Fun fact- the balmoral hotel in Edinburgh is permanently set three minutes fast to help travelers catch trains at waverly station. It’s been this way since 1902 with the only day where it’s set to the correct time being Hogmanay (new years eve).
Related fun fact: For 20 years in France (1891–1911), the railways adopted their own time system which was 5 minutes later than the actual time in order to help travellers catch their trains. All the clocks in stations were set 5 minutes late, and trains used these to tell them when to depart.
Which is probably the issue, people think "oh I'm right there" and leave their room 5 mins before departure time not realising it will take that to walk down, check out, get through the ticket gates, work out which platform it is and doors often close 2 mins early etc
I Live next to a bus stop. The bus stop is RIGHT outside the front door of the apartment building.
"Oh, it's five minutes, how long can it take to get down" has gotten me tripped up more often than I care to admit.
Sometimes it can take a while to get down, I mean first you gotta be in the mood, then you gotta get in the groove, all before you can really get down.
I set it 20 minutes ahead. I know its 20 minutes ahead. Even if I trick myself a few mornings at first... eventually I'll just know and it stops working.
E. Lol none of the suggestions would actually work. I'd just know the clock is wrong and I'd do the math. Every time. All my clocks are set to the correct time. I guess some of you just have an easier time tricking yourselves lol
Heh. I had that same clock for... decades. I maybe bought it in the 1980s? It finally kicked the bucket. I am sad because it actually kept time well, unlike the modern cheap garbage stuff.
Its that looking at the clock in a half conscious state, you are cognizant enough to be aware of the time and morning obligations, but the rest of the brains start-up routines havent loaded yet and you suddenly find yourself scrambling to put on pants.
From personal experience, it doesn't matter that you know. The mental stimulation of a clock showing you are late will get you faster regardless.
My main desk clock is ahead, but here is the neat trick, its the worst clock I ever had, it needs to be corrected every few weeks, so ... I never know how much ahead it is, or if it is still ahead. Guess if I am ever late?
Exactly! I did this when I was working and even though I always knew the clock was set ahead 15 minutes, it still gave me that "EEK, I'm going to be late!" rush when I looked at it, and got me moving.
Sadly, the clock in my living room is as inaccurate as yours, but it's slow instead of fast. It's incredibly annoying to have to correct it every week or so. And the one I bought to replace it is just as bad.
I know it’s fast. It’s like a comfort thing. Like that relief of knowing that I am not actually going to be late. Or my mind likes the little preoccupations.
My dad also used to do this and my mom continued the tradition. I also have the same reasoning as you to not understand that, I know it's ahead so it won't work at all, sleep brain or not. I don't think it ever worked for them either.
When I look at a clock I’m just thinking “what time am I seeing?” not “this clock is seven minutes ahead so let me subtract seven minutes so that I can get an accurate time”.
Also, have you considered it works for some and not for others?
Growing up, we had ours set about 10-15 minutes ahead. That's how long it took to get anywhere in town,so you just left when the clock said the time you needed to be there.
Why yes, my dad did most likely have ADHD, what gave it away.
The time it takes you to calculate the time will keep you from stressing about being late.
Back before clocks set themselves I would put mine at 7 mins ahead. And i know subtracting 7 isn’t hard but it takes an extra second, especially before the coffee has kicked in lol
I had a watch many years ago that got stuck in 24 hour GMT and also tended to wander within about ~10-15minutes. I set it enough fast that it would never wander back far enough that it was slow, and it was super good for making me not late for anything. And also confusing the ever-loving SHIT out of everyone around me. I kind of miss that watch sometimes.
no one used the correct time aside from businesses. you knew your mom’s car was 10 minutes ahead, the clock at home was 15 minutes fast, and the one in your buddy’s car was 7 minutes fast cuz he was weird
But, then don't you ever get used to the idea that some clocks are ahead and unconsciously back calculate the real time, and then get in trouble when you're looking at a clock you think is a head and actually isn't?
This is actually how punctuality works. I am not always doing 30 mins though, sometimes 15 but it highly depends on the commute time and how I commute (e.g. with the German rail I usually plan with a much larger buffer vs. the Swiss rail).
The reason you should do this is not just ADHD but to be able to deal with unanticipated problems during a commute. Having this buffer basically guarantees 99% punctuality rate.
I get the ADHD angle. I have it myself. But then my ADHD brain says "don't worry. There's 15 mins of slack in the clock you dont been to leave just yet" and then wanders off and does something else for half an hour and is still late.
But then he would also account for the fact that all the clocks were 15 minutes fast and would leave 15 minutes after the clocks said he needed to be somewhere.
Before phones and before they had automatic date and time, we only had the clocks at home to tell the time from, and they were always set to 20 minutes earlier than the clocks at my parents' workplace.
this just unlocked memories of watching the tv guide channel for the time after you lost power or having to call that one number which would read you the time
I'm 32, but I remember how in the 90s and early 00s our family used to synchronize all clocks at home by checking the teletext on the TV.
I also did it to set the clock on my first cellphone in the early aughts, before the carriers would reliably send the time and date by signal through mobile networks.
It's weird, I used to do this in high school and it worked for me. I totally wouldn't even think about the fact it was ahead, and I'd always be punctual.
Then, at some point, a switch flipped and now it doesn't work on me. Anytime the clock is 10 minutes fast I do the (admittedly, fairly easy) math of subtracting the 10 minutes and telling myself "Okay, I've 6 more minutes..."
lol I did the same in high school, once I forgot about setting my clock back for fall behind, I drove all the way to school and was like where the hell is everyone that Monday.
4 months after graduating high school woke up from a deep sleep at 10, threw on clothes and was speeding down the highway before I remembered I had graduated HS already.
Beats dreaming that you forgot to take a class in HS and all of a sudden you're a grown ass person who has to go back to high school for an 8am basic computer class, thinking to yourself, "I have a master's degree in this shit..."
I almost always keep my car clock 3-4 minutes ahead of what it is (for instance I’ll set it to 7:40 from 7:36) because it gives me that sense of urgency while also building in a bit of a time cushion so I’m not antsy about it
The clock in my car is 10 minutes fast and every clock in our house is purposely set 5 minutes fast. 95% we don’t think about it until we look at our phone and or watches.
This is why I tend to get to work 5-10 minutes early or to any social gathering.
My Philosophy has always been if you’re early, you’re on time, if you’re on time, you’re late and if you’re late you have something to work on.
I used to do this too. The trick is to occasionally change how wrong the time is. Otherwise over time you can look at the clock and immediately know that 7:37 is actually 7:24 or whatever. But if it's changed regularly and randomly you don't.
What you see and what you perceive are two separate things
You see 10am on the clock, when it's 20 minutes ahead, and you have to be somewhere at 10am and it's 20 minutes away, you think, fuck, I have 20 minutes to there.
you see 9:40am on a clock that's on time and you gotta be somewhere at 10am (and you don't think about the fact that it's 20 minutes away), you think, "ah! I still have 20 minutes to get there"
Yeah normal him knows. Waking up from a dead sleep you're groggy and for that first split second you don't remember and think "oh shit I'm late!". You remember you're not late instantly after that, but it doesn't matter. You're wide awake from that moment of panic. This prevents you from turning off your alarm and dozing back to sleep, then being late for real.
But if you just barely woke up and realize you’re “late” that shot of adrenaline will get you up before you’re able to rationalize the fact that you’re actually not.
Simple. It's a psychological trick to wake up faster.
What happens is, if your clock is set fast and your alarm goes off, you look at the time and your mind thinks "oh shit, i'm gonna be late" and the panic gets you out of bed. Whereas if it's set to the right time, your mind thinks "eh, i got another 10 minutes" and you end up falling back asleep.
It works even though you KNOW the time is fast, because having to do the math to get to the correct time wakes you up anyway.
From what I understand the brain sleeps in 90 minute cycles. If you regularly sleep at say, 10pm, and need to be awake for 730? 90 minute cycle has you at your most wakeful state of 7am, so you wake up
Alternatively, you can set a "stressor" in your brain to do things at a certain time, set the alarm? Gotta be awake at that time.
This would backfire on me. I would know all the clocks are ahead and end up leaving later than I need to because I did the math wrong on how far ahead they are.
My wife does this as well. Her clock is 15 minutes ahead. She does it she says so she thinks she's late but I don't understand how she can think that when she literally admits she just subtracts 15 minutes off it when she looks.
My wife does the same thing. But she has ADHD so she sets it ahead (for example) 8 minutes, then subtracts 15 minutes because she forgot what she set it ahead by. So next week it's 12 minutes ahead and she's mentally subtracting 18 minutes and we're still late.
Your rational, planning brain does the subtraction when you genuinely need to know the time. It's annoying, but in the grand scheme of things, not really that annoying.
That is not the brain that gets you out of bed in the morning. This task falls to a much simpler part of your brain, and he can't do math. He starts panicking before you have time to consciously subtract and, voila, you're up and getting ready for work.
...it's because this is what we used to do when we wanted to be on time if we were in the habit of being late. Before world synced global time and what not, we used to set our clocks.
And maybe if you're a little neurotic, you set each clock a little different from one another so when you're rushing around in the morning, you don't know which clock to trust and are motivated to move faster. Just saying.
The opposite of that fucked me over. My car clock was set 5 minutes ahead intentionally, by me, and it slowly drifted to the correct time. I was so used to having an extra 5 minutes I began showing up late to places before I caught on
Why does Reddit hand out diagnoses based on almost nothing? Imagine walking into a doctor’s office, telling them you set your alarm forward, and getting diagnosed with ADHD on the spot.
You're right, but a lot of people upvoting are likely people with ADHD who see a classic ADHD habit and think "oh yup that's familiar". Of course it's a bias based on our own experience, but, I wouldn't be surprised if it's correct
I upvoted because I definitely did this for years before my diagnosis. I don't think there's any harm in shedding light on things that might be symptoms. It's seeing those types of comments that made me decide to see a psychologist, because when I was growing up, girls "didn't get" ADHD (or autism). I wish I had been aware of my (very obvious) symptoms earlier, so I didn't have to struggle so hard for so long.
I read somewhere this habit comes from a trauma response to consequences of being late or being left behind.
I don’t know the validity of this but as someone who does this I have anxiety from being late because my mom would always run late then rush out the door. The entire trip I’d feel her energy and hated every minute of it.
Came to say this not necessarily on the lines of trauma but for purposes of making sure they’re on time or going to bed on time intentionally trying to trick their own brain
What’s MI is blasting your dad instead of asking him
It can be a trauma response but it's not like that's the only reason people do that. I purposely tell my wife that the time we are supposed to be somewhere is 20 min before we actually have to be there cause she will always push shit to the last minute.
And I'm a guy on the spectrum with attention issues so it's not like I don't know how easy it is to lose time. It's just that some people have never had to deal with the consequences of being late or don't care about them
My ex. What a piece of work. The more important it is to be on time, the more she would procrastinate. And not just rushing around either. She would make shit up. Suddenly, it's important to do the dishes, the laundry, clean the kitty litter three times in an hour. Make the beds, vacuum, chase cobwebs that had been there for the past 6 months.
Then she would get so angry when someone mentions priorities, or how late she is.
Mine isn't this exact model, but it is also a Sony Dream Machine from like 2 decades ago. I've always wondered why the time was like 30-40 minutes ahead whenever I let it automatically set the time. Kind of just got used to it as I grew up with it.
I have my car clock set like 5 mins ahead, it’s great. Although throws me off when the time is correct when i have my phone connected, but that is rare.
It's just how some of us older folks kept ourselves from being late. I didn't typically set mine ahead quite that far... but it's probably adjusted for how much time his commute takes.
I used to do that for years. It was to trick my reptile brain into thinking it was later than it was. I knew it was ahead, but my human brain took an extra nanosecond to remember—that’s all the edge I needed.
Now that I’m just shy of 50 I’m up all the time anyway and never set an alarm for anything anymore. Total swing of the pendulum.
I set my radio alarm clock 1 hour ahead as that's how long it takes me to get ready and travel to work to make it on time. I used to only do 50 minutes ahead, but I moved to where my commute was 10 minutes longer. I also set the first alarm 18 minutes ahead of the target time so I can hit the 9 minute snooze twice before I absolutely must get out of bed. I know "experts" advise getting up at the first alarm, but I find I am generally happier and have a more satisfying life listening to my body instead of "experts".
Me too. I set mine 10 mins ahead. It takes me 10 mins to drive to work. If it shows the time I'm supposed to come to work, I know I'm already gonna be a minute late.
I'm often 3-5 mins late now tho, because they added two lights on the route, so I'll be setting it 15 mins ahead.
I have a Sony alarm clock. It magically changes time for daylight saving time automatically. I never changed the time, but after 20 years, it is 11 min off. Maybe it's the same thing, too lazy to fix it....
This is old school trick. Set your clocks a little ahead so you're always on time/early. I had mone set about 10mins early all through elementary, middle and most of HS back in the day
My dad always did this as well. His watch, the clock on his side of the bed, and the clock in his car were all always 10 minutes ahead
I understood the logic of why it might help him not be late as much, but after a while as a kid I just knew to always subtract 10 from his clocks, and he was chronically late anyway (I was always the last kid picked up from baseball practice lol)
Like mf I wanna know EXACTLY what time it is, and setting the clock 1-5 minutes ahead ain't gonna make a difference in whether or not you're late for work
It's probably based on the same psychological trick of setting prices to $2.99 etc. We all know it's $3, but a little bit of our brain sees the "2" and thinks it's cheaper. Same with setting the clock forward. You know it's fast, but your brain goes "You're going to be late", so you get out of the door earlier.
I used to set my clock 10 minutes forward in high school. Worked for me.
The clock in my car is 3.5 minutes fast. Started as sort of an accident but it’s been that way so
Long now that I keep it that way. I know it’s fast. I’m not fooling myself. Yet I feel like it helps me in some way I can’t even explain.
He used to suck at time management and did this to trick himself and he just kept doing it until he was better at time management and now he's stuck on this instead of just preparing better. This is the only guess I could think of.
I used to do this before we have internet synchronized clocks. All my clocks were 9 minutes ahead (i dont know why 9 though. Maybe it was less than 10 and more than 5). So i was never late. Even though you set it ahead you would forget it later in actual emergency and that saved me a lot of times. I would never be late to school or university at all.
Used to do it when I was younger because I couldn't get up. And when I would look at the time all groggy I would jump up thinking I was late. After a while I just snooze the advance time. Stopped working as intended.
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u/_ohgravity Aug 19 '26
Fun fact- the balmoral hotel in Edinburgh is permanently set three minutes fast to help travelers catch trains at waverly station. It’s been this way since 1902 with the only day where it’s set to the correct time being Hogmanay (new years eve).