How Overestimating Time Supports ADHD Brains
For ADHDers, time can feel slippery. We underestimate how long things take, over-commit, or avoid starting altogether. Shelby, ADHD business coach and copywriter, offers a smart and flexible workaround: overestimate instead.
Shelby learned this strategy from her father, also an ADHD business owner, and it’s since become a cornerstone of how she manages projects, client work, and big ideas.
“You take every task, break it down into the tiniest steps, estimate the time — then add 10% to each step, and 10% again to the total. It gives you freedom instead of panic.”
— Shelby Dennis, ADHDifference
This deceptively simple system helps ADHDers move from overwhelm to action, reduces time-blindness stress, and creates momentum through clarity and control.
Why This Strategy Works
ADHD brains often struggle with time estimation, working memory, and executive function. We dive into tasks with optimism but crash when things take longer than expected. This leads to shame spirals, missed deadlines, and that dreaded “I should have known better” feeling.
This time-padding approach solves that by:
- Creating space for unpredictability like boredom, distractions, or sudden pivots
- Helping you see progress with small, measurable tasks
- Turning huge projects into achievable plans
It’s not about micro-managing yourself. It’s about giving your brain the visual, structured roadmap it craves and adding breathing room for real life.
How to Use This Strategy
This method works for creative projects, client work, course building, content creation, or even home admin tasks. Here’s how to do it:
- List every single step: Break the project down smaller than you think you need to. Even “email the client” might involve finding the contact, re-reading notes, writing, editing, and sending.
- Assign a time to each mini task: Be honest, even if it’s “5 mins.”
- Add 10% to each item.
- Total it up, then add 10% again.
- Slot the steps into your calendar based on when your energy is likely to be productive for the task.
- Adjust as you go. This isn’t rigid. It’s a living system that flexes with your brain.
Bonus: When new tasks or ideas come up, you can plug them into the system without blowing everything up. That helps prevent overload and gives you a realistic picture of your capacity.
The Science Behind It
ADHD is linked to time blindness and underdeveloped time perception networks in the brain. These networks rely heavily on the prefrontal cortex, which is often underactive in ADHD especially under stress or boredom.1
By breaking things down and padding time:
- You support working memory by reducing cognitive load
- You create dopamine-rich wins by completing steps
- You pre-empt procrastination by making tasks feel smaller and more doable
It also reduces decision fatigue, because your next action is already planned.
💬 Final Thought
For Shelby, this system isn’t just about business. It’s about self-trust.
When you break things down, pad your time, and build in flexibility, you stop setting yourself up for failure — and start designing success that fits you.
This strategy respects the realities of ADHD, while creating space for creativity, sustainability, and satisfaction.
Because when you stop trying to be neurotypical, and start working with your brain, everything starts to flow.
🎧 Listen to the full episode S2E9 here 🎧
REFERENCES:
- Pütz, B., Klasen, M., Zvyagintsev, M., König, P., & Mathiak, K. (2021). Time perception is a focal symptom of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in adults.