how to fix “waiting mode“ | ADHD Symptom Solutions

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.