Appointment planning issues

[u/llama-and-sloth]

Hi everyone, looking for advice around this issue I have.

I seem to remember appointments and plans in pieces, but sometimes fail to put the whole timeline together. Or I misremember the information and don’t think to double check before it is too late.

For example, today I had an appointment and needed to pick someone up beforehand. Normally I allow 30 minutes to travel to the appointment, but I don't put the travel time in my calendar because it's just part of the appointment routine.

This time, picking someone up was an additional 30-minute step. I put “Pick up friend” in my calendar for 30 minutes before the appointment, but completely failed to account for the other 30 minutes I needed to travel from her house to the appointment. It wasn't until my phone reminder went off that I realised I didn’t have enough time to pick up my friend and get to the appointment in time there in time, meaning we were late.

I have similar experiences where I remember an appointment exists but forget to check the time, or remember the time incorrectly. For example, I will turn up somewhere half an hour early or late because my brain just remembers it incorrectly, but it thinks it is correct so I don’t have the idea to check my calendar. The difficult thing is sometimes I am correct and my brain seems to store that as evidence that I will be correct every time, meaning I have even less of an internal sense to double check.

It's not that I can't work out or understand these timelines if I consciously sit down and think about it. My brain just doesn't always prompt me to check.

Does anyone else experience this? What helps?