Have you ever struggled with maintaining focus during long client meetings, felt overwhelmed by information, and missed important details or instructions provided during a meeting? Let's face it, staying focused and organized can be a rollercoaster ride when you have ADHD. Especially now that our days are characterized by meeting marathons and an incessant stream of information.
So let’s dive headfirst into a treasure trove of 10 top-notch productivity tools to help you supercharge your focus, get stuff done, and embrace your ADHD strengths. Who knows, maybe you will find some tools that have flown under your radar all this time, and will now change your daily routine for the better.
Challenges in the Workplace: Navigating ADHD-Related Hurdles
Did you know that as of 2020, over 366.33 million adults globally have been diagnosed with adult attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects your ability to focus, control impulses and manage your energy levels? While many cases have been medically diagnosed over the years, we can only assume that the number of undiagnosed cases is much higher. So you can imagine how many people may struggle with ADHD-related hurdles at the workplace on a daily basis. But what do we mean by that?
ADHD comes in many forms, and not everyone may experience the same behavioral patterns. Nevertheless, ADHD can express itself through:
- Forgetfulness
- Restlessness
- Difficulty paying attention
- Difficulty finishing tasks and following instructions
- Hyper attention to a particular task, while neglecting others
While many may recognize themselves in these behavioral patterns from time to time, it can feel even more burdensome for people diagnosed with ADHD, as their symptoms dictate their professional and personal life on a daily basis. So how can you unlock focus and stay ahead on your busy schedule, despite being diagnosed with ADHD? Fortunately, a variety of different productivity tools has been developed in recent years; tools that will allow you to conquer your to-do lists, get work done more efficiently and seize the day.
Top 10 ADHD-friendly productivity tools
Let’s dive right in and talk about 10 apps that will unlock your focus and enable you to stay ahead of your busy workload. Don’t want to read another article about productivity tools and rather get right to it? Find below an overview of the current tools to help make your life easier - from email management to focus distraction - we've got you covered!
It’s up to you, but rest assured that by the end of this, you will be able to navigate your way through any ADHD hurdle at the workplace with ease in mind.
Category: Task and Project Management
We all know the overwhelming feeling of having dozens of tasks piling up on our desk at the beginning of the week. Knowing where to start an what to prioritize can be difficult. This is where Todoist comes in. The tool is designed to help individuals and teams organize their tasks, projects, and to-do lists, all in one place.
Its clean and user-friendly interface makes it a popular choice for everyone who finds it hard to remember every detail and tasks throughout the day. Forget post-it notes that will only overcrowd your desk(top), making your working environment distracting and a place of clatter. Todoist will allow you to boost your productivity and feel more in control of your daily workload.
Top 3 Features:
- Task Organization: Create projects, sub-projects, and tasks, each with due dates, priorities, and labels. Todoist’s drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to structure and organize your tasks to fit your workflow.
- Natural Language Input: Quickly add tasks by typing or speaking them in plain language. For example: "Schedule Social Media Posts tomorrow at 9 AM" and Todoist will automatically set the due date and time for you.
- Cross-Platform Accessibility: Todoist is accessible across a wide range of platforms, allowing for seamless syncing of your tasks and lists across all your devices. This way you can access and update your to-dos no matter where you are.
Integrations?
Google Calendar, Zapier, and many more
Accessibility?
Web browser, macOS, Windows, iOS & Android
Pricing?
Beginner plan (0€) & Pro plan (4€/month)
Category: Task and Project Management
Did you ever notice, that you are more of a visual learner and get things done more quickly once you have a good overview of your tasks and projects? Then Trello will be beneficial to you by unlocking a new level of visual project management.
At its core, Trello offers a visually intuitive experience, allowing users to create boards, lists, and cards to represent projects, stages, and individual tasks. Its simplicity is its strength, making it accessible for everyone, from individuals managing personal to-do lists to large teams handling complex projects. Trello is not just a productivity tool; it's a visual powerhouse for project management that empowers individuals and teams to work together harmoniously and achieve their goals with precision and clarity.
Top 3 Features:
- Visual Task Management: Trello uses a highly visual and intuitive interface, which allows you to create boards for projects, lists to indicate the progress status of tasks or categories, and cards to represent individual tasks. It has never been so easy to see your project’s progress at one glance.
- Customizable Workflows: Trello offers a high degree of flexibility, allowing you to customize boards, lists, and cards to fit your specific needs. Labels, due dates, attachments, and comments can be added to cards, allowing for detailed task tracking and organization.
- Collaboration: Multiple users can collaborate on boards and cards, making it ideal for teams working on projects together.
Integrations?
Zapier, Evernote, Salesforce, Miro, Google Drive and Dropbox and more
Accessibility?
Web browser, Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android
Pricing?
Free, Standard ($6/month), Premium ($12.50/month), Enterprise ($17.50/user/month)
Category: Time Management
Want to achieve a 41% increase in productivity? Then listen up. Reclaim.ai empowers individuals and teams to take control of their schedules like never before. It was designed with the intention to intelligently optimize your daily agenda by utilizing advanced AI algorithms to analyze your work habits, commitments, and priorities, allowing you to reclaim control over your busy workschedule. Whether you need to allocate more time for important tasks, avoid overloading your schedule, or simply find pockets of peace throughout your day, Reclaim.ai has you covered.
Top 3 Features:
- Smart Scheduling: By using advanced AI algorithms, reclaim.ai analyzes your work habits, commitments, and priorities, enabling smart scheduling of your tasks and meetings to optimize your calendar. The benefit? A balanced work-life schedule, prevention of overloading, and the allocation of more time for essential tasks. Are you intreaged yet?
- Time Blocking: Reclaim.ai allows you to create predefined blocks of focused work time, meetings, or personal time. It then automatically schedules these blocks throughout your week, ensuring that you have dedicated periods for specific types of work or activities.
- Time Tracking: Want to learn more about your productivity level? Reclaim.ai allows you to understand how much time you spend in meetings and on specific tasks, as well as when you are most productive, meaning your tendency to engage in deep work. It then supports you in setting realistic workschedules for upcoming weeks.
Integrations?
Slack, Zoom, Google Tasks, Todoist, Asana, Trello, and more
Accessibility?
Web-based
Pricing?
Free, Starter ($8/month), Business ($12/month), & Enterprise ($18/month)
Category: Task and Project Management
Opening your email account on a Monday morning or after a long vacation can be quite overwhelming. The volume of emails landing in our mail boxes each day is only increasing, making the manual decluttering of one’s mail box a time consuming endeavor. But no worries, SaneBox has you covered, as it offers you a chance to regain control over your email correspondences.
SaneBox uses the power of advanced artificial intelligence to analyze and adapt to your email behaviors, filtering out unimportant emails, so you can focus on what matters most. Moreover, by implementing features like email snoozing and reminders, it enhances your productivity and ensures important messages are never overlooked.
Top 3 Features:
- Email Filtering and Sorting: SaneBox uses AI algorithms to analyze your email messages and automatically sorts them into different (customized) folders, such as "SaneLater" for less important emails and "SaneAttachments" for large attachments. This feature helps prioritize your important emails and reduces inbox clutter.
- Snooze Emails: With SaneBox, you can snooze emails, removing them temporarily from your inbox and having them return later in your day.
- One-Click Unsubscribe: Is you mail box cluttered with unwanted newsletter and subscriptions? SaneBox offers a one-click unsubscribe feature, allowing you to easily remove yourself from unwanted mailing lists. It has never been that easy to unfollow.
Integrations?
Gmail, Outlook, iCloud, and other email providers
Accessibility?
Web-based
Pricing?
One email account ($7/month), two email accounts ($12/month), & four email accounts ($36/month)
Category: Note-taking and Documentation
Imagine not having to take meeting minutes anymore. Impossible? Then meet your next personal AI assistant, jamie, who takes meeting notes for all your meetings throughout the day. After your meeting has finished, you receive an executive summary, topic-based meeting minutes and all relevant decisions and tasks discussed during your meeting. If required, you can make final touches to your meeting notes before sharing them with your colleagues and other meeting attendees.
No need to worry about what to include in your meeting notes and what important information not to fortget, as jamie pays attention for you. jamie makes sure all important topics and action items are included, so you can focus on participating in the meeting and creating value that matters.
Top 3 Features:
- Meeting Accessibility: jamie works seamlessly across all meeting platforms such as MS Teams, Zoom and Google Meet, and in-person meetings, all without the need for a bot to join your meeting. This way, you can fully concentrate on the other attenendees of your meetings, all while jamie takes your notes in the background.
- Language Sufficiency: jamie is sufficient in more than 15 languages, including English, German, Spanish, Italien and more. Gone are the days of having to translate your meeting notes to fulfill the requirements of having documents only in your company language. Let jamie listen to your meeting and do that job for you.
- Customization: jamie allows you to customize your meeting notes to your preferences. By implementing templates, you can indicate to jamie the structure you want your meeting summary to be in. Does you company have any firm-specific works, such as product names or acronyms? Then teach jamie the correct spelling through our custom words feature. And lastly, why not have the most important aspects from your meeting saved at the top of your summary? Indicate your highlight to jamie via the jamie shortcut and it will do the rest.
Where can I use jamie?
In every virtual meeting platform, such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meets, & in face-to-face meetings
Accessibility?
macOS, Windows
Pricing?
Free, Standard (24€/month), Pro (47€/month), & Executive (€99/month)
Category: Note-taking and Documentation
In recent years, Evernote has become a powerhouse for increased productivity for individuals and professionals alike. With its user-friendly interface and cross-platform compatibility, Evernote helps you to stay organized and keep all important information in one place. Gone are the days of loosing post its and loose pieces of paper on your desk.
Evernote not only helps you capture ideas and notes but also makes organizing a breeze through features such as notebooks and tags. No matter your position in your company, Evernote empowers you to stay organized, collaborate with others, and unlock your full potential by keeping all your ideas one click away.
Top 3 Features:
- Note Capture and Web Clipping: Want to capture important information? Then simply create text notes, attach files, record audio, and even take pictures directly within the Evernote app. Additionally, this tool provides a web clipping feature that allows you to save web articles, images, and content, making it indispensable for research and information management.
- Note Organization: Evernote enables you to create notebooks to categorize your notes and use tags to further classify and find them quickly. Note Organization has never been so easy.
- Syncing Notes: Your notes automatically sync across all your devices, ensuring that you can access and edit your information whenever and wherever you are. There is no need to worry about forgetting your notepad at home anymore.
Integrations?
Gmail, Slack, Outlook, Google Drive, Google Calendar, & Microsoft Teams
Accessibility?
Web browser, Windows, macOS, iOS, & Android
Pricing:
Free, Personal (12.99€/month), Professional (14.99€/month), & Evernote Teams (€19.99/user/month)
- Google Keep
Category: Note-taking and Documentation
Google Keep is a brilliantly simple yet immensely powerful tool for jotting down ideas, creating to-do lists, and keeping your life on track. Google Keep excels in the variety of its usecases, allowing you to create color-coded notes, checklists, voice memos, and even draw quick doodles.
The best part? It syncs across all your devices, so you can access your notes whenever and wherever you go. Gone are the days of sticky notes crowding your workspace, as Google Keep will capture all ideas in one digital space, helping you stay organized and never forget those important details.
Top 3 Features:
- Colorful and Visual Notes: Google Keep allows you to create notes that are not only text-based but also visually engaging. You can add colors, labels, and even images to your notes. Productivity has never looked so good.
- Cross-Platform Accessibility: Google Keep seamlessly integrates with your Google account and is available across various platforms. This synchronization ensures that your notes are accessible and up-to-date across all your devices.
- Integration with the Google Ecosystem: Google Keep integrates with other Google services, making it easy to attach files from Google Drive to your notes or set reminders in Google Calendar directly from your Keep notes.
Integrations?
Google Workspace
Accessibility?
Web application & mobile app for iOS and Android
Pricing?
Free
- Forest
Category: Focus and Distraction Management
The Forest app is a delightful and innovative tool that breathes life into your digital world by helping you stay focused and productive. With its charmingly simple concept, the app encourages you to plant virtual trees while you work or study. As you concentrate, your tree grows; however, if you get distracted and leave the app, your tree withers away.
It's a fun and effective way to combat procrastination and boost your productivity. The Forest app not only helps you build a lush forest of accomplishments but also allows you to track your progress and set goals. It's like having a friendly motivator in your pocket, urging you to stay on track and cultivate your productivity one tree at a time.
Top 3 Features:
- Focus and Productivity: Forest helps you stay focused and productive by gamifying your work and study sessions. Staying focused over a certain period of time will allow virtual trees to grow, however, leaving the app will result in your tree withering away. This visual representation of your productivity will encourage you to keep working and avoid distractions elsewhere.
- Customizable Work Sessions: Forest allows you to customize your work sessions, allowing for a variety of different time intervals, all up to your preferences. By setting customized work periods and break times, you are able to align Forest with your individual focus and rest periods.
- Statistics and Accountability: Want to learn more about your productivity? Forest allows you to track how long you've been productive, and earn rewards for consistent focus. This way, you can learn from your habits and work on staying focused for a longer period of time.
Accessibility?
Web-based, & mobile app (iOS & Android)
Pricing?
Web extension (free), & mobile app (4.99€)
Category: Focus and Distraction Management
Brain.fm is a game-changing music streaming service that goes far beyond typical playlists. It leverages the power of neuroscience and artificial intelligence to create music that enhances your cognitive performance and mental well-being. Whether you need to focus deeply on work, relax and unwind, or boost your creativity, Brain.fm has you covered.
Their proprietary compositions are meticulously designed to align with your brain's natural rhythms, helping you enter a state of heightened concentration or relaxation. The result is an immersive auditory experience that can sharpen your focus, reduce stress, and boost productivity.
Top 3 features:
- AI-Powered Music: Brain.fm uses advanced AI algorithms to curate music that is scientifically designed to enhance your cognitive performance and your mood.
- Customized Listening Experience: Brain.fm allows you to choose from different categories, such as "Focus," "Relax," or "Sleep". The app will then tailor the music accordingly and will follow any directions you have given in terms of intensity and duration of the music sessions.
- Offline Access: Once you are a premium member, you can download Brain.fm tracks for offline listening.
Integrations?
Apple Musik, Spotify, and more
Accessibility?
Web-based, & mobile app (iOS & Android)
Pricing?
Free trial period, Monthly ($6.99) and yearly ($49.99) subscription
Category: Focus and Distraction Management
Freedom is a digital sanctuary for those seeking to reclaim control over their online lives. It's a powerful app that empowers you to break free from digital distractions and regain your focus. With Freedom, you can block websites, apps, and even the entire internet during crucial work hours, or moments of personal reflection.
Its intuitive interface allows you to create customized schedules, ensuring that your online habits align with your goals. Whether you need to concentrate deeply, maintain a healthy work-life balance, or simply unplug, Freedom is your guardian against the constant lure of the digital world.
Features:
- Website and App Blocking: Freedom allow you to block access to specific websites, social media platforms, or distracting apps for a defined period, helping you to eliminate distractions and stay focused on your tasks.
- Scheduled Sessions: You can schedule pre-defined focused work sessions to ensure that you have dedicated time periods for being productive without having to setup Freedom every time.
- Sync Across Devices: Freedom allows you to sync your blocklists and schedules across all your devices, ensuring that your work sessions stay consistently distraction-free.
Accessibility?
macOS, Windows, chromeOS, iOS, Android, & Linux
Pricing?
Monthly ($8.99/month), yearly ($3.33/month, forever ($199)
What ADHD-friendly tools do you really need to increase productivity?
The amount of tools promising to significantly increase your productivity are endless. No matter what problem, rest assured that tech companies have already developed a solution for it. The real question is: how can you find the right combination of ADHD-friendly productivity tools that will not overwhelm you, but rather complement your strengths?
The simple answer: it's all about experimentation. Trying out different apps, techniques, and approaches will help you find what clicks with you. And don't forget to cut yourself some slack along the way – productivity isn't a one-size-fits-all game. Good thing that some productivity tools offer a free trial for you to see for yourself how they fit with your way of working. So, why not give it a try – one productivity tool at a time? For example, try jamie for free.
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