13th Jun, 2024
ADHD can make task management impossible sometimes. These are the best ADHD planner apps that will help you better manage your day, reducer distractions and allow you to better prioritize your workload.
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Around 4.4% of all US adults suffer from ADHD.
This portion of the population has to manage their ADHD daily to conquer goals, battle procrastination, and combat distractions, all things those with ADHD are intensified for.
Planner apps are becoming a popular way to better manage your schedule and align prioritises for the day ahead whilst trying to remain the focus you need to clear your to-do list or your boss's focuses for you.
A range of planner apps can be helpful for those with ADHD, the most common types of planner apps are daily planner apps, bullet journals, visual planners and calendar apps with a time-blocking methodology included.
For those living with ADHD addressing it across the workday can help you achieve more and planner apps can be good to help give you structure for this. Some benefits of using a planner app across your busy day balancing your ADHD:
Best for | Recommendation |
---|---|
Better work-life balance | |
Customizable daily planning | |
Easy, casual planning app | |
Planning a day of tasks with a timer | |
All-round task management | |
Busy professionals | |
Handling your day on macOS |
Let's go through the pros and cons of each planner app and how it can help with ADHD. It's time to pick the tool you're going to go with to help reduce the day-to-day pressures of ADHD and begin to excel even further.
Sunsama is popular for ADHD thanks to the focus on mindfulness.
Features inside of Sunsama mold to the needs of those with ADHD as they offer a focused way to plan your day called guided planning this can help you plan the day and reflect on the day that you've had and what you've achieved, even moving open tasks to the next day.
There are other features like a Pomodoro timer, distraction-free focus mode for managing your task, and a push to limit how many tasks you do so that the focus is on quality versus quantity something that many with ADHD can benefit from.
Sunsama charges $16 per month (annual) or $20 per month (monthly).
The best planner apps for ADHD have to be Sunsama and Amazing Marvin. Both of these applications are most suitable for all-round use. Sunsama is a popular daily planner that promotes healthy work-life balance.
Amazing Marvin is a customizable task management tool that helps you to choose what tools work best for your routine with many ADHD favorites.
The best visual schedule app for ADHD would have to be Structured.
The app comes on iOS and macOS doing a great job of planning your day using a timeline-based view that many people like to visualize what tasks are coming up. It comes with icons for you to add to each task and a time between tasks giving you context to what's next to focus on.
Amazing Marvin is like a chameleon for those who want to use it for their ADHD.
Chameleon in nature it can be customized to how you want to use it so each Amazing Marvin account can look quite different as they have tools that can be switched on for each user and tailored for their way of task management.
Amazing Marvin has features like a calendar, end dates, timers, and habit tracking which is popular with those who have ADHD as it helps them keep focused and consistent in working on projects and tasks that they have. They can all be switched on and off meaning you get a cuatomized view of your task management based on what tools you need.
Amazing Marvin costs $12 per month, or $8 per month for annual pricing.
Structured is one of the best planner apps for those with ADHD on iOS.
It comes with a way to add tasks that make life a lot easier, you can plot tasks in the app based on time for the day ahead. These can either be set as recurring tasks, a bit like habits, but also as a one-off task. This helps those who like to see a visual representation of their day ahead and allows them to get a more timeline view of what's ahead. The icons make it easier to see at a glance what's on and next. Structured can be food for work, but much more for casual management for your tasks.
If you commit to the lifetime pricing, you will get access to an AI feature that allows you to type out your plans for the day and Structured plans them out for you. You can even use voice dictation making it even more ADHD-friendly.
Structured costs $2.99 per month, $9.99 per year, or $29.99 for lifetime access.
The best free planner app for ADHD has to be Todoist. Firstly, Todoist is one of the only free to-do list apps on this list and comes with board views which a lot of people who have ADHD like to visualize their projects and tasks. Labels and filters inside of their premium offer a decent set of ways to narrow down types of work, but reminders are locked under premium access which is a shame for alerts on your phone.
The best ADHD-friendly student-focused planner app is Llama Life. Llama Life has timers, preset tasks, and a way to work through your list with focus. A lot of people like Llama Life as it blocks distractions and gives you a sense of focus for your day.
If budget is something that worries you as a student, we'd recommend looking at Forest which is a more game-like alternative.
Llama Life is one of the popular timer apps that those with ADHD rave about.
It works by allowing you to load up your day with tasks, adding time duration and when you'd like to do them, and works as a timer to work through them. It now comes on iOS and on the web which allows you to use it as you work.
Task timers help you to stay on task when you've started them and can be customized further with access to reminders and alerts that allow for a better more customizable way t. In general, Llama is fun and playful throughout the applications and uses for ADHD.
Llama Life costs $6 per month or $39 per year as an annual subscription.
Akiflow is popular with those busy professionals who have ADHD.
This is more expensive as a solution, around the same price as Sunsama, but it offers some great features like Sunsama that offer more structure to your day ahead. Akiflow isn't as mindful for your task planning but will allow you to plan tasks in calendar view and better help you bring in tasks from other apps like Gmail, Todoisty, Notion, ClickUp, and more that you might use for work but hate context switching between day to day.
Akiflow is good for ADHD but for some might be too complex or overwhelming, so it is worth exploring whether the app best suits your needs first. Many people will; like features like Rituals that help you guided plan your day ahead and the ability to plan all your tasks in one location to reduce distraction and procrastination.
Akiflow costs $34 per month or $19 per month billed annually.
Adults with ADHD account for 4.4% of the USA population so finding a free planner app will help them save money and combat their daily work struggles. We'd recommend trying Todoist which will help you plot your tasks and plan.
iPad users with ADHD will love visual planning experiences. These can come in many shapes and sizes on iPad.
Todoist is one of the best to-do list apps and also works well with ADHD.
Todoist offers a good free plan that gets people into the application and uses features like board view that is very visual and ADHD-friendly and allows you to see all your tasks much like Trello allows you to move them between columns that you set up yourself.
Todoist also offers a way to capture tasks with inbox and modes for habit-tracking that can be accessed in integrations, which might be good for those morning routines and kicking your day off with a strong focus and success that you can snowball into momentum.
Todoist costs $5 per month or $4 per month billed annually.
Routine works as a minimal planner app that works well for ADHD.
Routine offers a range of features and it comes with console that allows you, on macOS, to capture your tasks, notes, and events easily, something that many people will like as it allows you to capture quickly and get things into your inbox that pop into your brain that you don't want you to get distracted in the moment.
Routine costs $12 per month or $10 per month billed annually.
As someone who struggles with ADHD, you might be seeking out calendar apps that could help you visualize and organize your calendar, whether or not you'd like to plot the most important tasks for your day. Here are some recommendations:
Amie is a popular calendar app that combines tasks and calendars.
Many people might like Amie for ADHD thanks to the focused views for adding tasks, calendar items, and easy-to-use layout. It also works very well on iOS for easily adding tasks into your calendar and splitting them.
Many people say Notion can be overwhelming for ADHD but some others have said it has allowed them to build the perfect workspace. But Notion Calendar comes with Notion and Google Calendar to manage your calendar in a clean and easy layout that many people will love for the focus modes and ability to plot out the week.
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