Do other Aspies work slowly physically?

Post Reply New Topic

I certainly do, it seems. Is this an Aspie thing? I sometimes think slowly, too (but other times can push myself into it at pressure time and work mentally fast).

Yes, some of us are slower at physical stuff. My hands are not very dexterous, so I can't do hand stuff like typing fast. I also tend to chew slow, and do physical tasks slower. I often think slower than NTs,--not think stupid,--just at a slower speed. This used to cause a lot of trouble when I played board games with relatives as a kid. All the other kids were thinking way ahead of me speed wise, and got frustrated at the time it took me to decide on a move. This happened all the time. I finally stopped playing with most of them because it wasn't worth the resentment and stress. Of course, that lead to me being thought somewhat withdrawn and anti social. I admit to being withdrawn,--who wouldn't be in that situation,--but not anti social. I am just non-social, to avoid dealing with the expectations of NTs. Expectations that I can't meet. This has made me a hermit, but I'd rather that than live with people and have us drive each other crazy.

I can't speed up my mind or my body, I even took a year of typing in school, and found that I'd never be a normally fast typist. At least I learned HOW to type. I wish I could speed up both to normal levels.

There is no cure for slowness, but in some things practice might help some, so you can give it a try.

Remember, we on the spectrum are all:

A Different Drummer

If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
Perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears,
However measured or far away.

--Henry David Thoreau

Yeah. My dad never liked me to work with him doing yard work because he said I was too slow.

I was known for being too slow when I used to put ads together with my ex at the newspaper shack. A place where people put the ads and articles together to take out to deliver to the homes. The real boss thought I was too slow an when I went fast, the newspaper piles were a mess. I was even slow at my job in Montana so I would pretend I was in a game show by working fast as I can folding linen. That helped. But then the piles be a mess.

But at my job I am known to be fast by my own boss. Maybe it's the type of job I have that makes it easy for me so I can go faster than the others.

Oh my goodness yes!! ! Slowness on my part contributed to me getting fired from my last job as an assistant caregiver. I've always been slow, both doing mental and physical work.

I don't work slowly, but I have to do everything very thoroughly and in detail, which makes my work rather inefficient and time consuming. I just can;t figure out what 'good enough' is supposed to be. Which makes me think that people are full of s**t when they tell you to 'do your best'. If I did my best I'd be polishing forks for 4 hours until they shone like quicksilver.

Friesland is cool, one of my favorite kingdoms of the middle ages (I love all the Low Countries).

Yes. I work slow. But I'm efficient and can usually get alot done. For example, at work this week we are removing trees next to a 34kv transmission line. My boss takes one side and climbs most of the trees, I take the other side and fell most of the trees. I spend more time analyzing each tree, but get more trees on the ground at the end of the day, with much less effort.

i can be fast and messy, or slow and neater. those are the only options open to me.

My boss said I worked far too slowly.

Used to be fast, now I'm kind of slow. No way I could do what I did at my other job with what I have today.

It depends on the task. If it's something I can sit down and focus on to the exclusion of everything else, I can work at a normal rate (or used to, anyway). I.e. soldering circuit boards. OTOH, if it involves going from place to place, with changing environments and having to remember lots of details, I'm screwed.

I'm really slow with anything practical and always have been.

Yeah I tend to get told I am too slow...so I guess there is no hope.

Actually, I don't live in (nor did I personally come from) Friesland. I have an all-Dutch ancestry and live in the U.S.A. (born here). The name is a bit of a joke.

It depends what the task is. If it's easy and repetitive, I can run around really quickly, and complete the task in no time. If it involves a lot of fiddly work, or is the type where it is important for the items to be thoroughly checked, then I tend to work slower (I think that can be true for everybody though, especially if you're cautious like me, or someone who's likely to miss things). I'm more slower than the average person when doing a task what involves too much interaction with customers.

When I did my volunteer job at a charity shop, I didn't like being on the till one little bit. OK, I may have got some experience dealing with customers, but it didn't really improve my social confidence, really. I just got more anxious by the minute. I was OK when I was down on the till with somebody else, but mostly I was left to it on my own, and that is a big responsibility. And I was so slow with the money, because I struggle with maths, and the till was quite an old-fashioned till, so it didn't add up what change to give, so I had to work it out myself in my head, which took a mighty long time. So I used a calculator, but in the end the customers got impatient with my keep fiddling about, so they told me the change (and NTs are supposed to be dumb at maths?)

I found it easier working upstairs in the stock room, where I was just sorting donations. I could do 5 or 6 full bags within 3 quarters of an hour, so I'm not very slow at that. Someone said before that I made them dizzy by whizzing around too much (they didn't mean it in a nasty way). I enjoyed sorting the toys best of all, but it is actually quite a difficult task to do, because you've got to check for safety bits, and make sure all the bits are there, and make sure things are working by testing them with special test batteries and pat-testers, and put all accessories what go with something into plastic bags then tape them onto the thing what they go with......it requires a lot of fiddling around and you need lots of equipment aswell. It wasn't as easy as it looks, although it is fun once you get going with it. I was quite slow with that, but that's only because I enjoyed it and so wanted to do it properly.

Same, but then I got fired.