Ask HN: I'm building to-do app for ADHD, what would you want in a ToDo app?
30 comments
I want something that keeps bugging me until the task is marked as done. And I want that something to verify that I provide some sort of proofs every time, like a screenshot or something.
Oh BTW maybe give my wife's voice to it.
Oh BTW maybe give my wife's voice to it.
Me too. I have no unread emails in my mailbox, no items on my desktop, and no unchecked notifications.
Adding a custom voice to instruct you on what to do is a great idea. Thank you for that.
Adding a custom voice to instruct you on what to do is a great idea. Thank you for that.
I don't want an ADHD todo list app. I want something that to help manage my emotions while completing tasks.
For me there are three major emotions that get in the way of task completion: excitement, boredom and anxiety.
Excitement is usually for some other task. I'm working on my tax return and I think about upgrading my washer/drying. Suddenly I'm researching all the different types, the best deal on one, the history of the washer/dryer. It might be a task on my to do list somewhere, but I was driven to do it by the excitement.
Anxiety is a tricky one. If I'm writing something like an email anxiety often gets the better of me. What if this isn't the right way to do it? What if it comes off as rude. This ties in to perfectionism too.
Boredom is usually overtaken by one of the other emotions, but sometimes it appears on its own. I've got to input these numbers into some old, janky piece of software. It's probably not that hard or long of a task, but it feels so pointless. I'm just wasting so much time doing this task when I could be doing something more efficient and more meaningful.
If you can solve these emotional issues then pretty much any todo list app (or just a notebook) will be fine.
For me there are three major emotions that get in the way of task completion: excitement, boredom and anxiety.
Excitement is usually for some other task. I'm working on my tax return and I think about upgrading my washer/drying. Suddenly I'm researching all the different types, the best deal on one, the history of the washer/dryer. It might be a task on my to do list somewhere, but I was driven to do it by the excitement.
Anxiety is a tricky one. If I'm writing something like an email anxiety often gets the better of me. What if this isn't the right way to do it? What if it comes off as rude. This ties in to perfectionism too.
Boredom is usually overtaken by one of the other emotions, but sometimes it appears on its own. I've got to input these numbers into some old, janky piece of software. It's probably not that hard or long of a task, but it feels so pointless. I'm just wasting so much time doing this task when I could be doing something more efficient and more meaningful.
If you can solve these emotional issues then pretty much any todo list app (or just a notebook) will be fine.
Thanks for sharing—your point about emotions is spot on. I started focusing on decision paralysis in ADHD, but excitement, anxiety, and boredom are clearly major hurdles. I’m thinking about incorporating subtle mood check-ins, quick breaks, or nudges to help manage these feelings alongside task prioritization. Do you have any specific features or techniques in mind that have helped you overcome these issues? I'd love to hear more and see if we can integrate them without making the app feel too heavy.
It's a constant battle and there are no silver bullets. Here are a few things that have helped me:
* Eat, sleep and exercise. Have you ever snapped at someone you love because you were really really tired? You have less ability to control your emotions if you aren't on top of these things. When task planning it's easy to think only about the task at hand, but scheduling time to rest, go for a walk or have a snack can be helpful.
* Putting some 'distance' between myself and the task, however small or artificial. Often, I start writing an important email in a text editor instead of an email client. It just feels less 'real' and that reduces my anxiety and resistance. I wonder if doing a practice version of a task could help?
* Adding some kind of physical motion to a task. For example, if I'm sitting at my desk and I need to fill in a form, it always seems easier if I've come from just tidying up rather than another stationary task. Making tasks more physical seems to help.
* Naming the reason why I'm not doing a task can sometimes help but other times not. Saying "I'm feeling overwhelmed with this task" is 50/50 on whether it'll help or make me feel even worse.
* Usually when I'm feeling really stuck I know exactly what I need to do. I know that I haven't opened that email in my inbox. I could easily spend a week thinking about it hundreds of times but never actually doing it. I don't think a reminder or a nudge would help me, because I'm already constantly reminding myself. The times I find reminders and nudges helpful are when I can complete the task right then and there with little resistance. For example: If I put a drink in the freezer to cool it down quickly, I always set a timer. When the time off the task of removing the drink has no stress or anxiety, so I always do it. If I don't set the timer I am very likely to forget the drink. I have tried setting reminders and timers for tasks that I procrastinate on but it never really works. If a task is overwhelming you now and you delay it by 1 hour or 1 day, it's probably still going to overwhelm you later.
* Eat, sleep and exercise. Have you ever snapped at someone you love because you were really really tired? You have less ability to control your emotions if you aren't on top of these things. When task planning it's easy to think only about the task at hand, but scheduling time to rest, go for a walk or have a snack can be helpful.
* Putting some 'distance' between myself and the task, however small or artificial. Often, I start writing an important email in a text editor instead of an email client. It just feels less 'real' and that reduces my anxiety and resistance. I wonder if doing a practice version of a task could help?
* Adding some kind of physical motion to a task. For example, if I'm sitting at my desk and I need to fill in a form, it always seems easier if I've come from just tidying up rather than another stationary task. Making tasks more physical seems to help.
* Naming the reason why I'm not doing a task can sometimes help but other times not. Saying "I'm feeling overwhelmed with this task" is 50/50 on whether it'll help or make me feel even worse.
* Usually when I'm feeling really stuck I know exactly what I need to do. I know that I haven't opened that email in my inbox. I could easily spend a week thinking about it hundreds of times but never actually doing it. I don't think a reminder or a nudge would help me, because I'm already constantly reminding myself. The times I find reminders and nudges helpful are when I can complete the task right then and there with little resistance. For example: If I put a drink in the freezer to cool it down quickly, I always set a timer. When the time off the task of removing the drink has no stress or anxiety, so I always do it. If I don't set the timer I am very likely to forget the drink. I have tried setting reminders and timers for tasks that I procrastinate on but it never really works. If a task is overwhelming you now and you delay it by 1 hour or 1 day, it's probably still going to overwhelm you later.
Sounds an awful lot like Pavlok. If you have the willpower to hit the shock yourself device, why don't you have the willpower to not do the action that merits shocking yourself?
If you can manage your attention/motivation well enough to make detailed to do lists, why can't that be applied to the urgent task at hand, to completion.
If you do the ADHD questionnaire one of the major indicators is how many projects are 99% complete.
A TODO list just catalogues these 99% complete problems until they become cognitively crushing to think about resulting in a need to escape/avoid the list, resulting in eventual burnout.
> time until a deadline
This is stress based motivation, and stress tolerance is a depletable resource that once depleted results in devastation.
I am suspicious of anything mental health that doesn't market itself as evidence based. Do you have any evidential basis behind the TODO app? Are any of your ideas evidence informed?
Why not read through several ADHD help/workbooks or read through treatment protocols and try to app-ify them?
If you can manage your attention/motivation well enough to make detailed to do lists, why can't that be applied to the urgent task at hand, to completion.
If you do the ADHD questionnaire one of the major indicators is how many projects are 99% complete.
A TODO list just catalogues these 99% complete problems until they become cognitively crushing to think about resulting in a need to escape/avoid the list, resulting in eventual burnout.
> time until a deadline
This is stress based motivation, and stress tolerance is a depletable resource that once depleted results in devastation.
I am suspicious of anything mental health that doesn't market itself as evidence based. Do you have any evidential basis behind the TODO app? Are any of your ideas evidence informed?
Why not read through several ADHD help/workbooks or read through treatment protocols and try to app-ify them?
Thank you for your comment, but I'm not trying to solve ADHD completely. I have many unfinished projects and works, but I have identified that my main issue time management. One of the factors contributing to this problem is my inability to focus on a single task at time because of FOMO regarding other tasks. When I write down my daily tasks, sort them by importance, and start from the top, I feel relaxed and can focus. I thought that if this process is helping me, it may help others. Besides, to-do apps are among the most downloaded apps in the app stores. I'm building an app for my own situation and will publish it so that others can use it as well.
i think you need to break down what type of ADHD this is helping
Hi, I'm also building a Todolist app with an AI that prioritizes tasks based on urgency, importance & bugs you until you finish :)
I go a step further to integrate information sources into it like emails, slack, notes etc cause managing information is also a struggle for me
Feel free to check it out at https://saner.ai/
Really liked what you build. I'll be following your progress. Congrats on the work you've done!
Personally, as someone who has struggled with ADHD, getting on meds removed the need for any such app in my life. Like its not a bad idea, but its a bandaid and not gonna work for everyone. The key thing to understand about ADHD is that its pretty much seratonin deficiency, and there is no way to fix that externally, much in the same way that I cant just make you like the same things I like.
You are right, I am trying to build an application based on a method that helps me. I hope it helps others as well.
This sounds great! A couple of things I’d love in a to-do app are flexible prioritization (so I can tweak things easily), visual cues to track progress, and the ability to break big tasks into smaller steps. It’d also be awesome if it had time-blocking or Pomodoro options to keep me focused. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out!
Thank you for your support and feature suggestions. I'll definitely consider this. How does this pomodoro screen look? Sneak peek of app :) https://cln.sh/GxbTVNM7
I have a great todo app, but the one thing I wish it could do is have two parallel lists - one for things I have to do, and one for things I want to do.
Which app that you mentioned?
Hey, I'm doing the exact same thing. Drop me an email and I can share you a doc I wrote up for it, with some business models as well as feature details.
But core to ADHD: people have trouble visualizing the task they plan to do. Like neurotypical people can instantly imagine a sandwich when they make a sandwich. Some people can't and rely on past habits: make a slice of bread, then add peanut butter, then the other slice, then add jam, and glue them together.
So you want something that lets people see the big picture and the parts.
The other bit is lack of dopamine. This is where Habitica and similar apps come in. It has to be fun and content has to be basically infinite.
And then schedules to deal with hyperfocus. Have blocks of time throughout the day for work, family, projects, reading. Then it should pull tasks from the associated lists into these. A little more planning and it can even estimate when you'll finish reading that book or do that module. Or whether you need to request more time for that deadline or drop something.
On top of that, I'd like to do a personal retro module. Did I have a good day? Were lots of tasks rescheduled? Have a little journal.
So you want something that lets people see the big picture and the parts.
The other bit is lack of dopamine. This is where Habitica and similar apps come in. It has to be fun and content has to be basically infinite.
And then schedules to deal with hyperfocus. Have blocks of time throughout the day for work, family, projects, reading. Then it should pull tasks from the associated lists into these. A little more planning and it can even estimate when you'll finish reading that book or do that module. Or whether you need to request more time for that deadline or drop something.
On top of that, I'd like to do a personal retro module. Did I have a good day? Were lots of tasks rescheduled? Have a little journal.
> But core to ADHD: people have trouble visualizing the task they plan to do. Like neurotypical people can instantly imagine a sandwich when they make a sandwich. Some people can't and rely on past habits: make a slice of bread, then add peanut butter, then the other slice, then add jam, and glue them together.
So you want something that lets people see the big picture and the parts.
Can you expand on this?
Can you expand on this?
Here is my list:
* Put my shit away.
That's it. The number one issue I see with ADHD, and this only really applies to extreme ADHD, is a complete inability to remember to either put things away or to remember to take your things with you. Consider it casual unintentional abandonment of everything you own one item at a time.
* Put my shit away.
That's it. The number one issue I see with ADHD, and this only really applies to extreme ADHD, is a complete inability to remember to either put things away or to remember to take your things with you. Consider it casual unintentional abandonment of everything you own one item at a time.
Thank you so much for that insight! I love hearing that putting things away is a huge pain point—it really underscores how valuable smart reminders and nudges can be. I'll work more on the daily struggles we face and how I can decrease the cognitive load.
the most important feature is to remember it and to remidn and gaslight the user into using it
I hope I can build an app that don't need to be remind to use the app
I don't think a to-do app that could effectively help ADHDers ever existed. Never heard of one, probably never will. If such a tool exists you will def see it in r/ADHD or similar communities. When you have no competitor in a market probably the problem is the market. I don't think a niche market for ADHD todo apps exists. Because the problem is not solvable by a todo app. Just like you can't effectively help austic people by offering social manner courses.
Not sure why this comment was dead, but I vouched for it to appear again.
I also think the same - a to-do app will not help. Specially if you plan to add deadline information, difficulty and value scores. These will turn into distractions themselves which will require thinking and making decisions about.
I also think the same - a to-do app will not help. Specially if you plan to add deadline information, difficulty and value scores. These will turn into distractions themselves which will require thinking and making decisions about.
There's AI that can do all this now.
Habitica has been around for a long time. There's papers written on it, and people are still writing papers on its effectiveness on ADHD and depresssion. Something like Finch is around for depression.
I think it's more that people who have ADHD have been gaslighted by people who insist they were just lazy. If it can be fixed with a todo app, it's "not a real illness".
There's low carb apps and there's diabetes apps. Both do essentially the same thing and yet they're almost never in the same market. Low carb is marketed as weight loss.
The other problem is that every app targeting mental health will gaslight you and call it CBT. It started with Noom. Many of them don't just feel clinical, they feel outright manipulative. Nobody wants to do a ton of surveys, but if you want something to prove successful, the only methodology they have is a ton of surveys.
I think it's more that people who have ADHD have been gaslighted by people who insist they were just lazy. If it can be fixed with a todo app, it's "not a real illness".
There's low carb apps and there's diabetes apps. Both do essentially the same thing and yet they're almost never in the same market. Low carb is marketed as weight loss.
The other problem is that every app targeting mental health will gaslight you and call it CBT. It started with Noom. Many of them don't just feel clinical, they feel outright manipulative. Nobody wants to do a ton of surveys, but if you want something to prove successful, the only methodology they have is a ton of surveys.
This is the basic idea, but I would like to hear from you: What would you expect from a to-do app?