What Five Minutes Feels Like

The Reflection
This morning my husband said, “We’ve got an hour until we go.”
Not long after, it was: “Tara, you’ve got 30 minutes. Did you not notice the time?”

I did not.

Here’s the reality of ADHD time blindness; my brain does not naturally comprehend time. “Five minutes” isn’t something I can feel. Unless I stand still and literally count 300 seconds in my head, the number means almost nothing. Time is either now or not now.

The Insight
This is why daily life can feel like a trap. Feeding the baby feels timeless until suddenly the clock matters. What should be “one hour” disappears in what feels like a blink. A chore I put off because it seems enormous turns out to take six minutes once I finally start.

Meanwhile, people without time blindness move through the day with an internal clock that ticks reliably. They can sense 5 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour. My husband is one of those people — which makes his question fair. He can’t imagine not noticing time slip.

But for me? Time isn’t steady. It’s fog.

The Reality Check
That fog has real consequences:

• I sometimes freeze before appointments, unable to do anything else because I don’t trust myself not to lose track.

• I sometimes disappear into routines (like feeding the baby) and don’t notice the clock at all.

• And sometimes, despite my best systems, the gap between “we have an hour” and “we need to leave now” is a complete surprise.

It’s not about carelessness or disrespect. It’s about how my brain is wired.

The Support
Here’s what helps me survive in the fog:

• My tether: I wear my Apple Watch every day. It reduces phone distractions, but more than that, it grounds me in time. Without it, I feel genuinely lost.

• Task timing: I’ve clocked how long everyday things take. Dishwasher? 6 minutes. Vacuum? 9. Knowing this fights procrastination and makes “time math” less of a mystery.

• Medication: For me, ADHD meds make my brain feel more linear. They don’t magically let me feel time, but they help me hold a schedule instead of drifting. (Of course, today they hadn’t actually kicked in yet — classic.) I know meds aren’t for everyone, but for those who do use them, they can be a game-changer.

• Acceptance: I’ve stopped pretending I’m good with time. Naming the struggle — to myself and to the people around me — lowers shame and sets expectations.

Closing Note
If you don’t live with ADHD, this might sound impossible: how can someone not know what five minutes feels like? But that’s the reality. For us, time isn’t a straight line; it’s a guessing game.

And when we talk about it honestly, we make space for tools, compassion, and understanding. Because this isn’t laziness. It isn’t selfishness. It’s just how some of our brains process the world.

And that deserves grace — from others, and from ourselves.

Talk soon,
Tara
CEO of Chaos & Co.