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
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.
The problem with apps is they put my phone in front of my face, opening up FAR too many options for distraction.
Honestly, a bullet journal was a game changer for me. the fancy ribboned, decorated, instagram-ready craziness people make pictures of, but the basic system created by a person with ADHD for their own of index, monthly calendar with not more than two habit trackers, daily task list, future (more than a month), and a new spread (page) for whatever random thing I need when I need it.
The right notebook makes is a LOT easier. My Leuchtturm1917 A6 lives in my right pocket, with a pen twisted in the elastic. Prenumbered pages, preprinted index, good paper when my fountain pen habit surfaces, and no distractions.
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.
I used to get sucked into finding new tools to help me be more productive, but keeping it simple and visible works for me.
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.
I use color note for a to do list,reminder page and shopping lists. It’s just a note pad of lists. a calendar, phone alarms and a spin the wheel app. I use the spin the wheel on my days off.One for house chores and one with things I like to do. I do one chore then one fun thing. I can also hide the stuff I complete (on the wheels) until everything gets done. I guess I am trying to make boring tasks into a game so they get done and I get a reward spin for completing the boring task. None of the reward tasks are huge, they basically give me small increments of free time to do something I like to do. Then repeat until the boring tasks are completed.
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 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 😊).
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’m finding Obsidian.md really great, it’s become my daily checklist, to-do lists, shopping lists, calendar, and notes archive all at once. It doesn’t give reminders (there might be a plugin for that actually) but I always have it open on a second screen and I sync it between my phone and my computer, and I’ve been much better at keeping track of things since I started using it.
The program is kind of a lot, but it’s worth putting in some effort to set it up in a way that works for you. Although to be honest I think I only figured out how it works because I was also motivated to use it for Dungeons and Dragons. Otherwise I’d probably still be using my old mess of sticky notes.
Just a shame that it’s not open source. I’ve been using Zettlr instead, it’s pretty much the only FOSS alternative that doesn’t pester me into syncing my stuff to a cloud, which is the one thing I like most about Obsidian.
How do you go about using it? I have a strong case of out of sight, out of mind, so I set it to launch automatically when I login, otherwhise I would just forget about its existence.
I have it set to launch on startup, and always open on my second screen. I have to make a point to check my day’s task list before opening any other program, add new tasks as soon as they come up, check things off when they get done (free dopamine), and note down any unresolved items at the end of the day.
I also end up checking it incidentally a lot during the day simply because I use it for so many things, like my schedule, appointment and lecture notes, journaling, keeping track of medication, things I want to work on in the game I’m playing, etc. I’m kind of throwing all my (previously very disorganised) eggs in this basket and it’s giving me reasons to check it constantly.
Just now discovered a reminder plugin so I’ll start implementing that too.
Actually getting things done is a whole other issue though. Between the ADHD and my other health issues, some days I just end up with a blank template page for my daily note… but I try not to be hard on myself about it.
I use it mostly as an information dump. I love how you can just put things in daily notes and tag something as a #todo or #researchthing and have the first thing automatically added to your running todo list and the second unrelated item is piled in with any other notes with that tag. Which is great if you have no focus.
Goblin tool. You give it a task you want to do and it breaks it down into smaller tasks/steps which you can keep breaking down. Also has a tone rewording tool and a tool for checking if you are taking something in the wrong tone. Super helpful for people with ADHD and Autism.
They have an app for $0.99, but I believe it still needs connection for all the back end task generation and stuff. Hopefully it works for you as another tool for the tool box!
What it spits out from just the words clean room is pretty damn great, more than enough to convince me. And while I’m generally very careful with AI, I think in this instance it’s best for me to swallow my damn pride, and accept the help it can give me.
The About section does mention the wish to move this to open source solutions, which I’d very much love to see. I’m looking forward to whenever that can happen.
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