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What are the best apps for managing ADHD?

There's a lot of to-do list apps, reminders, calendars etc out there advertised towards us to help us do things like break down large tasks into meaningful chunks and focus on what we need to do each day, but I want to hear from the community what do you guys think is the best so let's start a thread

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  • I've been using TickTick for a while now. It syncs with my Android phone and work computer pretty cleanly. It handles notifications, recurring tasks, skipping a task until the next time, habits tracked differently than tasks, etc. I don't use the premium stuff and it doesn't have ads in it. So, it's free for me.

    I've got a keyboard shortcut on my computer ,so I can quickly add new items on the fly. The entry has basic language parsing to pick out the date and things. I can just enter "every monday check the mail #life" and it'll set up and tag the task automatically.

    I'm working on finding good ways to make sure that I actually follow my to-do at work instead of latching on to the top item and getting lost on it for the whole day, but it's working for now.

  • I use the Microsoft 'To Do' app.

    On your phone, set it as a widget and put it on your home screen so it's the first thing you see when you unlock your phone.

    On your computer, set your browsers homepage as your To Do task list, so it's the first thing you see when you open your browser.

    Whenever you think of anything you need to do, just write it in, you'll be reminded of it constantly. Any appointments won't be forgotten, and you can set due dates for any task.

  • I use the following four apps to manage my chaos ✌️:

    • Workflowy - General archive and digital memory (Divided in Inbox, Several dossiers/projects, Other, and Archive. I dump everything in Inbox first and sort it when I can.)
    • Tasks.org - For its simple todo list widget. Mainly little things I have to do, sorted into 4 priorities by color (app does this automatically).
    • A calendar - I use a lot of recurring 'all day' events. (Like for getting notified I need to take out the trash on Wednesday)
    • Stock Android Clock/alarm - I have alarms set for a lot of daily recurring things. Like literally alarms for taking medication to alarms for reminding myself I have to go to sleep.

    Important things I often put in all several of the above 😊 I tend to swipe notifications away, but if 3 apps notify me, well it works. So garbage on Wednesday is a recurring weekly thing in calendar and alarm ⏰

    It's actually a pretty fast setup when you get used to it. But I do put things in at least one app immediately. If I wait, I forget.

    Workflowy is truly awesome imho. I put everything in there, even things like the address of my dentist. This way, I have only have one place I have to search for anything I need. It has a great search function. It's really handy that you can share text from anywhere with the app, which then throws it in the inbox. Sorting things is also very smooth, isn't necessary that often, and make me feel good when I do it. Very handy.

    I use all of the above in the most basic way. No tag systems or anything; I can't keep those systems up for longer than a couple of days. I only use simple basic, inbuild functions that I can perform quickly. Together they work very well for me.

    Hope this is helpful! Good luck! 👍🍀

  • Disclaimer: I am medicated. Using productivity apps is easier when you're medicated.

    Anyway, here's some apps that I use:

    • Mozilla Thunderbird: Emails, calendars, tasks and contacts in one place. Also the only functional fully offline calendar you can find on Windows. They are in the process of developing an Android version with the developer of K9-Mail. They're also finally getting to a UI update so it doesn't look like shit, which has previously been a dealbreaker for a lot of people.
    • Tasks.org: Simple tasks app I use exclusively as a shopping list. It works. That's about it.
    • Loop Habit Tracker: Habit tracker I use for my daily/weekly routines. Very simple.
67 comments