Do you often forget deadlines, meetings, and errands? Is it a daily struggle to get the ball rolling and beat procrastination?
Living with ADHD can be challenging. But the truth is that you don't have to rely solely on yourself to accomplish your daily goals.
The solution to getting extra help throughout the day is by using ADHD apps and platforms. These ADHD tools for adults help fill the role of a personal assistant, accountability buddy, or motivational coach.
If you need extra helping hands to stay organized, remember dates, and reduce distractions, keep reading. We've compiled a list of the best ADHD apps for adults to help you get the most out of your day!
Common Challenges Faced by Adults with ADHD
If you have ADHD, you may face these common challenges in your daily life: [1]
- Difficulty maintaining focus on your task
- Failing to follow through on instructions and finish assignments
- Trouble organizing and prioritizing tasks
- Procrastinating on tasks that require sustained focus
- Misplacing important items
- Forgetting dates, details, tasks, and errands
That said, having ADHD doesn't disqualify you from success or achieving big goals in life.
The good news is that technology can help level out the playing field. There are plenty of apps to choose from that can help with organizing your schedule, sending reminders, and improving your focus.
It will take some experimentation to find a suitable ADHD tool. But once you do, you'll be back on track in no time!
Top 3 ADHD Apps for Adults: Overall
Here are some of the top overall ADHD apps for adults.
These tools not only boost focus and productivity but also help you build new skills and habits that will put you in the best position to overcome the daily challenges you face.
Flow Club
Flow Club is, first and foremost, a community of fellow ADHDers and neurodivergent folks who can relate to the challenges you are experiencing and support you in overcoming them. The platform enables ADHDers to join body-doubling sessions for an instant boost of dopamine and motivation, which makes doing anything easier.
There are over 2,500 sessions a week to choose from. Once you've booked a session, an event shows up immediately on your calendar. This represents your commitment and the block of time you've dedicated to getting something done.
As the session begins, you'll share your goals with the rest of the group for positive accountability. Everyone will encourage you, regardless of what you are there to work on. You could be writing a paper, cleaning your room, or even making some time for self-care.
The host will start the timer, and everyone will begin working on their own tasks with their video cameras turned on (when possible). Staying visible to one another is a great way to stay accountable, motivating you to get things done. At the end of the session, the host will check in with you, and you'll celebrate your progress with your group.
Flow Club offers a lot of flexibility. You can choose between different session durations and structures and opt to join hosts whom you feel more connected to. Chat-only sessions are also available if you are uncomfortable or unable to speak.
You can try Flow Club for free today!
Goblin Tools
This platform provides a set of tools that are carefully designed to help ADHDers in different areas of life.
For example, there is a to-do tracker to help you keep tabs on all the tasks and errands you need to complete. You'll key in one big task, for instance, "cleaning the kitchen." The tool can instantly break it down into less daunting and smaller subtasks, helping you beat procrastination and ADHD paralysis.
Apart from this feature, another tool available on this platform is "Estimator," which helps you overcome ADHD time blindness by giving you estimates of how long a task will take. You can also test out their other features, like the "Judge," "Compiler," and "Chef."
Rize
Rize is an AI productivity coach that analyzes your daily activities and tracks your time to give you tailored advice on when to start preparing for an upcoming event, take a break, or get back to work.
Some other features of this app include an automatic time tracker, Pomodoro timer, focus music, and a website and app blocker to reduce distractions.
Best ADHD Apps for Adults: Focus Facilitators
Getting things completed on time can feel like an uphill battle.
To tilt the scale in your favor, you can use tools and resources that encourage you to stay focused and productive. Many of these tools have their own unique reward system and motivational features.
Here are the best ADHD apps for adult ADHDers to improve their focus and performance.
Forest
The Forest app helps with minimizing distractions that come from your mobile phone. With social media, messaging apps, phone games, and constant notifications, it's easy to slip down the rabbit hole of spending too much time on your phone.
This app lets you plant a virtual tree and set a timer for doing work. As you keep the app open and work on your task, the tree begins to grow. You can then collect coins if you successfully complete your focus session. But if you exit the app and get distracted, your tree will die.
The coins collected can be used to redeem virtual trees and music and even sponsor the planting of a tree in real life.
Brain.fm
Brain.fm is a library of music that is specially designed and curated to promote better focus and productivity. This collection of music blends in with the background to reduce distractions and, at the same time, helps to keep the brain stimulated and engaged with the task at hand.
According to some research, background music can help enhance attention in adults with ADHD [2]. Brain-fm simply offers convenient access to focus-inducing background music to help you stay engaged while you're working.
Habitica
This habit-building and productivity-enhancing app keeps you motivated and on track by using the gamification concept. Essentially, Habitica turns your real-life tasks and habits into a game.
Through the app, you'll track your daily and long-term goals, as well as earn rewards for tasks, routines, and habits that you complete successfully. As you earn points, you can use them to purchase upgrades for your avatar, including battle armor, pets, and skills. You'll then battle monsters with friends and other community members, earning you gold to buy in-game or custom rewards.
This system makes completing tasks and challenges more rewarding and exciting, which is a great way to boost motivation and build boring but healthy habits.
Top ADHD Apps for Adults: Organization and Memory
If you're looking for apps that can act like a second brain or personal assistant, we've got you covered with this list of the best ADHD organizational tools.
Todoist
If you're looking for a place to organize your entire to-do list, Todoist might be the solution you're looking for. Through their intuitive interface, you can stay up-to-date with all your work, personal, and family tasks.
In the platform, you'll add your task and its due date. You can also create tasks with recurring due dates. The app automatically organizes all your to-dos based on urgency, so you can keep tabs on what needs to be done and what can wait.
You'll also get a bigger-picture view of all your upcoming tasks, as well as a section that hones in on what you need to get done today.
Remember the Milk
Remember the Milk is an intelligent to-do app that lets you track your tasks in one place. You can add tasks to the app through its "Smart Add" feature that enables you to key in the task, due date, priority, tags, and other details in one line. Bigger to-dos can be broken down into smaller, more manageable pieces.
You'll then receive multiple reminders through different avenues, including email, text, or even Twitter. Another great feature is the ability to sync your lists on multiple devices, allowing you to keep tabs on your progress no matter where you are.
Sunsama
This digital daily planner helps you build the habit of being intentional with how you spend your time. You'll thoughtfully plan out your daily routine, set goals, and consolidate your to-do list in one place.
You can also browse and track your tasks across different platforms, including Asana, ClickUp, Notion, and other organization apps within Sunsama.
The app lets you timebox your day and drag and drop your tasks into your schedule. This helps you get a good idea of when you need to get started on a task to finish it on time. Additionally, you'll be able to receive reminders to reply to emails and Slack messages, so you will always remember to follow up.
Best ADHD Apps for Adults: Health and Well-being
If you're looking to build healthy habits and enhance your well-being, these ADHD apps can help with that.
Finch
Finch is a self-care app that encourages you to look after your physical and mental health by holding you accountable for an in-game pet.
You'll get to choose your own pet, name it, and then set as many goals as you'd like for yourself. For example, you might want to carry out some breathing exercises, start journaling, or drink more water each day. The app also encourages you to practice mindfulness, gratitude, and self-reflection, as well as track your mood and sleep.
As you progress, you'll gain energy points, which can be used to send your pet on adventures to level up and make new discoveries.
Theraview
If you often forget to take your ADHD medications, the Theraview app might be a good solution.
Through this free ADHD app, you can keep tabs on all your medications as well as their dosage instructions. You can then set and receive reminders on when to take them. Additionally, you can track how long the effects of your ADHD medications will last.
Headspace
The Headspace app teaches you to harness the power of meditation and mindfulness to reduce stress, improve focus, and get better sleep.
The app offers a large library of over 500 meditations and guided courses. It also teaches users how to use scientifically-backed techniques to improve their mental wellness and provides expert advice, music, and other audio aids for enhancing sleep.
Top ADHD Apps for Adults: Note-Taking
Cluttered notes and thoughts can make it much harder to focus and stay on track.
With the help of the following apps and platforms, you'll be able to organize your notes efficiently, remember details better, and generate creative ideas.
SimpleMind
SimpleMind uses the concept of mind mapping to help you organize your thoughts, ideas, and notes.
Mind mapping helps you create a visual representation that groups similar concepts together and shows you the link between ideas. This technique can help you pick up new concepts and information better at work or at school.
Outside of learning, the app can also help you organize ideas in different settings, like when you're planning a family vacation or creating a shopping list.
The app comes with various features to help you create an effective mind map. For instance, you can add icons and images to the mind map, as well as color labels and group borders to help certain information stand out.
Evernote
Evernote is a powerful note-taking app that allows you to create your own organization system for your notes and lists.
You can tag your notes with keywords and categorize them accordingly. When you need to pull up a piece of information quickly, you can use the app's search function to find what you need. Evernote also helps you to sync your notes across all your devices.
There are some other unique features of the app. For instance, you can scan documents, combine your to-do list and notes, and link your notes to calendar events.
Overcoming Different Challenges with ADHD Tools
Whether you want to increase your productivity, create healthy habits, sleep better, or create organized notes and lists—there are plenty of apps and tools that can help you accomplish those goals.
For instance, Flow Club combines access to an encouraging, neurodivergent community with body doubling, time-blocking, and the Pomodoro technique to help you focus, build healthy habits, and feel supported along the way.
While you might have to experiment a little to find the right tool, your efforts will pay off. That's because these ADHD apps and resources are not just bandaids to fix problems; they're transformative tools that can help you build new habits and skills to thrive and succeed in life.
References
[1] Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. DSM-5 Changes: Implications for Child Serious Emotional Disturbance [Internet]. Rockville (MD): Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (US); 2016 Jun. Table 7, DSM-IV to DSM-5 Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Comparison. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519712/table/ch3.t3/
[2] Woods, K., Sampaio, G., Tedra Akira James, Przysinda, E., Hewett, A., Spencer, A. E., Morillon, B., & Loui, P. (2021). Stimulating music supports attention in listeners with attentional difficulties. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.10.01.462777
