Waiting Mode
State where an appointment later in the day renders all preceding hours useless. Specific manifestation of time blindness.
ADHDExecutive FunctionCognitive Processing
Layer 3: Recognised
Clinical Recognition
Not studied as 'waiting mode.' Related to time perception deficits and anticipatory anxiety in ADHD literature.
Community Validation
High recognition in ADHD communities. Near-universal 'oh my god, THIS' response. Validates experience previously dismissed as laziness.
Published
17 December 2025 by Team Heumans
Waiting Mode is when you have an appointment at 3 PM and your entire day before 3 PM becomes unusable. You can't start meaningful tasks. You can't focus. You can't relax. You're suspended in anxious limbo, watching the clock, unable to do anything productive or enjoyable until the appointment happens.
It's not about the appointment being important or stressful. It's that your brain has locked onto the future event and can't allocate attention to anything else. The day has a hard deadline, and your ADHD brain can't compute "you have 4 hours of usable time before you need to leave."