|| First published: | Last edited: || 📚🕒 Reading Time: 3 minutes What is waiting mode?
Waiting mode is a psychological state characterized by heightened anticipation or anxiety while awaiting a specific outcome or event.
In the neurodivergent, especially ADHD community it usually means the period before an event that needs focus or attention spent in a sort of paralysing waiting mode, not being able to do little else until the event is over.
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What does waiting mode look like?
One can wander or sit around aimlessly, half-heartedly trying to do other tasks. Maybe they’re making attempts to gear up to or prepare for the event, but from the outside, it most commonly looks like procrastinating or impatience.
What does waiting mode feel like?
It is very stressful, and the anticipation is not an exciting one. The looming event (phone call, meeting, doctor’s appointment) on the horizon demands so much focus or attention that until it’s over, it seems impossible to do anything else. This type of concentration can also result in irritability and impatience, as we’d rather just be over with the thing so it’s not draining our energy so much.
Why does waiting mode exist?
There is no consensus on what makes waiting mode happen, as it is not a clinical definition.
However, it seems that waiting mode and the paralysis that comes with it are not caused by a lack of focus, wandering minds or impatience.
Quite the opposite: it is a way to make sure that our resources and attention are not depleted before the event, and we can focus on doing it when the time comes.
Waiting mode as a coping mechanism
Waiting mode can be a coping adaptation for time blindness: the person is trying hard not to be late by starting a task and losing themselves in it. To avoid this, unconsciously or consciously they cannot do anything else before being through with the “Main Event” of the day.
Waiting mode as a time to decompress before an event
Waiting mode can also be a form of transitioning and helping yourself through the context switch that’s about to happen — not distracting yourself with anything else, conserving your mental energy to be able to focus on the task.
How to support yourself during waiting mode?
1. Don’t expect yourself to do important things before an event
To support yourself around waiting mode, you can factor in time to adjust, and not book too many things before events you know will make you enter waiting mode. Just leave that space open so you don’t stress about not being able to do everything. Yes, in theory, you might have “5 free hours” before the thing, but those hours are not truly free: they are spent getting mentally ready to do the event.
2. Give yourself optional tasks only
For example, having a dentist appointment at 3 pm might mean that you shouldn’t schedule anything important on the day before that, have a list of optional tasks that you can progress with if you can, but if not, that’s also fine.
3. Batch-schedule similar events close to each other
Leaving mornings or afternoons open doesn’t work for everyone, so you can also try the opposite. If it doesn’t cause you additional stress from context switching, having similar types of events close to each other instead of evenly spaced out with too much time between them can also help, as there are fewer gaps and you can “get it over with” sooner.
4. Use your timers
While waiting mode often happens to avoid being late, it does not mean that we’ll be on time. 🙂
For many ADHDers, alerts, alarms and timers before an event can help a lot.
If you have a 1-hour travel time for an event, you could set up alerts like this.
- 2 hours before to let you know to start rounding up whatever you’re doing
- 90 minutes before to remind you to start getting ready to leave
- 85 minutes before to remind you again that you now should be getting ready to leave
- 65 minutes before that you should be fairly close to leaving now
- 60 minutes before that you should be out the door now
Of course, this is just an example, adjust the timings and milestones based on your preferences, how much time you need to do things, and what works for you.
5. Block out time to rest after
Being in waiting mode can be very exhausting, and often people don’t notice how exhausting it’s been until the event they’ve been waiting for is over and then they deflate. Factoring time in for decompression after a day spent in waiting mode can be helpful.
Related terms
time blindness
Time blindness is when it’s tough to grasp the passing of time. It usually means you under- or overestimate the time a project will take. It makes it tricky to manage schedules, deadlines, and …
ADHD paralysis
ADHD paralysis is a form of executive dysfunction.
It refers to the difficulty in initiating, continuing, or completing tasks, even when the person understands the urgency and importance, and also …
