Discussions of ADD/ADHD (Attention Deficit Disorder/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) include the term “time blindness,” a remarkably resonant image. The idea is that adults and children have chronic difficulties engaging with and managing time spans and things related to them like sequencing activities, deadlines or organization. In an article about ADHD in the US News and World Report in July 2017, Ari Tuckman, a clinical psychologist, described two strategies people use to address the challenges that come with time blindness: “seeing time” and “feeling time.”
As someone who is very interested in the construction of time in different cultures and disciplines, it is interesting to see how this psychologist uses human temporal perception as a central component to designing practical strategies for people. Seeing time, in Tuckman’s approach, is using an analog clock, for example, so a person can chart the spatial expression of duration, of time “passing.” Feeling time for Tuckman is remembering and then projecting feelings the person has experienced when a deadline is almost passed or past, and using that as a deterrent to procrastinating. You can read the full article here. On Feb 5, 2017, the Washington Post carried a related article, available here.