Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a disorder that is commonly associated with children, but more than 9 million American adults also live with the condition. Adult ADHD can cause problems with executive function. This means people with the condition may have a hard time initiating tasks, following through, remembering things, or managing complexity.
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Many people have found success in delegating important memory and productivity tasks to their mobile devices. Apps are available to help you organize, prioritize, and build structure into your life. We’ve rounded up the best apps for ADHD to help take the load off.
iPhone rating: 4.7 stars
• The best iPhone and iPad apps of 2015 This article contains affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if a reader clicks through and makes a purchase.
Price: $4.99 with in-app purchases
Distractibility plays a big part in ADHD, but Due can set you back on track with reminders to do the important things. Increase your productivity by taking the variability out of the must-dos, like taking medication. Adding a reminder is easy, the app design is super clean and sleek, and the reminders are persistent. When a reminder goes off, it continues to ping you in set intervals (say, every 10 minutes) until you mark the task as done. A simple concept with a big payoff.
iPhone rating: 4.1 stars
Android rating: 4.5 stars
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Think of Evernote as your modern-day Trapper Keeper. Type in to-dos, add reminders, scan handwritten notes, take pictures of items you want to follow up on, and save websites and videos. A search function makes finding everything you’ve saved a breeze, so even if you’re not the best with organizing your folders, Evernote can help you find what you need when you need it. Evernote is a great choice to jot down those stray thoughts to pursue later so you can stay on task now.
iPhone rating: 4.7 stars
Android rating: 4.4 stars
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Sometimes even the simple tasks have multiple steps. Increase your chances of getting them done, and increase that motivating feeling of accomplishment, by creating task lists with their own subtasks. Assign due dates to each and add notes that lend helpful information, like locations, passwords, details, messages, or addresses that you need handy to complete the tasks. The app can remind you of upcoming due dates with your choice of mobile notifications, emails, or texts. The app’s map feature is a game changer for running errands, too — it plots your tasks so you can plan the most efficient route for checking items off your list.
iPhone rating: 4.6 stars
Android rating: 4.4 stars
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Keep all your photos, documents, and videos in one searchable spot with Dropbox. The in-app document scanner is a no-brainer for filing receipts, contracts, business cards, lecture notes, event fliers, and other important print materials. You’ll never have to worry about losing them again, especially since Dropbox syncs across devices. As with an online word processor, you can leave comments to remember what was important about a file or document, and you can tag yourself in comments to trigger email notifications to follow up.
iPhone rating: 4.8 stars
Android rating: 4.3 stars
Price: Free
Asana is a free organization and collaboration tool. Use it to create to-do lists and add due dates and details. Asana is great for adding structure to your professional life, too, as it allows for team collaboration: assign tasks to others, view tasks in project boards, and keep tabs on what’s been assigned to you and others. When you’ve assigned out a task, it remains visible, meaning you won’t lose track of or duplicate tasks.
Android rating: 3.9 stars
Price: Free
Time spent on your phone is one of the ultimate productivity sinks. RescueTime is a productivity app that encourages positive changes based on insights into your behavior. The app automatically logs and categorizes the time you spend using your devices, including your phone and laptop or desktop computer. Mobile notifications alert you when you’re approaching or have exceeded your designated limits, and the “Productivity Pulse” is a daily score that makes it easy to compare and measure improvement in your productivity across time.
iPhone rating: 4.7 stars
Android rating: 4.6 stars
Price: Free
Best Phone Apps For Organization
Wunderlist is a checklist and reminder app that’s designed to look similar to your email inbox, so the learning curve is minimal. For each task, set a due date, a reminder time, and subtasks that need to be completed for you to get it done. The app includes a section for notes and attachments related to your tasks. Sort your lists into labeled folders while completed to-dos are automatically archived to maintain a clutter-free digital space. The app also has a widget that allows for swipe-down visibility of your lists from any screen or app. The simple, straightforward design of Wunderlist keeps your focus on your tasks and not on the app.
iPhone rating: 4.7 stars
Android rating: 4.5 stars
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Get things out of your head and onto a list that stays with you, pings you, and motivates you to be productive with Todoist. With the quick-add feature, you just type in a task, reminder time, and hashtagged list category, and the app takes care of all the organization. You can also set recurring reminders, so you can spend less time working in the app and more time getting stuff done. Track your productivity with Todoist’s progress summary, which clearly displays how many tasks you’ve completed and how many are still waiting for your attention.
iPhone rating: 3.7 stars
Android rating: 4.6 stars
Price: Free
This time management app keeps you from using your phone as a distraction. Brain Focus blocks apps and quiets your notifications so phone distractions are not an option when you need to focus. The app uses the Pomodoro method of setting time on-task and time off-task, otherwise known as a break. Use it when you need to focus, and the app will count down your selected time while locking you out of the apps you’ve selected as distracting. Brain Focus also uses your countdowns to track how long you’ve spent working in self-selected categories, such as work, school, chores, reading, meditation… whatever suits your needs best.
If you want to nominate an app for this list, email us at [email protected].
Amanda Doyle is a Boston-based healthcare editor, former dance fitness instructor, and previous neuroscience researcher. She’s passionate about equity, kindness, conscious language, and destigmatizing the human experience.
Juggling tasks is an important skill in the modern world. From that presentation you promised to send your boss by today to picking up some ingredients for dinner, from holiday planning to present-buying, remembering everything can sometimes be overwhelming.
Fear not – your smartphone can help you avoid drowning in a sea of tasks. There are a range of apps aiming to help you get on top of your to-do lists, many that synchronise with partner apps on your computer, tablet or even your smartwatch.
Here are seven of the best ones to try:
Wunderlist Android / iOS / Windows Phone (Free + IAP)
Microsoft liked this task-management app so much, it bought the company behind it in June 2015. Happily, it hasn’t been shut down since, as is often the way with such deals. Wunderlist is one of the easiest to-do list apps to use for beginners.
Creating and sharing lists is easy, as is setting up deadlines for getting them done – and reminders to ensure you’re not caught out. Using Wunderlist to collaborate on lists with colleagues and family members is easy, and its smartwatch app is a useful way to quickly check on your lists – while shopping, for example.
Like most of these apps, Wunderlist is freemium: pay £3.99 a month and you’ll get full access to features like file-sharing and subtasks – something mainly for power users.
Google Keep Android / iOS (Free)
Google Keep isn’t just for to-do lists – it’s an Evernote-style service for keeping (hence the name) notes, photos and even audio recordings that you don’t want to lose in your device. As part of that, though, it’s an effective tool for keeping track of your tasks and ticking them off when finished.
As with Gmail, there’s a good system of labels and colours to separate off different parts of your life: work and family, for example. There are also some nifty alert features: the ability to set location-based reminders for example, which is good if you’re an absent-minded type likely to wander past a supermarket without remembering that you need more teabags.
Iphone Apps For Organization
Todoist Android / iOS / Windows Phone (Free + IAP)
For simple and clear design, it’s hard to beat Todoist, which blends a neat look and feel with a host of useful features for keeping on top of your tasks. It’s easy to set up and manage lists, share them with other people, and set reminders and deadlines to help you get them done.
The collaboration features are one of its key selling points, and it plays nicely with other online services: one of the most useful being IFTTT. Its smartwatch app is handy, and if you need more motivation, there’s a fun “Karma” feature that awards you points for ticking off your tasks.
The key features are free, but Todoist also has a premium option costing £21.99 a year. For that, you get more notification and reminder options, the ability to upload files, photos and sound recordings, and more ways to add and access your tasks.
Any.do Android / iOS (Free + IAP)
Any.do shares many of its features with the rivals reviewed here, from syncing your lists across all your devices, to sharing features and the ability to set certain tasks as “recurring” if they aren’t one-off duties.
If speaking rather than tapping out words is your thing, you’ll appreciate its voice-entry feature, which lets you create a list by talking into your smartphone. If you (like me) struggle with your time management, there’s also a very useful feature called Any.do Moment, which focuses just on the tasks you’ve set as needing to be done today.
As with the others, Any.do is free to use with all the features most people will need. However, a £2.29 monthly subscription upgrades you to its premium tier, with more themes, location-based alerts, and access to its full collaboration and file-attaching features.
Remember the Milk Android / iOS (Free + IAP)
One of the longest-established to-do list apps, but one that’s doing a decent job of keeping up with its newer rivals. Remember The Milk does the basics of task and list creation, syncing across devices and setting deadlines and priorities well.
It works well with services like Google Calendar and Evernote, and sharing lists and tasks with friends and colleagues is easy too. However, power-users will need to upgrade to its £29.99-a-year Pro subscription, which adds the ability to break jobs into subtasks, use colour tags to separate different kinds of lists, and set reminders.
Clear iOS (£3.99 + IAP)
Best Mac And Phone Apps For Organization And Planning Skills (hops) Interventions
While many to-do list apps look the same, Clear has taken a bold, colourful and different approach to helping you keep on top of your tasks. Simple gestures create, rearrange and tick off your to-dos, and you can create separate lists to ensure your shopping and working duties aren’t jumbled together.
Its desktop Mac and Apple Watch versions synchronise neatly, and while it doesn’t have the full range of power-features seen in some of its rivals, options like reminders are built in. The key appeal here is the ability to quickly swipe your way through lists as you complete tasks.
Clear costs £3.99 for the full app. The in-app purchases, such as the 8-Bit or Sci-Fi “sound packs” for personalisation, are entirely optional.
Habitica Android / iOS (Free + IAP)
Finally, something completely different. Well, quite different. Habitica is an app for tracking and ticking off daily tasks like the others, but wrapped around that is an RPG-style game to motivate you to complete them.
You create a character, unlock armour, pets and quests, and battle “monsters” all within the framework of completing your to-do lists. Meanwhile, a reward system encourages you to spend the “gold” you loot on time for treats in the real world as you get organised.
If you’re looking for a powerful, serious task management app and haven’t spent much time playing RPGs, Habitica may be too quirky for your needs. However, if you’re looking for a fun motivational spin on this app category, it’s worth a try.
Over to you! The comments section is open for your experiences of the apps above, and your recommendation of other useful to-do list apps that we haven’t included.
Best Mac And Phone Apps For Organization And Planning
•The best Android apps of 2015
•The best iPhone and iPad apps of 2015
Best Mac And Phone Apps For Organization And Planning Skills
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