Why time management is important, Or how I learned to stop worrying and love my ADHD

One of the things that really pisses me off is when parent groups argue that ADHD is a fake mental disorder.  Given that most of these groups are also of the anti-vaxxing and healing by prayer persuasion so I'd guess this belief probably comes also comes from a lack of research and education. I think the biggest issue is that people tend to think that ADHD's symptoms are exclusively limited to hyperactivity and attention problems, and that it's a mental illness exclusively diagnosed during childhood.  This is probably what has lead a disturbing number of people to think that ADHD is just a symptom of a hypochondriac culture that doesn't understand how to raise kids, and that medicating them all the time will turn them into drug addicts etc, etc. This completely ignores the hoops you have to jump through to show that you actually have ADHD and aren't selling your meds on the side, but that's besides the point. 

What I'm trying to get across here is that there is actually a lot of things about ADHD that the average person won't understand unless they actually HAVE it.  One of the more surprising ones is probably the fact that one of the more annoying symptoms of ADHD is Hyperfocus.   Hyperfocus is basically exactly what you think it is, and, in the right circumstances, it can be kind of awesome.  But while being able to zero in and focus solely on the task at hand can be useful, it can also be incredibly annoying if you don't have a lot of control over what you are actually focusing on, or how much time has passed while you are completing that task.  

Even if you're lucky and the thing you are so focused on is something you are actually supposed to be doing, there is always the chance that you will get so caught up in that task that you neglect something else that is equally important. When you also pair that with the fact that I have a disturbing tendency to even procrastinate on things I actually like to do, you can see how this can be a bit of a problem.  I've noticed that while planning everything to a T can help, being reliant on other people for rides can sometimes negate that. 

While it's not perfect, my solution has been to just plan everything in my life around being early. Granted it can be a little annoying to be sitting around for a couple of hours waiting for a class to start, but at the same time it seems to work for me.