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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Todark and Habo. I use them in combination and still forget things. But atleast the design is nice
none
TickTick has served me well for the past few years. I throw them some cash but I hear the free version doesn’t lack much.
Oh my god I have my entire life and my husband and kiddo’s entire life on TickTick.
Every tiny thing I have to do during the day is planned out… I can’t even express how much I love that app.
I use a list program called any.do (synchs with my iphone and computer) as well as my google calendar. Any.do lets me keep multiple lists by category (and can share them with other people). It also creates grocery list that it sorts by category. Then I use evernote for all of my brain dump stuff and notepad for quickly jotting stuff down (like lists of names 😊).
Habitica for daily tasks (I like the RPG feel), gobin.tools for breaking down tasks into manageable increments, and the pomodoro app Focus To-Do to keep momentum. I use a paper calendar for appointments and dates and index cards to keep track of tasks that don’t have a specific date involved.
Goblin.tools is interesting! The chef tool will be a huge help!
Be wary of falling into the new tool new toy cycle. I have a huge problem of wanting to try new tools despite the current solution working absolutely fine.
I’m down to Ticktick for tasks and habits, and Obsidian for notes.
Am I the only one who feels like productivity/organization tools for ADHD people is like bicycles for blind kids? Like, “yeah I can see how a functional person could find this useful, but what the heck am I going to do with it?”
I hear you. They can be a time sink (bone apple tea?). For me, basic BuJo on paper has been the answer for years. Recently though, I’ve started to use Google Tasks and Calendar to push tasks at me more than the pull of paper and pen.
The only way I’m able to get anything done is by externalising my memory. I just make sure I have reminders on a smartwatch so that they forcibly are brought to my attention even if I’m away from my PC/phone.
How do you set reminders on your smartwatch?
Directly on the watch: timers, alarms. Via the watch: calendar events and the like whose notifications get picked up by the watch. Have to be proactive about blocking useless notifications though.
I have an Android phone and a galaxy watch 4, not sure how equivalents work on Apple.
I just have a dry-erase board for planning out my week at work and at home I fly by the seat of my pants and spend months attempting to form good habits
It took me 25 years just to start brushing my teeth once a day, no idea how long until I get it up to twice a day.
heard recently that people with ADHD can’t form habbits in the same way neurotypicals do, thats why we struggle with this shit so often!
I try to brush before bed, and when I shower. Thats like… 1.5 times daily (most days), i’m almost there :P
We can, but they are extremely limited. I’ve a habit of checking my keys, phone and wallet are in my pocket when I leave the house. I also have the habit of thinking, “I need to brush my teeth” in the mornings. Unfortunately, forming a habit of actually brushing my teeth is more than my brain can handle (hence the work around).
Medication helps a lot, with even minimal habit forming. It vastly accelerates it from 5-10 years, to maybe 6-12 months, for simple habits. I can lock in 1 a year now!
Medication unfortunately hasn’t really helped my habit forming much. I’m slowly working on it though.
It’s definitely helped a lot of my executive dysfunction, though it does have its drawbacks.
I do have days where I am more depressed than I ever have been, but only if I take it more than 3-4 times a week.
Even when medicated, it takes a long time, and a ridiculous amount of mental effort to lock them in. They are also still fragile as spun glass.
As for the depression I know it. I had 2 types. Burnout was the most obvious. I’m actually on half the medication dose I was on. It turned out I had gone over the hump, and my mind was overloading. The kickback from that caused a depressive state. Backing off put me back on the peak.
The 2nd was wile coyote like. I managed to reduce the stress I was under, by a mix of medication, cognitive, and behavioural changes. Without the stress however, my emotional lockdowns released. The depression was environmental, but I couldn’t even feel it, under the weight of stress. It was like wile coyote running off a cliff, all good until I stopped and looked. I’m still chipping away at it, but it still helps that I can feel it now. Before, it was still there and affecting me, but I wasn’t aware of it.
@nuttydepressor @cynar I’m struggling with my meds ATM too. If I take the full dose I’m functional but my anxiety is just silly. And the depression/moodiness has been bad recently, tho it was likely burnout from stress and full dose meds taken for work. It took me a while to realise it was the meds. Half dose today anyway.
Holy fuck I am not the only one.
I used to get sucked into finding new tools to help me be more productive, but keeping it simple and visible works for me.
I use Apple Reminders and leverage their smart tags to break tasks down by how long they’ll take, how much effort, and when they need to be done. I keep Reminders open on my iPad so I can always see it, and when I have 15 minutes to kill, I select a 15-minute or less task and knock it out. It works for me, and my whole family can add to it, so I never forget to do something.
Ditto! I keep my shopping list in Home Assistant, and always in Home Assistant. The rest of the notes go in Joplin.
I require apps that can sync (and at least work half-decent on mobile) and that are as little of a barrier as possible. Even then, forming a habit took a while.
Android user here.
Habits to track my habits and get reminders to do things. I’ve got things as simple as brushing my teeth in here and have them spread across multiple areas. You can set different goals such as every day, 3 times a week, etc.
Google keep for short reminders/quick access info. The search is good and it integrates with my Google home devices to add items to my lists such as my grocery list
Todoist for task management. I love that I can use natural language when creating a task. I keep both work and personal tasks in here and plan out my day every morning using task time estimates. I’ve got labels for 5, 15, 30 minutes and higher for estimates for how long a task will take. Helps when I’ve got 30 minutes between meetings and need to find something productive to do during that time.
Notion for notes. I jumped on the hype train and thus far have found I don’t use it to it’s full potential. I could probably get by with something simpler but I don’t want to migrate again (came from onenote)
Journey for journaling. I try to use it daily and include pictures if possible. This has really helped with my poor memory of past events. They will remind you of throwback entries which are always fun to go back and look at. I also record what I ate for the day (not tracking macros so this is good enough) and also things I’m grateful for here.
Google calendar for work and personal. Wife and I add each other to events which has helped immensely when juggling shared things, doctors appointments, kids events, and more.
Insight Timer for meditations. I try to meditate in the mornings and the premium features gives you access to some courses that I’ve found really great. It also has sleep meditations which don’t always work for me but come in handy on occasion.
Those are the big ones. Every year around Christmas when I take some time off work I try to evaluate my productivity tools and process, and so far these have all been what I’ve settled on
Question. I tried to do the habit tracking thing but found I was overwhelmed by spending so much time tracking various things that it just became unsustainable. Did you pick specific areas you wanted to address or do you just do everything? I still do medication, but that’s because I don’t want to accidentally overdose. Again.
I’ve also never been able to keep a journal to save my life. 2 days is about as far as I get. So kudos to you for all the strategies you have going here.
The habits app is super quick to update. Takes me 30 seconds when I plug in my phone for bed. I do try to pick something to focus on each week, but the nice thing about the app I use is you don’t have to do the things every day. Most of my goals are set to some number of times per week.
Hm, ok. Maybe I’ll give habit tracking another shot. Thanks!
I’d add MyTherapy to the mix. It’s designed for tracking medication. It can pester you into remembering your meds, as well as keep track of remaining supply.
I combine it with a timer cap on my medication. That way I can see if I’ve opened (and taken) it, or just thought about it.
I set my wife’s phone up with the MyTherapy app. I like (and she hate-likes) that it has its own notification rules separate from the built-in alarms, so her meds notifications are set to make noise every 5 minutes until she actively dismisses it (usually once she’s actually gotten around to taking what she needs to take). Doesn’t always work, but tends to work. I haven’t tried messing with the refill reminders; I should look into that for her.
How does stuff like that work, wont it require consistency from the user which is something people with adhd are bad at.
I use lists but the amount of times i literally fail to put everything on the list is ridiculous.
It requires less consistency I think. You have to set it up once. Then you have to input each time you get more meds to update your stock. That isn’t too often either but you need to be consistent in that.
In return you don’t need to remember by yourself when to get new meds. And you don’t need to remember all by yourself to take your meds everyday, maybe even multiple times a day.
Sounds like a good deal to me.
It’s quite good at pestering you, without being obnoxious about it. This means that you are less likely to dismiss it, rather than snooze it.
The reorder is automatic. Tell it at the beginning how many you have, and when to alert you. It does the rest. Once you refill, you tell it, and it stops pestering you.
It’s managed to strike the balance quite well.
If you haven’t tried it you should check out Sunsama. I have tried a lot of todo apps and have never found one that works for every situation and Sunsama kinda solves this through integrations. I really like that it connects to email and other calendars as well as apps like Trello and Jira and lets me track them all as cards and even automate what happens when I mark them done in Sunsama. It also supports tasks directly and I use those for a few recurring tasks that don’t fit anywhere else. ADHD wise it has been helpful with planning times for specific tasks and seeing how they fit into my combined calendars and get better at time estimating which I didn’t expect. I think it’s general “turn a week into a kanban board” concept took some getting used to but it has been really helpful for me as well. I anecdotally feel like I get more done and am less overwhelmed when I keep to the daily ceremonies that it has as well for what it’s worth.
This looks cool but $16/month is a steep price.
Brili
Google Calendar with a ton of notifications per event and goblin.tools to automatically break down tasks.
Same for me. Now that I know about goblin.tools, I will take over the world! Mu-ha-ha
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.
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