Remembering to track and manage time: how Rachael manages her ADHD with Timeular

āI tried everything and nothing worked. I even tried making my own terminal utilities.ā At Timeular weāve heard this one before: people desperate to find an accurate time tracking tool thatās easy to remember to use and will actually help improve time management.
Track your time is a great way to help you overcome ADHD procrastination and to improve your planning skills when you have ADHD. It was a frustration shared byĀ Rachael Dawn, a senior developer at a business intelligence firm.Ā
But sheās not just speculatively tracking her time – Rachael has clear goals: make sure she hits work deadlines, stay focused on impactful work, and keep on track writing her book about how sheās applying Stoicism and Taosim to better herself. She also uses it to keep her ADHD from interfering with these goals.
āIf I donāt have what I need in front of me, Iāll literally lose hours because Iāll struggle through without realizing it. If I donāt have a bottle in front of me, Iāll forget to drink.ā
What Rachaelās describing is object permanence – what isnāt seen isnāt remembered. Quite literally, when she was in deep work, if the software was hiding away in the background, sheād forget to track. And it was this need for a physical prompt to help her track time to hit her goals that led Rachael to discover Timeular and has led to minute-accurate time data that she habitually tracks each day.
Managing time with Timeular
Rachaelās day starts with a reflection of the previous day. āIām looking for how I did yesterday. Are there more grays than yellows?ā she asks, referring to the colors sheās assigned to deep work and distractions. āThen Iām looking at the day ahead – how do I feel? What am I expecting today?ā. Itās the discrepancy between perceived productivity and actual productivity that sheās able to spot in Timeular and, coupled with some additional context like sleep or nutrition insight, can help work out what needs doing to stay on track to meet her goals.
On a really good day she can optimize for 5 hours straight of deep work (compare that with the max. 15 minutes sheās able to focus at a time on a really bad day). Though with ADHD sheās also careful not to get too ingrained in a bout of hyperfocus (notifications help her with that).
And of course, everything is tracked to go through the same routine the following morning.
āI could never get time tracking to work effectively. Thatās changed now.ā Rachael now tells everyone she knows looking to improve themselves about Timeular – thanks Rachael š
If you too are struggling with object permanence, Rachael has another great tip – this time for getting things out of her head for later so sheās not distracted by them. āI have a ādistraction inboxā. When a thought crosses my mind, I write it down on a bit of paper and throw it in the inbox for laterā.
Ready to take control of your time?
Rachael uses the Tracker with the Timeular app. Get on top of your time management too – discover the physical time Tracker.