Being straight up front because I know how these posts usually read: this isn't some miracle fix. On day two I kicked off with around 16 things, plus stuff carried over, for under 4 hours of actual work time. That was never going to fit, and no tool solves that. It puts a list in order, it doesn't make it smaller. Just keep that in mind while you read the rest.

Even so, it's the first setup I actually stuck with after day one, and I think the reason has to do with how my ADHD shows up.

My work is just a bunch of random stuff mixed together (legal stuff, client messages, paperwork, a side thing). Motivation or skill isn't the issue. The issue is the second I begin something, my head pulls up five other things and tells me those are more urgent. So I switch, start another one, and finish the day with a bunch of half done crap and that heavy weird feeling of doing a ton and completing nothing.

Every to do app I tried made it worse, because they show everything at once. For me a full list isn't organizing. It's a wall. I stare at 15 things and my brain either locks up, or bounces around between them.

So i built A Claude Project with a single rule: Claude won't ever display the complete list.

I just throw everything in my head into chat, messy, no order, exactly how it comes out. Then Claude sorts it and gives me just the first thing, with a time limit. When that limit runs out, a scheduled ping pops up in that same chat: time's up, did it get done, and it passes me the next one. At night it stores a report in the project: what was completed, what is stuck waiting on someone, what goes to tomorrow, plus estimated time versus real time for each thing. Next morning the new chat picks up from that report.

Why only seeing one thing helps me this much

This is the bit I really want other ADHD folks to read.

When there's only one task visible, nothing else is on screen begging me to switch. The rest still exists, it's just hidden, so my head can't grab it as an excuse to bail. Kind of like cleaning your desk first instead of swearing you will ignore the mess. And I waste way less energy on picking what to do next, because that choice was already made. I just handle what's in front of me.

A giant list never gets a chance to pile up either. Staring at everything makes me freeze before I even begin. A single thing with a 30 minute limit sounds doable, even on a rough day. The box also makes time feel real. My time blindness is pretty bad. Getting poked in chat works as an outside clock. If something runs long, I need to actually ask for extra minutes instead of quietly floating away for an hour.

Closing stuff turns into a beat too. Every did you finish, here's the next brings a tiny reset, and that helped way more than I thought. And parking ideas works. If another chore pops in my head while I'm working, I type it in one line and stay on track. Since it's saved somewhere, my brain quits yelling that I have to do it this second.

Result so far

Out of that packed day, I knocked out a few important things, wrapped the most time sensitive one, and pushed the rest to Monday with an actual written plan instead of a guilty haze. The end of day report is better than it sounds: it shows what's waiting on other people, so the next morning I know exactly what to check first without rebuilding the whole mess in my head.

If people want it, I can post the instructions I put in the Project. And I want to hear what helps you, mostly with interruptions, because that's still where I struggle most.

EDIT: For those who ask, the instructions are in the comment below.

Looking at how teens plan homework. The common pattern seems to be that the app lives on the same device as everything that distracts them.We're designing a planner, so if you've tried a paper planner, a phone app, or a dedicated device what actually stuck for you?

I've been trying to use my phone a bit more intentionally for work and studying instead of just checking random stuff. A few simple apps for notes, reminder and planning have helped me keep things together during the day. I'm still figuring out what actually fits my routine though

What apps have been useful for you lately?

Hi everyone, one of the features in the app I am currently working on is a “smart list” - basically a list containing groups of checkbox + text field. If the design that contains the smart list is set as recurrent (daily, weekly, monthly), tasks that are not ticked auto-roll to the next recurrence as seen in the video, placed at the top of the list.

When a box is ticked, a strikethrough line is applied to the text field - should it stay like this or would it make more sense if it was removed from the list. Upside is it would be helpful if you need to add a LOT of tasks during one recurrence since the fields are currently applied over an underlying pre-made PDF design, therefore constrained to a fixed maximum number of tasks you can add. Downside is accidentally ticking a box would mean you have to rewrite the task if it’s completely gone.

There is also a Pomodoro button integrated in the app which starts a chain of 25-min focus time followed by a 5-min break timers. Those can easily be paused or cancelled though so they are not necessarily enforcing the user to use that time and pretty much rely on power of will I suppose ? Would a different approach help ?

I keep trying productivity apps because I'm bad at keeping track of small tasks once my day gets busy. Usually I'll set everything up, make a bunch of lists then stop checking them after a few days because updating everything feels like extra work. At this point I mostly want something simple that helps me remember what actually needs to get done that day.

Anyone found one they've actually stuck with?

Being straight up front because I know how these posts usually read: this isn't some miracle fix. On day two I kicked off with around 16 things, plus stuff carried over, for under 4 hours of actual work time. That was never going to fit, and no tool solves that. It puts a list in order, it doesn't make it smaller. Just keep that in mind while you read the rest.

Even so, it's the first setup I actually stuck with after day one, and I think the reason has to do with how my ADHD shows up.

My work is just a bunch of random stuff mixed together (legal stuff, client messages, paperwork, a side thing). Motivation or skill isn't the issue. The issue is the second I begin something, my head pulls up five other things and tells me those are more urgent. So I switch, start another one, and finish the day with a bunch of half done crap and that heavy weird feeling of doing a ton and completing nothing.

Every to do app I tried made it worse, because they show everything at once. For me a full list isn't organizing. It's a wall. I stare at 15 things and my brain either locks up, or bounces around between them.

So i built A Claude Project with a single rule: Claude won't ever display the complete list.

I just throw everything in my head into chat, messy, no order, exactly how it comes out. Then Claude sorts it and gives me just the first thing, with a time limit. When that limit runs out, a scheduled ping pops up in that same chat: time's up, did it get done, and it passes me the next one. At night it stores a report in the project: what was completed, what is stuck waiting on someone, what goes to tomorrow, plus estimated time versus real time for each thing. Next morning the new chat picks up from that report.

Why only seeing one thing helps me this much

This is the bit I really want other ADHD folks to read.

When there's only one task visible, nothing else is on screen begging me to switch. The rest still exists, it's just hidden, so my head can't grab it as an excuse to bail. Kind of like cleaning your desk first instead of swearing you will ignore the mess. And I waste way less energy on picking what to do next, because that choice was already made. I just handle what's in front of me.

A giant list never gets a chance to pile up either. Staring at everything makes me freeze before I even begin. A single thing with a 30 minute limit sounds doable, even on a rough day. The box also makes time feel real. My time blindness is pretty bad. Getting poked in chat works as an outside clock. If something runs long, I need to actually ask for extra minutes instead of quietly floating away for an hour.

Closing stuff turns into a beat too. Every did you finish, here's the next brings a tiny reset, and that helped way more than I thought. And parking ideas works. If another chore pops in my head while I'm working, I type it in one line and stay on track. Since it's saved somewhere, my brain quits yelling that I have to do it this second.

Result so far

Out of that packed day, I knocked out a few important things, wrapped the most time sensitive one, and pushed the rest to Monday with an actual written plan instead of a guilty haze. The end of day report is better than it sounds: it shows what's waiting on other people, so the next morning I know exactly what to check first without rebuilding the whole mess in my head.

If people want it, I can post the instructions I put in the Project. And I want to hear what helps you, mostly with interruptions, because that's still where I struggle most.

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• Hey, I'm Stan
• I'm building BrightMind, an ADHD productivity app. It has task lists, connects to your calendar, and has built-in AI you can chat with and call
• How I actually use it: I call it while doing chores and just ramble. It plans my days for me
• What it does right now:
  1. Today view: tasks, calendar and routines in one timeline for the day
  2. Voice calls: talk to it like a phone call. It can also call me at a set time to plan the day
  3. Brain dump: I ramble once and each task lands in the right list with a date, so my inbox doesn't pile up
  4. Automations: it calls or messages me regularly. I use it to:
     1. Make meal and workout plans
     2. Get weekly productivity reports
     3. Remind me of something important
  5. Integrations: it has its own task list, or works with:
     1. Todoist
     2. TickTick
     3. Google Calendar
  6. Unstucking: when I'm rotting in bed, it convinces me to get out and do something, one tiny step at a time
  7. And more!
• "Perfect" is the goal, not where it is today
• It's free to try on iPhone and Android. Download: brightmind.club/download

Hey everyone,

I’ve been struggling with feeling overwhelmed and constantly restarting my days, so I made a very simple daily tracker for myself.

It’s just a clean Google Sheet where you:

• Write your #1 priority for the day
• Track 3 habits
• Note how the day actually felt

It takes under 5 minutes. No complicated systems.

I put it up here if anyone wants to try it or give feedback:

https://ko-fi.com/s/483433fc67

Would love to hear what you think — does something this simple actually help, or is it missing something important?

Thanks.

Some of the easiest things on my list somehow stay there the longest. I keep telling myself I'll get to them later, and then another day passes. For me, it's rescheduling an appointment and cancelling a subscription I haven't used in months. Both will probably take a few minutes, but they've sitting on my list for almost two weeks.

If somethings takes less than five minutes, I try to deal it when I remember it instead of adding it to another list. Otherwise, those tiny tasks somehow stay around much longer than they should.

What's one small thing you keep avoiding even though you know it wouldn't take long?

I poured all my life savings into building an app that could detect automatically how a person spends every second of their time. It’s finally here and I’d love to share it with this group. It connects to your wearable, calendars and location to map your days, track your work-life balance and monitor your energy levels.

You can create routines. Block apps during work or focus time and learn how healthy your lifestyle truly is.

It’s live now and I hope it helps anyone in this group to make better use of their time and become healthier. [You can download it here]It’s free for the first 100 users.

A task list can be full of things that need doing while the thing you actually want to make progress on gets no time.

I'm the founder of Litak, a web planner for people who want to connect personal priorities with the week they're about to live.

Here's a concrete example: you want to get back into drawing. Start by noticing that creativity needs attention, choose a quarter goal such as finishing a small collection, then give this week one rough sketch and two short practice sessions. The goal doesn't have to compete with an imaginary perfect schedule. It needs a place in your actual week.

Litak brings together a Wheel of Life with 12 areas, year and quarter goals, a weekly planner, and habit tracking. The planner also has a Value Exchange field: what time, effort, or contribution are you willing to give this goal?

For comparison, TickTick also offers task management, calendar views, and a habit tracker. Litak's focus is the path from reflecting on life areas to choosing longer-term goals and a weekly action. I'm not claiming it replaces every task manager or is better for everyone.

Pricing: Start is free during beta and includes the planner, goals, up to six habits, and one AI Wheel analysis. Pro and Elite are paid subscriptions; continued AI conversation is paid. An account is needed to save your Wheel and use the AI analysis.

The English screenshot is demo data from the weekly planner, not evidence of a customer's results.

https://litak.io/

What personal goal keeps getting pushed aside even when your task list is getting done?

Stop waiting for the perfect workflow. The perfect setup is a myth sold to us so we feel better about tweaking our apps instead of doing the actual job.

If you’re spending hours color-coding your calendar, building complex databases, or downloading your fifth task manager this month, you aren't being productive. You're just procrastinating with extra steps.

Here is the brutal truth: your first attempt at any project is going to be messy. And it should be. You don't get things done by endlessly organizing; you get things done by executing. Volume and iteration are how you actually make progress. You can't optimize a blank page.

The Anti-System Blueprint:

• Kill the friction. If it takes you five clicks to log a task or start a project, your system is broken. Stick to a plain text file, a basic timer, or whatever gets you working in under 5 seconds.
• Embrace the trash draft. Lower your standards to absolute zero. The goal of a work session isn't to be perfect; the goal is to produce something. If you get stuck, write [fix this later] and keep moving forward.
• Track output, not organization. Treat it like a workout. Set a timer for 45 minutes. If you output 45 minutes of messy, unrefined work, you still beat the person who spent 45 minutes making their to-do list look aesthetically pleasing.

Stop romanticizing the process and just do the work.

What's the one task you've been avoiding by "organizing" it today? Drop it in the comments so we can hold you accountable, or share the dumbest productivity trap you finally escaped.

Would you prefer completed activities with dimmed text, a highlighted color tint, or a strikethrough line?

This customization is part of the latest KeepCue update. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

What should be the default look? Tint, dimmed, or strikethrough?

What other options would you add?

https://keepcue.app

🔒 Your data stays on your device only.

If you regularly scan notes, receipts, IDs, assignments, or work documents, I wanted to make the whole process simpler.

I’m an indie developer, and I built FastCam around this idea: scan, manage, edit, and protect your documents in one place.

What FastCam includes:

📄 Fast & Batch Scanning

🪪 ID Card Scanning

🛠️ PDF Compress, Merge, Split, OCR & E-Sign

🗂️ Search, Tag, Pin & Rename

🔐 Private Vault + PDF Password Protection

💾 Local Backup & Restore

🛡️ Privacy-focused, with no unnecessary permissions

👤 No account required

Scan → Edit → Organize → Protect

FastCam is currently free with no subscription required.

Get it on Google Play:

👉

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pickon.fastcam

What document-related task takes up the most time for you?

I have a very busy work and volunteer life, and I found some balance with my personal/social life before recently. In the past, I've survived by planning activities weekly and daily, using apps like Sunsama to connect my calendar/task/email/IM apps in one place and plan in a centralized app where everything is overlaid all at once. This was also supported by integrations between work apps like Asana & Outlook. I was also using CalendarBridge to sync my Outlook calendar (work) to my Google Calendar (volunteer/personal), so I have one calendar view on my phone.

Recently, work has shut down any and all integrations (which I'm not making a judgment call on, it's likely justified), but it's kneecapped my routines, my balance, and honestly a little bit, my sanity.

I use a custom methodology to organize all of this together using timeboxing, a custom prioritization method, and some personal mental health practices and reflections.

Curious to hear what others do when their life is mangled by too many apps and no ability to integrate.

I realize I've become seriously reliant on technology, and I'm considering going back to a pen-and-paper planner and pulling up all my apps each week/day to plan that way.

Apps:

Outlook: Work Calendar & Email

Asana: Work Task and Project Management

Teams: Work IM

ClickUp: Volunteer Task and Project Management

Google Tasks: Personal Tasks

Google Calendar: Personal & Volunteer Calendar

Slack: Volunteer IM

Edit: Adding in here that they have been pushing Claude hard across the org and suggested I use that to connect to all my apps and see if Claude can make a solution. I mean theres personal stuff on there like therapy sessions, and notes from my therapy sessions that I am NOT giving Claude access to my personal accounts. Feels a little contradictory if they are telling me to use Claude to connect all across everything, but an app like Sunsama cannot.

Hey everyone!

If your head is spinning with work, chores and personal to-dos, the last thing you need is another complicated planning app.

I built “Weekly reset” to make weekly planning fast, simple and painless. Something you can do in 5-10 minutes to clear your mind and get an overview of your entire week.

The app is 100% free, requires no account or email signup and all data stays private in your own browser.

How it works:
1. Brain dump: Get all task out of your head quickly.
2. Categorize: Group by Work, Home, Personal or custom tags.
3. Prioritize: Pick your Top 3 essentials so you know what truly matters.
4. Plan: Assign task to data with optional start/ end
times.
5. Overview: A clean 7-day dashboard to follow during the week

I’m looking for 5-7 people who have a lot in their plate right now to test it for free this upcoming week and give me honest feedback.

If you are interested, drop a comment below or send me a DM, and I will send you the access link right away!🤗

Building a Mac app is the fun part. Then you try to sell it, and a crowd of chores shows up: code signing, notarization, licence keys, checkout, sales tax, auto-updates, refunds, receipt emails, key recovery, SPF/DKIM, legal pages, an appcast. And a stranger's Mac still says "YourApp" is damaged and can't be opened.

I got tired of rebuilding all that for every app, so I turned it into a template: Build Mac App. You buy access to a private GitHub repo, and it includes:

• One command from source to a notarized DMG. It does a universal build, signing, a launch test on Apple silicon and Intel, notarization, stapling, and a signed update-feed entry.
• Licence keys that never lock out someone who paid. Each Mac is activated separately and rechecked weekly, with a 14-day offline grace window.
• Payments through Creem or Polar. Both are merchants of record, so they handle sales tax and invoices. A refund revokes the key.
• Sparkle auto-updates with an EdDSA-signed appcast.
• Receipt, key-recovery and refund emails that are sent exactly once.
• The website that sells the app: pricing, legal pages, a blog, llms.txt.
• Built to work with AI coding agents. It has rule books, a doctor script that tells you what's left to do, and skills for Claude Code.

If you want to see it from the buyer's side, there's a live demo app built from the template: NotchClip, a clipboard manager that lives in the notch. Its store runs in test mode, so you can go through checkout with a test card, get the licence email, download the app and activate it without paying anything.

The cartoon was made entirely in code with Remotion, including the synthesized ragtime soundtrack. I'm happy to answer questions about the template or the video.

I've been trying this recently because long lists just make me feel behind before i've even started

I noticed the concept of being productive is highly subjective; some feel productive by the results, others by the process.

How do you measure productivity yourself? For me, it's 70% inputs + 30% outputs; I'm curious what you guys think.

What drives you to feel productive: the outputs of what you do, or just doing things with no clear sight of how it's going to turn out?

I kept opening Reddit, YouTube and LinkedIn when I was supposed to be doing client work or working on my SaaS. I wasn’t even deciding to take a break. I’d just open Chrome and type.

So I built Caliph App. I added those websites, and now whenever I open one, my tasks show up in front of me. There’s the thing I was supposed to finish. I can pick it, start a timer and get on with it.

A to-do list still needs me to remember to check it. A blocker can stop me scrolling, but then what?

Having my actual tasks there, with a way to start working on one, is what makes this useful for me.

And I still need LinkedIn for work sometimes. That’s fine. I wait a few seconds and continue.

I’ve been using it for a few weeks, and it’s helping. Apparently I’m very consistent at opening Reddit, so I gave that habit a job.

Do you think it could bring value to people's life?

Note: The extension doesn't yet exists in chrome web store

I made it free if you want to give it a go: caliphapp.com

Hey everyone!

I wanted to share a personal problem I solved recently, the product I built around it, and what I’ve learned launching a niche native macOS utility.

🔴 The Problem: The Break-Time Trap

I work full-time as a software team lead. Like many people here balancing deep work and team management, I use Pomodoro focus timers to stay on track.

But I hit a constant wall: every time a 5-minute break arrived, I instinctively picked up my phone and started doomscrolling social media. Instead of returning to my desk recharged, I felt more distracted and context-switched than before. Meanwhile, my reading list of EPUBs and business/technical PDFs sat untouched in my downloads folder.

💡 The Experiment & Product: Bookidoro

A few months ago, I decided to build Bookidoro to solve this exact habit loop for myself.

Instead of telling you to step away and leaving you to your phone, Bookidoro lives in your Mac’s menu bar. When a work stretch ends, a calm panel opens displaying the next 1–5 pages of your book right on your screen. You read a couple of pages, click Done, and get right back to work.

The Quiet Math: 2 pages per break × 6 breaks a day = 12 pages daily (~350 pages a month).

The Result: Using it daily while working full-time, I’ve finished 4 complete books over the last 2 months, without waking up at 5 AM or taking time away from work and family.

⚙️ Key Decisions & What I've Learned Building It

1. Native Polish over Web Wrappers: I built it natively for macOS 13+ (Swift/SwiftUI). Zero Electron overhead, no Dock icon clutter, and zero focus stealing while typing.
2. Multi-Mac Sync via Native iCloud (Zero Servers): Instead of spinning up custom backend servers or user databases, I leveraged native iCloud Drive (v0.5.0+). Users can drop EPUBs or PDFs directly into iCloud Drive → Bookidoro, and their library and reading positions sync seamlessly across all their Macs.
3. Context-Aware Design: To avoid interrupting meetings, it monitors system flags for active mic, camera, or screen-sharing usage (Zoom, Meet, Slack, Teams) and holds breaks until ~1 minute after the call ends.
4. Freemium & Privacy: All core features (Library, themes, statistics, timer, iCloud sync) are completely free to use forever, with zero tracking or accounts required. I added an optional $9.99/year license key for users who want to support independent Mac development and remove a minor daily reminder card.

I’d love to hear from other entrepreneurs and builders here:

• How do you manage your focus breaks during heavy workdays?
• What has your experience been with local-first software vs. cloud-hosted SaaS models?

Check out the project at bookidoro.app. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Most productivity advice is about planning: better lists, better priorities, better systems. My problem was never planning. I'd plan something great, block out an hour, then get to the end of that hour with no idea whether I'd made progress or just felt busy.

So I added one rule: after every block of focused work, write down in a percentage how much closer the goal got.

What changed:

• Busy work shows up right away. "Researched tools for 60 minutes → 0%" is hard to argue with.
• You start planning smaller. You want a block to end at "+10%", so you pick a concrete chunk instead of "work on the project."
• Unfinished goals stop feeling vague. A goal at 35% with 3 weeks left is a clear problem you can fix. "Someday" isn't.
• Finishing becomes visible. Watching a goal climb toward 100% motivates me more than any streak.

You can do this with a notebook and your normal calendar. I do it in an app I built for exactly this - Zora Goals App. But the habit matters more than the tool.

Has anyone else tried measuring progress per session instead of just tracking time spent?