself to do the following. If I have a dentist appointment at 1 pm, my first step is to always figure out what time I actually need to walk out the door in order to arrive on time for my appointment. Then I’ll add 15 or 20 minutes to give myself time to transition and make it out the door on time. So, if it takes me 20 minutes to drive to the dentist, I should add another 20 minutes to that, which means I aim to leave at 12:20.
So I write “leave for dentist at 12:20″ on my Daily Page, and then I say to my android phone, “Hey Google, set an alarm for 12:20 pm called leave for dentist.” Six months ago when I set up the appointment in the dentist’s office, I could have said, “Hey Google, set an alarm for 12:20 pm on April 3rd called Dentist 1 pm.” Also, I always bring the little appointment card home and add the appointment to my Monthly Planner right away.
Of course, if I owned an Apple phone, I’d say, “Hey, Siri….”
By the way, when I am cooking something in the air fryer that needs turning in seven minutes, I say, “Hey Google, set a timer for seven minutes.” This prevents me from walking away from the fryer, talking with family, and forgetting all about it.
If your phone isn’t set up for “okay Google” or “hey Siri,” you’ll have to do a quick search online to learn how to set up “hey Google” on your phone, or you can ask a tech-savvy friend to help. I think it’s worth doing! So maybe write this as a to-do on your Daily Page if you want to do it today, or on your Weekly Page if you’ll do it later this week.
Also, if you haven’t developed the habit of using your phone to set quick alarms and timers, perhaps you could add a reminder on your Weekly Page to practice setting alarms or timers a few times every day this week.
Finally, I want to reiterate the idea of always leaving early for every appointment in your life, at least 15 minutes early, but it’s probably better to aim to be 20 or 30 minutes early. Then maybe you’ll get there on time. When we leave early, there’s so much less stress, we’re not tempted to try to make up time on the road, and we generally feel better about ourselves because we are acting responsibly.
But isn’t it a waste of time to arrive early? I would say no, because I’ve learned to bring something along to read, to listen to, or to work on if I get there early and have to wait. In fact, you can bring your clipboard along and dedicate whatever waiting time you have to figuring out solutions to some challenging situation in your life. I’ve gotten some great work done and have come up with very productive solutions or ideas while sitting in a doctor’s or dentist’s waiting room.