Is the inability to see “big picture” things a common adhd trait or just a “people are different” trait?

Example, ive never enjoyed jobs that involve long term planning because most of the managers etc have no clue how the actual work or the details of a project are done. They say they’ll “do x thing by y time” without knowing anything about it or the actual amount of work and expertise it would take.

Now im the one doing the detailed actual work. And I enjoy it because its real vs a bunch of people making a plan about something they dont even know how to do.

Same thing with “5 year plans”.I literally cannot do it because 1. All my plans involve “have money to do thing” and 2. You could easily get cancer and die in 5 years (or other big changes).

Now I do invest for long term (because its easy) but otherwise I find it very hard to look at big picture things without every single detail.

  • [deleted]@piefed.worldEnglish
    2·
    17 hours ago

    Pretty sure it is a people are different trait, although it is pretty easy to get distracted by the small details.

    I used to do the small detailed work which was great, and had managers that asked for estimates and ignored them and others than listened and used them, but of course estimates are estimates. Now I do project management and do my best to use the longest possible estimate, sometimes offering to add extra, because it is necessary to know when things are most likely to be done so something else that is dependent on it being done is ready. Barely anything actually meets exact deadlines of course, but planning ahead helps with keeping things from being so overwhelmed that they can’t be done.

    But I can’t do both the details and the big picture at the same time. One or the other on a particular day for personal stuff and one or the other for longer periods of time at work.

    Same thing with “5 year plans”. I literally cannot do it because 1. All my plans involve “have money to do thing” and 2. You could easily get cancer and die in 5 years (or other big changes).

    For me, any kind of long term planning is likely to be interrupted by the unexpected but if I don’t have something to work towards then I will just be stuck in a daily loop of ‘doing something tomorrow’ and then never doing anything because everything will get done ‘tomorrow’. I have just accepted that ADHD is going to reduce my productivity for necessary things and hobbies by few hours out of every day compared to the average person and work around that.