An ADHD productivity tool for Arizona

Waiting mode isn't procrastination. To start a task, your brain needs to trust two things: that the task fits the time you have, and that something will reliably pull you out before you're late. ADHD undermines both — time blindness makes the “does it fit?” estimate unreliable, and shaky prospective memory makes “will I remember to stop?” feel like a gamble. So the brain plays it safe: it holds the upcoming event in working memory and watches the clock manually. That vigilance is the stuck feeling, and it consumes the same attention a real task would need. One 3pm appointment can quietly cost the whole day.

The team behind Unstuck is based in Phoenix. That matters for how the product was designed — it was built by someone who lives with ADHD and waiting mode — but it doesn't limit who it's for. Unstuck is a web app that connects to Google Calendar, so it works the same whether you're in Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff, or anywhere else. Remote workers juggling meetings across time zones, students moving between classes, and professionals with a packed calendar all hit the same problem: knowing what's safe to start in the gap they actually have.

1. 1. Gap detection. Reads your next 8 hours of Google Calendar events (read-only) and finds the open window before your next commitment — “1h 40m before your next class” — so the gap math is never yours to do, and it recomputes automatically when the calendar shifts.
2. 2. Safe-to-start scoring. Scores each task against that gap — Safe to Start, Pausable, or Risky. It weighs interruption cost, not just duration: a short errand in a big gap is safe, while a deep-focus task in a tight gap is risky even if the minutes technically fit. That answers the question the brain is stuck on — what can I start right now without regretting it?
3. 3. Hard-stop alerts. Fires a persistent notification at T-15 (wrap up) and T-5 (move) before your event. The two-stage countdown is deliberate: a single abrupt alarm demands an instant context switch, which ADHD brains learn to ignore; a staged one lets you unload gradually. Once the brain trusts the alerts, it can release the clock and actually engage.

Full detail on the pattern is on the waiting mode page, and the Phoenix-specific writeup is on ADHD app Phoenix.

You can run a rough version of this with tools you already have. Before your gap: set two phone alarms — 15 minutes and 5 minutes before the commitment — and write the event and time on a sticky note where you'll be working (“4:30 pickup — alarms set”). The alarms do the interrupting; the note answers the anxious “was there something?” check without opening the calendar. If your day loosens up noticeably after trying that, waiting mode was the thing eating it.

The limits show up fast, though: you have to remember to set the alarms for every event, reset them whenever plans move, and still judge by feel which task fits the gap. Unstuck automates those exact steps, which is the difference between a trick you sometimes remember and a system you can trust.

Unstuck has a free tier with no credit card required. Setup takes about 2 minutes: connect your Google Calendar (read-only, never edited) and Unstuck starts detecting your gaps immediately.