Waiting mode sucks and has made me feel horribly guilty and pretty useless in the past. After getting diagnosed, medicated, and coming to see it as a symptom of ADHD I could finally start reliably tackling it and not having to deal with it anymore. Here’s some insight to how I approach it in my life.
timestamps:
00:00 – Intro
00:25 – What is waiting mode?
Waiting mode is your brain’s way of making sure you don’t forget about a responsibility because it doesn’t have external triggers to rely upon for the behaviour. Your brain is hyper-fixating so your inherent time-blindness doesn’t result in the consequences of you not doing something time-sensitive.
01:38 – Why is waiting mode actually helpful? (What is waiting mode for?)
Your brain knows you better than you like to admit so it has decided the stakes are high for not getting distracted from your responsibility so it hijacks your attention all day.
02:14 – Why is waiting mode so exhausting?
Us folk with ADHD have difficulty focusing (keeping one thought in our heads at a time) so to maintain the singular important thought of the task/responsibility is to focus all day. When anyone focuses they burn calories (have you heard about chess players burning up to 7000 calories during tournaments) and with ADHD it’s ‘running uphill’ because of our inherent high distractibility.
02:58 – How do you fix waiting mode (understanding alarm solutions)?
You need external and reliable triggers for your responsibilities. Physical notes aren’t disruptive enough. Depending on other people as triggers for your behaviour isn’t as reliable or sustainable as my techniques from my experience.
04:20 – Extra Alarm Tips
1. Make your alarms very loud
2. Change tone for increased disruption
3. Have good titles for alarms
4. Make sure the alarm is formulated in regards to your actions regarding your responsibility, not the responsibility/event itself.
05:08 – ADHD Spideysense & Memory
Memory is overrated. Treat future you like the idiot they are.
05:44 – Undiagnosed ADHD
Medication can change your life. It increases ability to focus and also execute on the knowledge I share in this video. ADHD Paralysis.
06:23 – Stop remembering things.
07:03 – Executive Dysfunction tips
Future you is your room-mate.
07:50 – Executive Function tips
To-do scheduling and breaking down tasks.
08:48 – Extra attention regulation
90% + of your attention problems are best fixed by medication and environmental/structural support (that you can facilitate) but the last 10% can be increased actively through meditation. (Also balanced sleep and diet). Trataka meditation helps practice the muscle of letting unnecessary thoughts flow out of your mind.
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Wow, thanks for all the positive comments everyone ❤ This blew up unexpectedly all of a sudden. I'm grateful to have helped any of you and maybe this is the algorithm telling me to put my head down and make more of the videos that I wanted to make but didn't prioritise enough😅
I … don't think I have ADHD, but all this sounds ridiculously familiar 😅 I have never been able to put it into words though.
For example. My girlfriend will ask me: "Can you do X?" And I'll be reluctant and say: "… Well, I have to do Y." Knowing full well that Y is planned for 4 hours from now and X only takes 30mins. And then she'll point that out and I'll give in because I know she's right but then I don't speak to her for 30mins because I am trying to still remember Y while doing X. Then she'll interpret my silence as me being mad at her for making me do X and I'll eventually get mad because she keeps asking me if I'm mad while I'm trying to keep focused on Y and we'll get into a fight and I might even forget about Y, which leads to its own problems… I describe it now as if I've always known what was going on behind the scenes but it literally only clicked for me just now…
Finally got around to watching this. Will try 😊
Alarms don't work for me, I would get anxious about the alarm going off. My brain: "I'm not checking the time but aaaaaaaaaany second now my alarm could go off." Even if in reality it won't go off for another four hours. I've learned that the best thing is to preoccupy myself with something else. To make sure I'm busy with something that will, for the most part, take my focus off the waiting. Usually, it's something physical like cleaning my house, yard work, exercise, running an errand, etc.
I do all of this! Specially planning because future me works for past me. Past me is the boss. (I don't have adhd I'm autistic)
I have put this Video in my Watch later playlist and have just watched it a Year later.
I am an undiagnosed ADHD Person. I can relate to all these. And at point 4:40 I do have to set up alarms. I even have to write down the timeframes, to help me, otherwise I will get hyperfocused on what I am doing that day. I am starting to learn that I have to live with these, so I need to find external ways to cope with them. One thing, is, I know I didn't have adhd before. this happened to me after my fathers death, and Covid two months after. I was literally in my death bed with covid. I wonder if Covid messed up with my brain cells. Its sad. I want my own self back.
It took me months to find the energy and motivation to watch this video, and the time has come! Thank you for this good piece of advice! =D Now I just need to fight my laziness to even set these alarms… XD
Waiting mode usually destroys my weekends. I had no idea there was a term for this.
In my late teens before I got my first smartphone I always remembered all my appointments, no matter whether they were supposed to be next week or in 6 months.
I also noticed if I forgot the exact time. I didn't need a calendar.
When I got my smartphone, I always typed it in because I didn't need to think about notes I could forget. Ever since, I have relied on this calendar and couldn't remember anything.
If I set my self to waking up at around for example 6:00 and don't put an alarm, there is a chance I will wake up at that time or close to it.
The good thing for setting external reminders is that you get it off your mind, the bad thing is you will no longer function without it and underestimate your ability to do it yourself.
My waiting mode is something that also comes from not trusting myself to remember.
To my knowledge, I don't have ADHD, so it might be different for me, but I found that a lot of issues people name for specific conditions are actually present in other parts of the population too and not as specific as you might think. There is just a difference in how much it affects people, and diagnoses lead to people thinking all their problems come from that one thing.
You easily end up stigmatizing yourself. Limits are to be explored. Learning to trust yourself and let yourself learn other ways of action is important for being one with yourself.
Majority of us adhd dont Really want to fix, remove our horrible, terrible, awful, exhausting, impactfull traits. Itd comforting to belong to a family of sortd thst we can chat up, joke with, try the next mindfull trick or app. Just saying as the full on solution is right there past all the shared posts and i have yet to see more then a few out of sample of millions of people getting it. Gotta be they dont for whatever readons. I was a mere one month into aware and flipped my working memory to calm, steady, fluid normal with adding and upping a few dietary supplements i cant eat enough foods to give my brain to create dopamine. Sure i miss my worse adhd shit ss wss how i lived, managed but i am enjoying healthy at 6 months in. I get the appeal of shit thats shit as it is a normal?
I just let out an audible "Wooooow" after watching this. So relatable. Your advice is so innovative, clear, and digestible. The summary at the end REALLY helped. Thanks for doing this in the most ADHD-friendly way imaginable! Okay…off to do the work I've been putting off by watching this video. Probably the most productive procrastination ever! 🙂
Even setting an alarm, and removing any clocks from my view still doesn't quite work for me.
I end up just checking how close the alarm is getting to determine how much I should be worrying already.
excellent, concise and results focused. very well done.
Cool, cool so well presented.. thank you. Audhd, i recently flipped my adhd working memory to full normal (ltyrosine,theanine,omega3,mct oil, and few other simple factors) unbelievable but true. Anyway i guessed other asoects of my adhd might slide. Did, i missed a dr appt first ever as my autopilot to do nothing else til appointment failed to kick in..weird. i had to relearn to make it to the next like neyrotypical.
Waiting mode for me isn’t about not forgetting the thing coming up, it’s not being sure I will be able to complete any meaningful task within the space before that thing so I’m not quitting whatever I started in the meantime. Therefore I’d rather not start anything at all
"Meditation helps you in the process of dismissing thoughts"
I am very, very skilled at dismissing the thought of meditation.
this was so helpful and affirming. i’ve used this same alarm method for a few years but i need to try the tips you shared on writing down visible lists when it’s time to go. it was also nice seeing you use clear examples like you did with the detailed to do lists rather than just using the general lingo that’s in every other video. it’s obvious you put a lot of care and effort into making this. thanks for sharing!
2:17 I'm already fighting the urge to click away 😢
I saw this a few weeks ago and was like, eh, I don't get waiting mode anymore.
Then… shall we say the last few days I've rethought that 😅
Fab video, thank you. The insight as to what waiting mode is and the relationship between trigger, action, and consequence was enlightening.
I think we can often get ourselves into a mindset of "I should just be able to remember" but I love how you pointed out that this is a waste of our energy.
I've found self-compassion and curiosity really helpful in finding systems that work for me… I had a brainwave just now that I think we sometimes go "but I set an alarm and then didn't do the thing, what's wrong with me?!" When really a much more helpful thought would be "why didn't the alarm help me? What else do I need?"
Oh these are great advices, I'm going to start using them tomorrow 😀👍