I was recently reading a post on an internet forum where someone was venting about a friend of theirs who is chronically late, and was asking the internet to shine some light on this behavior. Here were some of the most top-voted responses:

“I refuse to believe that people who are chronically late are late for any reason other than the fact that they don’t care enough that people are waiting for them.”

“When you are late, you are telling the people you are supposed to meet that you don’t really care if they have to wait for you. It’s incredibly disrespectful.”

“Being late all the time isn’t about bad time management, it’s about priorities. They can be on time when it matters to them, which means they just don’t value your time as much.”

“It’s a power thing. They want to control the situation because of their own insecurity.”

Ouch. So much for empathy. Many other comments mentioned that chronic lateness is often a sign of ADHD, and other comments dismissed this as an “excuse,” someone even referring to it as a “made-up illness.” For those who did accept that ADHD is a likely cause, there was still very little sympathy, because, as they mentioned, it’s still the responsibility of the person with ADHD to work around their problem and find solutions. 

I agree: we who struggle with lateness are responsible for finding solutions. That doesn’t make it easy, though, and it doesn’t mean we will always succeed. I’m not about to argue that the rest of the world should bend over backwards to wait for us, or that we shouldn’t be expected to be on time to things. Far from it. Instead, my argument is simple: to those of you who are on the receiving end of an ADHD person’s tardiness, stop taking it personally. It’s not about you.

Now, a caveat: I fully realize that there are people in this world, ADHD or not, who are late because they just don’t really care about other people waiting for them. The world is full of insensitive and inconsiderate people in all areas of life. For the purposes of this article, though, I am specifically talking about people like myself — people who struggle with being late despite wanting to be on time, and making a monumental effort to do so. 

A favorite line of late-haters is “lateness is just a sign of disrespect.” I must really disrespect myself, then, because I have been late to many things that have no impact on anyone besides myself. I’ve missed buses, trains, and almost missed a plane. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to pay late fees for missing deadlines. I’ve missed job opportunities and made bad first impressions on dates or at interviews. I’ve had to sit outside for the first part of concerts because I arrived late, and the doors were closed until the applause break. And when my lateness does affect others, it affects me too, because of the crushing embarrassment and anxiety I feel.

My lateness is not from a lack of trying; it’s from trying and failing. People who are always on time take for granted that being on time is a skill. It requires the use of numerous executive functions, which, again, people take for granted. ADHD is, after all, a disorder of executive functioning. This is not just a personality trait, or a set of habits or behavioral preferences: brain imaging shows structural differences in the prefrontal cortex and other regions that manage working memory, attention, and task sequencing. Neurotransmitters like dopamine and norepinephrine, critical for motivation and focus, are also lower.

The other favorite line is “lateness is a choice.” The late-haters will say, “you can be on time to work, so clearly you are capable of being on time to things that are important to you. Therefore, my time is not important to you.” This is equivalent to the argument that focusing is a choice, with aggrieved parents or teachers telling their child “you can play video games for hours, so, obviously, you can focus. You’re just choosing not to focus on your schoolwork.” The flawed assumption here is that being in the grip of a hyper-stimulating external stimulus equates to a “choice.” Try pulling a child away from a computer game they’re sucked into, and see if they’re really choosing to focus, or if they’ve been taken captive by something more powerful than their will.

The reason ADHDers can be on time to a job interview is not necessarily because we make a conscious choice. A job interview and drinks with a friend are both important to us, but only one has stakes high enough to flood us with enough adrenaline to get our asses in gear. Anyone can run fast if they’re being chased by a tiger. High-stakes situations don’t prove ability; they prove that intense stress can temporarily compensate. Even that hasn’t always worked for me, and I’ve faced some truly painful consequences for being late to things that were critically important.

So, if I’m not late because of a flippant disregard for other people’s time, why exactly am I late? On the surface, the most obvious explanation is time blindness. The ADHD brain is extremely poor at estimating how much time things will take, and is barely conscious (if at all conscious) of the passage of time, or of approaching deadlines. I’ve been told that neurotypical people have some sort of “inner time sense” that allows them to at least have a rough feel for the passage of time. When I’m engrossed in something, or when I get distracted by something (which happens frequently), time stops. There’s no past, no future, only NOW. Then, suddenly, I realize 15 minutes have flown by. 

“That’s no excuse,” the reader may think. “If you have all these problems with awareness of time, just set alarms.” Yes, this a crucial intervention, but the best-laid plans go to waste. Let’s walk through an imaginary (yet embarrassingly true-to-life) scenario:

I have to be at work at 3:00, and it takes 30 minutes to get there. To be extra safe, I set my alarm for 2:00. My alarm rings, and I’m deep in a flow state, in the middle of writing something, and am on the verge of a creative breakthrough. I hit the snooze button – I can spare 10 more minutes; I gave myself so much extra padding. It only takes 30m to get there, after all. I wrap up the idea I was on, feeling satisfied that I had even finished before the alarm went off again. I grab my phone to turn off the alarm, but, to my horror, I realize that it’s 2:20. Somehow I had been so hyper-focused on my writing that I had turned off the alarm without even being conscious of it, and had completely lost track of time. 

I start getting my things together in a rush. “It’ll only take 5 minutes,” I think – I just have to grab my bass and my laptop, and — oh, shit! I completely forgot that I have to pack myself dinner. And I didn’t realize that my water bottle is still sitting in the sink, unwashed from yesterday. So, I quickly throw together a PBJ, wash & fill my water bottle – that only took a minute, right? Ok, just gotta grab my stuff and run out the door. I pick up my backpack, and – where the hell is my laptop? Oh yeah, it’s in the other room; I grab that and throw it in the bag. But wait, I need my charger – damn, where is that? I can’t find it. After another couple minutes of searching, I remember that I’d forgotten to plug my charger back in the previous night, and it was still sitting in my laptop case.

Okay. I’ve got my stuff all together now – that was only five minutes, right? Holy crap, that took 15 minutes! Now it’s 2:35, and I have to be there at 3. I run out the door, toss my stuff into the car, and — damn it, I forgot my bass. I’m literally on my way to teach bass lessons; how did I forget my bass?!

The discerning reader will now realize that lateness is a much bigger problem than time awareness. It is interconnected with all the other problems that come with ADHD — forgetfulness, disorganization, distractibility, memory lapses, and so on.

Can’t I just leave ample room for error, and plan on leaving absurdly early, so that when I run into all these potholes while imperfectly executing that plan, I’ll still end up being on time, or even early? In an ideal world, yes. But the ADHD life is one in which we are always behind on things. The to-do list is never-ending, and most of it is probably left over from the previous week, and the week before that, ad infinitum, like a ball of yarn that just keeps growing bigger and bigger. We aren’t exactly masters of efficiency. So, to a large degree, giving myself ample time to spare requires that the rest of my life isn’t in disarray. When I’m always playing catch-up, there simply isn’t that much time to spare. One can only spend liberally if one isn’t counting every penny. 

Time management, therefore, depends on “the rest of life” management. Leaving early enough depends on keeping track of time and properly estimating the amount of time you need, including leaving extra time as a margin of error. Actually being ready to leave on time depends on remembering everything you need to do to get ready, and completing those things in a timely manner (while resisting distractions), which depends on the rest of your life being organized enough that you aren’t scrambling for time. It also depends on remembering the things you need to take with you, and those things being where you expect them to be, which depends on having your physical space organized and building the habit of keeping things in their place. Once you’re ready, actually leaving depends on pulling yourself away from whatever task you’re deeply absorbed in, despite no felt sense of urgency, and the task you’re absorbed in feeling very urgent.

That covers at least ten executive functioning skills, including impulse control, organization, prioritization, planning, emotional regulation, working memory, and forethought. These are all things that are largely taken for granted by neurotypical people, because those parts of the brain function properly.

All that being considered, I’m glad to say that at this point in my life, in my…early late thirties, I am quite consistently on time (or even early!) to work and other time-sensitive obligations. Most of the time, I’m on time to social events, too. I was even early the last time I got together with my most punctual friend. (Amusingly, he was late, because he was so used to me being late to things, he had planned on arriving late.)

How have I accomplished this? My first step was giving up. I completely abandoned trying to ever be truly “on time” to things, and instead started to plan on arriving early, despite my extreme resistance to doing so. I had to accept that I am incapable of whatever executive functioning magic is required to hit the precise target of being on time, and instead shoot for a wider target. I don’t mean that I’m trying to leave 15 minutes earlier than the real departure time in order to arrive on time; I mean that I’m trying to actually arrive 15 minutes early. Somehow that makes a difference. Tellingly, when executing this intention, I don’t seem to ever truly arrive 15 minutes early, but more like 5 minutes early. 

However, this is only possible because of other areas I’ve improved. A few years ago, I began creating the habit of making a daily schedule first thing in the morning (again, despite extreme resistance, due to my hatred of schedules and routines). I have found it necessary to plan my whole day, not just the parts of my day where I need to leave for things. Otherwise, I will find myself at the time when I need to get ready to leave for something, and realize that I haven’t gone to the gym yet, haven’t showered, haven’t eaten anything, or haven’t done some other important and time-sensitive task. Even if I only have one time-bound obligation in a given day (which is rare), I have learned that I can’t trust myself to get everything else done beforehand by just going with the flow, because my brain just lacks the ability to remain conscious of the passage of time, to have a felt sense of how soon the event will arrive, or to remember the various things I need to do beforehand, in what order, and how long they will take. 

While I’m planning my schedule, I also write a list of all the things I need to bring with me to each of my events. Even for things I’ve been doing for years, like going to work to teach lessons, I still write out all the things I need to bring (e.g. my bass, a sandwich, water bottle, laptop). I have learned to not trust myself to remember these things in the moment. 

“Great, problem solved,” the reader may think. But leaving early and planning my day, while they are the most obvious solutions, still depend on improvements in other areas. Once my day is scheduled, I have to actually follow the schedule, which requires constantly wrangling my innate desire to improvise, to be spontaneous, to follow rabbit-holes and sidetracks, and to be flexible and fluid with how I navigate time. Most critically, it requires maintaining an awareness of time, which I accomplish by use of visual timers and alarms (and not relying on my phone for these things, in order to avoid temptation). 

And finally, where the rubber meets the road: when my alarm goes off, I have to actually listen to it. Initiating tasks, or switching from one task to another, are — you guessed it — executive functions, and can feel like trying to drive a car in the snow with faulty brakes. ADHD brains often exist in a state of inertia or “stuck-ness.” Without sufficient stimulation, it’s exceptionally difficult to start doing things we aren’t already doing, and then once we’ve gained momentum on something, it’s exceptionally difficult to stop. Imagine the feeling of being engrossed in a suspenseful TV thriller, at the most climactic scene, and you hear a faint voice in the distance telling you that you need to take the garbage out. Not when the movie is over; not even when the scene is over, but right now. Now, imagine having to fight through that feeling every time you need to switch from one task to another, especially from an interesting task to a less interesting one.

While I’ve gotten very good at setting up all of these structures — schedules, timers, alarms, and lists — it’s this internal battle that I still struggle with, of just getting myself into gear. I’ve gotten much better with consistent practice, especially thanks to my mindfulness training, but it still always feels like swimming against the current. It’s like a state of hypnosis, where I’m stunned into immobility, my sense of self flickering in and out of consciousness, only coming back online when the spell has been broken. I can offer a ray of hope, though: I’ve discovered that the thought of switching gears is often much worse than actually doing it. It’s just a matter of convincing myself of this with repeated reinforcement. 

All in all, I have largely conquered the dragon of lateness, but not because I started caring more or trying harder. I “tried harder” for years, to little avail. Instead, my success is due to the rest of my life being more in order, and my ADHD symptoms as a whole being more under control, all of which has taken years of practice and habituation. And, to be honest, while I would like to take credit for all of these changes, I can’t deny the correlation of my improved punctuality, and other symptoms, with having started medication. 

So, I urge the reader to keep in mind: when someone in your life with ADHD is chronically late to things, despite intending to be on time, they aren’t just fighting the battle of time management; they are fighting the whole war of having ADHD. Understanding this doesn’t mean accepting lateness; it simply means not assuming ill intent where there is none. If you’re punctual and are frustrated with the tardiness of an ADHDer in your life, perhaps instead of responding with anger and shame, try asking if they’d like advice or help. It may be surprisingly welcome.