Recently I feel like I’m working, sleeping, or waiting for work to start. I hate it, I can’t figure out how to break this waiting mode. Does anyone have any advise?
EDIT: That ADHD moment where you see loads of people have given great advice, but there’s so much it’s overwhelming! Thank you all, I’ll try and go through and implement what I can
You have to forcibly carve out time for yourself. Even if it's just an hour before bed or in the morning. Create some rituals you enjoy. Making a nice breakfast, maybe. Reading before bed, playing a game, drawing, making music. For me, I usually play/record music and/or work on a book project, chipping away little by little. It's nice to have those other things to look forward to.
I find it’s helpful to set alarms. So let’s say I work at 2PM. If I need an hour to get ready and make it to work on time I’ll set an alarm for 1PM. My brain then knows I don’t need to think or worry about getting ready until the alarm goes off and I’m much more productive with my time beforehand.
That’s how I feel when I’m not invested in my free time. When I have a video game that I’m trying to finish, or an activity planned after work, I jump into it and spend my time pretty well. (I don’t care what you think, I’m considering 5 hours of progress in Final Fantasy a good use of time.)
When there’s no plans, and nothing in particular that’s grabbed my interest, I kind of just sit and wait for something to happen.
Are you able to structure your day so that when you wake up you immediately go to work? That way when you finish work, you have the rest of the day to shift gears and more fully engage with any hobbies or other non work things that you want to pursue
This may not be sound advice, but I binge audiobooks a lot. An extra big lot in between hobbies. Pairs nicely with mindless productive activities, such as housekeeping.
Also get hobbies. Lot’s of them, so you can switch when/if you loose interest. Maybe write a poem about the daily grind and go from there? Really convey that hate. That usually ignites other impulses for me when all is shit. 💁♂️
To me waiting mode is caused by not trusting myself to not loose track of time if I start doing something else. So I count back the time it will take me to be ready and in the right location and put a bunch of reminders/alarms.
For example, I need to be at the dentist at 4pm. I check Google maps on the time estimate for me to get there (I even put in the arrive time to account for traffic), then I add the time for me to be ready to leave, to park my car, to be there early, adding a bit of a buffer on every step. Then depending on what I want to do before the dentist I put in alarms. If I can stop any time I put an alarm for the time I need to get ready. If I need a bit of a buffer to finish something I put one half an hour early and one at the time to get ready.
Adding some extra times to the estimate is good because we are notoriously bad at estimating times. You get better the more you do it
Once I started using alarms and timers my life got much better. I rely heavily on timers to convince myself to do chores. 20 minutes of cleaning or organizing my stuff is better then 0 minutes. And 20 minutes is digestable. And also for lazy fun stuff. I can set a 1 hour timer for video games or do a hobby or whatever and the time cut off keeps me focused.
Have other things to do. I’m studying my master’s degree so it’s helpful to fill it. Otherwise do the things you enjoy, but set a timer/alarm so you don’t have to think about going to work.
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