Be mindful of Mode Switching

Many people think that hyperactive people (or “those with ADHD”) just can’t keep their attention anywhere. They think our attention is always divided, or we have an attention span of 1 millisecond, and that’s what causes us to be messy and to jump all over the place. (Both mentally and physically, sometimes.)

For a while now, I’ve felt that this isn’t true. I can actually focus much better than those around me. When something has my attention, it has my full attention. I feel no need to check my phone or multitask, even if the task I’m doing is considered easy, routine or not-that-interesting. Despite being clearly the most hyperactive person in most groups, I am the most focused and least distracted.

In fact, as I grew up, I’ve subconsciously simplified my life to the point that I am basically never multitasking. I wake up, I work for a few hours on the exact same task of my to-do list, and all of that has my full attention. It’s one of the reasons I can be so productive and create multiple books, games and more per year. (I don’t actually work that many hours a day and I regularly go outside and exercise.)

So what’s the deal? What does hyperactivity actually mean? Why is it called an attention deficit disorder?

Recently, I stumbled upon more and more people stating the same thing (in articles, books, Reddit posts, everywhere), confirming my thoughts. And they gave it a nice word: Mode Switching.

What does it mean?

Every time you switch to a different task, your brain (and maybe body) has to “switch modes”.

• Previously, you were been doing some calculations, but now you switch to typing some words.
• Previously, you were programming, and now you switch to drawing something.
• Previously, you were thinking about dinner and the exact steps/ingredients you need for cooking, and now you’re thinking about how to fix that broken leg of your chair.
• Previously, you were in “talk to friend” mode, and now you’re in “cycling back home” mode.

What ADHD really means

And here’s the deal.

Hyperactive people have much more trouble switching modes than neurotypical people.

Because hyperactive people do everything with their full attention. If anything distracts them, if anything forces them to switch modes, they’ll have a really hard time doing it. They have to completely let go of that hyperfocus on the previous task, then enter a new hyperfocus on the new task.

And so, if you manage to switch, it’s now impossible to go back. You’ve completely forgotten the task you were doing before and can’t get back into it. Sound familiar, anyone?

I think this is the best explanation to give people who don’t struggle with this.

Neurotypical people can simply switch modes more easily. When they do something, they don’t do it with a hyperfocus, which makes it easier to switch to other things, and potentially switch back later.

It also explains why hyperactive people are generally more perfectionist and have a much higher attention to detail. They’re literally doing every task as if their life depends on it, hyperfocusing on that and nothing else, which obviously brings out more details and flaws in what you do.

Many times in my life, I received the positive comment about my “attention to detail”. This comes from parents, teachers, employers, anyone. And any time I heard it, I was like “What? I didn’t pay any attention to detail!”

It’s such an automatic thing for hyperactive people to be more focused and see more details, that we don’t even know we’re doing it. It took me a while to realize that other people are simply doing tasks with less of a focus and missing all the things I’d automatically see or fix. What’s just an “issue” to me, is an “invisible detail” to them.

In some cases, my automatic mode is better. And in some cases, the neurotypical one is better. (Perfectionism is a huge trap, most issues are not actually an issue and you’re just hyperfocusing on it, etcetera. At the same time, adding more detail and fixing more issues with every project you do is generally going to make it better, of course.)

What’s the takeaway?

Hyperactive people are actually much better at focusing on something and keeping their attention undivided. The issue is that this complicates switching modes, and that every distraction demands their full attention too. It’s hard to get into a specific mode, and it’s hard to get out of it. Which means, if you’re not aware of this, you’ll often catch yourself floating between modes, which is the state of being that will allow you to be distracted by everything and accomplish nothing.

Macro & Micro

All of this is true both at a micro scale and macro scale.

With micro scale, I mean tiny little everyday distractions. Like someone calling your name, the doorbell ringing, a bird landing on your windowsill, an ambulance siren in the distance. I either don’t get the distraction at all (because I’m so focused on what I’m doing), or it distracts me permanently (I immediately forget what I was doing and now I’m staring at that bird and giving him a name).

With macro scale, I mean switching between projects (or habits/routine/lifestyle) on a scale of days, weeks or months.

For example, if I haven’t worked on a project for a few days or weeks, it feels impossible to ever pick it back up again. It’s silly, but that’s how my brain functions. That’s why I am in the habit of doing “something every day”, instead of working during the week and then taking the weekend off. Because taking the weekend off means switching modes (to relaxation, or some other hobby) … and that takes effort. And when Monday comes around, it takes even more effort to switch back.

Others around me have always said I “work too much” or “should relax, idiot”. But in reality, if you take it all together, I probably work as many hours as them. (Most have a pretty standard full-time job.) I just have to do it a little bit every day, because taking a day off means switching modes and I’d rather never do that.

For that same reason, I don’t go on holiday, and I don’t feel any urge to do so. Because I know that it will take many days before I am in the “relax and enjoy the sun mood”. When I am finally in that other mode, holiday will already be over! And then it becomes impossible to switch back to working.

The Takeaway Lessons

Over the past few years, you can see my productivity has skyrocketed. I wrote way more books, made way more games (both board games and video games), released some albums, etcetera. I didn’t actually start working unhumanly many hours, or take drugs, or whatever :p I just became aware of mode switching. First subconsciously, now consciously.

I stopped filling my days with multiple projects, like “write a chapter in the morning” and then “draw images for that game in the afternoon”. Yes, the variety is nice. But that switch is too hard to make for a hyperactive person like me. Instead, I generally assign projects to weeks now.

• I’ll be writing for a week.
• Then designing games for the next week.
• Then writing again the week after that.

Crucially, this isn’t necessarily the same project or the same task (on a micro scale). Sometimes, I’ll be writing different books in that one week. It’s not ideal, but life isn’t ideal! Sometimes you just feel more motivation for something else. Sometimes you have better ideas for that other thing. Sometimes you get interrupted and decide to do a smaller task on a different project.

The important part is that the general, overall mode doesn’t switch. When I’m writing, I am writing for at least a week or multiple weeks. My brain is in the “make up stories” and “type nice sentences” mode. I refuse to switch to something else, as it’s too hard and will probably just freeze me. Yes, that book still needs nice cover art, and yes, I could draw that now. But drawing mode messes with writing mode, so I don’t.

Similarly, as I write this, I just came off a “game week”. I made, worked on, and finished multiple board games. I purposely batched them like this, because it made it far easier. My mind was already in the right mode after game 1, which made it easier to create game 2–5 in the same flow. Then, when the week is done, I want variety and thus next week is “writing week” again.

You have little control over the micro distractions. Life happens, the world changes every day, people will interfere with your life (and that’s a good thing). So control the macro distractions by refusing to switch modes if you can help it (for longer periods of time.)

• Assign longer periods (weeks work best for me; days are too short, months are too long) to the same general task or activity.
• Batch similar or related work together in that time. (Instead of “write book -> edit -> write next book”, I usually do “write 3 books -> edit 3 books -> etcetera”. So I can batch the writing phase. And then, some time later, I can batch the editing phase. Keeping my mind in the same general mode for a longer time.)
• If you do this, you should get enough variety to not make it too boring or demotivating, without having so much variety that you freeze and you can’t get anything done.

The biggest danger is really the freezing. When presented with too many things to focus on, and you can’t satisfiably enter that hyperfocus state, the typical hyperactive person will FREEZE. Nothing makes sense anymore. Can’t think. Can’t do. Can’t make decision. Have to sit in chair and be unresponsive.

Obviously not a fun state for you or anyone else. And thus I really try to avoid it with techniques like this.

• When I know that this week is “writing only”, all other options and other things that could get my focus disappear. I know I can cast them aside; I don’t even need to consider them in my process.
• I sort all my tasks or ideas in some way. (Usually by simplicity, but this can be anything really. Alphabetically. Color scheme. Whatever, as long as it’s sorted.) This way, there’s always a clear first project on the list. There’s always a clear A needs my attention before B needs it.
  • It’s silly how effective this is—and how I lived for so many years not sorting my ideas/notes.
  • No, with “sorting” I don’t mean “categorizing”. It must be a ranked list with a clear first, second, third priority, and so forth.
  • This list can change, of course. And you can realize your previous order was shit. But for the most part, if you do this a lot, you become good at estimating the simplicity and potential of ideas, and have an easy list to stick to.
• Still I have to tell myself many times to “just do anything” or to “just do that first thing on your sorted list”. All these good habits help get rid of the freeze 99% of the time, but not always. And then it’s just about either letting it happen and taking the day off, or being strong enough to talk yourself into focusing on something.
  • I like switching to manual labor. Which sounds weird, but hear me out. When I freeze, there are always simple chores or tasks that I can do with my hands, and I just do one of those. Sometimes I have 5 board games that I still need to cut into cards. So when I freeze, unable to focus on anything properly, I’ll just spend the rest of the day cutting all that.
  • Sometimes it’s just household chores. Sometimes it’s my company’s administration / taxes, which always has some tedious thing that needs to be done anyway. But I really prefer physical activities.

Conclusion

Those were my thoughts and my tips for anybody who might lean close to hyperactivity.

• Recognize you have the power to hyperfocus and give anything undivided attention.
• Recognize this makes switching modes (or just switching focus) absolutely terrible for you.
• So batch your tasks into the same mode for a longer period of time, both on the micro and macro scale. (Though the first is less important and often hard to control.) Anything that requires you to switch modes is just not done and immediately ignored as an option.
• If overwhelmed or unable to focus/make decisions, sort things by whatever metric is easy and creates a clear first priority.
• If all else fails, be strong enough to tell yourself “just do anything” or “just make a decision”, where the actual thing you end up doing can be as useless as a made-up manual task.

There’s a precarious balance here. I know many people have great success taking medicine for ADHD. I also know that they often report becoming less creative and less lively.

This hyperfocus gives our life color, gives our brain surprising details and connections, makes us see things and feel things others aren’t even aware of. And we can use that to create truly unique creative products, because we saw that detail of the world that nobody else saw. Because we hyperfocused on getting this experimental story idea just right.

It’s one of the reasons I refused those medicine (multiple times): I am willing to suffer a bit of freeze or haste in my head, to get all this creativity and wonderful works in return. I wouldn’t be able to make all I make, often on my own and in short time frames, if my brain didn’t work like that.

But, as this article (and others of mine) illustrates, there are many traps and curses here. It can often feel like your life would’ve been much easier if you just had a neurotypical brain. Sometimes I look with envy at people who can just take the weekend off, or drop that personal project for a month and then slide back into it with ease when their full-time job demands less of them.

Hopefully, my tips or explanations can help someone understand themselves a little better and navigate this type of brain/body better.

That’s it for today, and yes, I really need better endings to articles like these,

Tiamo