You have an appointment at 3 PM.
It's 10 AM now. Five hours away. Plenty of time to do other things.
And yet... you can't.
Your brain has entered waiting mode. The appointment is sitting there, taking up all the space, blocking everything else. You can't start anything because you'll "have to stop soon." You can't focus because part of your mind is already at 3 PM.
So you wait. You scroll. You pace. You watch the clock.
Five hours of potential productivity, completely paralyzed by a single future event.
This is waiting mode. And it's one of the most frustrating ADHD experiences that nobody talks about.
It happens because ADHD brains struggle with time. The future doesn't feel real until it's imminent. So that 3 PM appointment doesn't feel like it's in five hours — it feels like it could be any minute now. Your brain can't gauge the distance.
Plus, there's the fear of forgetting. You've missed appointments before. You've lost track of time before. So now your brain compensates by hyper-focusing on the thing it can't miss. Which means nothing else gets attention.
It's exhausting. And it makes you feel lazy, even though you're actually working really hard — just at the wrong thing.
So what can you do?
First, set an alarm. Multiple alarms. Take the remembering off your brain and onto your phone. If the alarm will catch you, you don't need to keep watching.
Second, block the time. If you have a 3 PM appointment, your morning is not actually free. Your brain won't let it be. So don't fight it. Accept that waiting mode is real and plan for fewer things on appointment days.
Third, try "body doubling." Work alongside someone else, even virtually. External presence can sometimes break through the waiting paralysis.
And if none of that works? Be kind to yourself. Waiting mode is real. It's not laziness. It's your brain doing its best with a time-processing deficit.
Tomorrow won't have this appointment. Tomorrow might be different.
This is ADHD FM. Waiting mode is real. You're not wasting time on purpose.