Productivity apps failed me when I needed them most

I’ve joked before that in the war between me and productivity, I keep winning. But behind the humor is genuine anxiety about not getting enough done daily and failing to achieve my goals.

Over the past few years, I’ve increasingly turned to productivity apps to help me deal with tasks, deadlines, and things I often forget. However, my experience has left me largely skeptical of the results they promise.

My life has been defined by periods of high achievement, but also extreme burnout. While I usually managed to rally in the past, this last year has been particularly challenging.

My chronic migraines got significantly worse, affecting my ability to complete tasks. Meanwhile, the medication used to treat my migraines and fibromyalgia intensified my existing executive dysfunction and fatigue. While my ADHD has always affected my attention and memory, I found myself forgetting simple things more often.

At the same time, working for multiple sites meant that I had more tasks across different workspaces. As a result of my dwindling budget, I had to take on all of my chores and garden work, as well as meal preparation, despite my health challenges. Deliveries for groceries and other orders also became unaffordable, which meant I also had to do more errands myself.

I needed to do more than ever before, while having less energy and feeling constantly burned out. So I tried to enhance my productivity systems to keep track of things and help me manage.

The system I had been using for years involved TickTick, Asana, Google Keep, and Google Calendar. Under increased strain, though, this system started to falter.

TickTick grouped my overdue tasks together in a daily notification, which led to me avoiding the app entirely. Meanwhile, Google Keep’s simplistic categorization made it difficult to find the notes and checklists I actually needed. Besides push notifications, Asana sent multiple emails and summaries per day, making it difficult to actually see what tasks related to me and were due that day.

I started to look at other apps that could possibly help me, including Notion and Obsidian. Notion promised zero busywork and an infinitely flexible workspace, but I found myself feeling constantly overwhelmed.

Learning the platform’s various features felt like a second job. I successfully set up some useful templates, but my use fell away because of issues with mobile responsiveness. Even when Notion finally rolled out an offline mode, it wasn’t automatic or intuitive.

With Obsidian, plugins play a core role in unlocking more functionality. But since they are community-developed, many are no longer maintained, which results in broken features. Obsidian’s local-first approach also didn’t work well for me, and trying to use a free syncing solution like Syncthing quickly resulted in version conflicts.

I enjoyed Amplenote’s Task Score system, but I wasn’t fond of its inflexible workflow. Todoist had some interesting features, but its most useful settings were buried. However, it was the app’s incessant emails that put me off the service completely.

Meanwhile, social media algorithms honed in on my dilemma. The same way that Google searches for plus-size clothing used to result in weight loss ads across different platforms, targeted advertising quickly cottoned onto my adult ADHD diagnosis (likely from my Reddit and YouTube history).

As skeptical as I am about targeted ads, I was hopeful that productivity apps aimed at neurodivergent people would work better for me. A lot of my challenges, such as task paralysis, chronic procrastination, and memory issues, directly relate to my ADHD and autism.

But in reality, I didn’t find these apps meaningfully different when I tried them. Firstly, there was a large trend of task apps aiming themselves at people with ADHD, even if they weren’t originally built with those people in mind.

Even TickTick has guides aimed at ADHD users and promotes some of its features for us. It is by no means a bad app, and for many years it worked well for me. But as my needs became more complex, it made my task paralysis worse, not better. I also think it has great features, but its cluttered UI makes it difficult to use at times. Even when new useful features roll out, I often miss them completely because they are hidden in some specific setting or menu.

Many of these apps also suggest routines and using Pomodoro timers. Even though routine is important to manage my autism, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve set up a schedule and failed to keep it. Expecting anyone to stick to a strict schedule isn’t realistic because life doesn’t occur in neat little two-hour chunks. But it’s particularly unrealistic to try to do this with someone who has difficulty keeping track of time and regulating attention.

Meanwhile, Pomodoro timers are disruptive when it comes to one of my most useful means of getting things done — hyperfocus. Task switching is also difficult for both people with ADHD and autism, so telling them to take a break every 25 minutes can be incredibly disruptive.

Breaking up tasks into smaller chunks can help. For example, I often tackle an article in chunks rather than in a single session. For my tax filings, I spread out different sections over different days. But needing to keep track of all these sub-tasks can also create overwhelm. When I look at a wall of text with everything I need to do, I feel dread in the pit of my stomach.

This means there needs to be a balance in apps aimed at people with executive dysfunction. The UI should be uncluttered so that it’s easier to navigate, since executive dysfunction can make it difficult to remember what you were doing, even for something as simple as adding a task or checking a calendar. Notifications should be optional and customizable — reminding you of important tasks you may forget, but not creating anxiety or additional distraction. However, I’ve yet to find an app with this kind of balance.

Some AI tools also advertise themselves as perfect for neurodivergent people. This is what convinced me to download Neurolist. However, when I opened the app, I realized it’s yet another so-called ‘free’ app that’s actually premium. I still tried to create a task to see how its AI worked, though, and was met with an overwhelming list. For a single task — writing an article — it suggested 12 sub-tasks. You can remove certain suggested tasks, but this becomes a time sink on its own.

Fabulous is yet another productivity app that has made its way onto my feed. It even includes terms like “chronic procrastination,” “task paralysis,” and “executive dysfunction” in its advertising. This advertising squarely targets it at neurodivergent people.

The app piqued my curiosity enough that I visited its website, especially since I hoped that its creators understood the mechanisms behind procrastination and task paralysis in neurodevelopmental conditions. Because even though I understand the science, I still feel shame when I don’t achieve as much as my peers.

I was disappointed when the app’s site said its aim is to “help you become a better person.” This made me skeptical that it took a different approach to productivity at all.

I still downloaded it anyway, despite the negative reviews I’d spotted. Both its general productivity app (that was linked in ads targeted to people with ADHD), and its ADHD-focused one (Clarify), require you to complete surveys. None of these questions seem to actually tailor the app to your needs. Only after completing the survey, filling in your email address, and enabling notifications do the apps greet you with a paywall.

You can actually get past this by exiting the multiple screens trying to get you to subscribe for a free trial (which requires payment details). Fabulous then greets you with your first, non-customizable goal. Drinking water. It also bombarded me with notifications to upgrade to a paid plan.

Meanwhile, Clarify puts you on a prescribed journey that involves reading affirming, but time-consuming letters. It also posits that ADHD is a superpower, which is an unhelpful oversimplification of neurodiversity. And despite the app’s title on the Play Store describing it as an “ADHD planner,” the actual ability to create tasks was so buried that it took me a while to find it.

That’s when I gave up on looking for a solution that actually understood my needs. But I didn’t give up on finding ways to be more productive.

A common trend I found across apps I tried was a one-size-fits-all approach to productivity. There were slight deviations depending on the exact philosophy they used. But focus tools were essentially all Pomodoro timers. Planner features can be helpful, but are usually difficult to use when you’re exhausted and burned out.

Many tools also approached motivation through gamification (like app streaks) or persistent notifications. The nods to neurodiversity were often surface-level and at times, downright patronizing.

I realized that I understood my needs, so I needed to trust my instincts rather than trying to force myself to use a workflow that didn’t help me. I started giving myself some grace, even if that meant actually not completing tasks. This meant leaving certain chores past their scheduled date. Rather than rushing through work when I wasn’t feeling well, I let editors know when a submission would be late.

Giving myself grace also gave me the space to identify what worked and what didn’t. Stress and anxiety worsened my task paralysis. So I started splitting my tasks between apps. This meant that I could keep time-sensitive tasks limited to TickTick, with other general tasks listed in apps that I checked occasionally.

Having these tasks written down helped me remember them, but without due dates and clutter, they felt less overwhelming. I also used a self-hosted app, Jotty Page, to replace Google Keep, since I found its UI more organized.

I started identifying what I liked about certain apps and how I could use these features in my workflow. For example, Super Productivity’s inbox feature allows me to just dump tasks in without a reminder or date. I can also set certain tasks to recur. The main drawback is that I can’t complete these tasks in the past — because yes, forgetting to mark a task as done is another thing I do.

For bill reminders and plant watering, I set up Subby and Planta. For apps like Donetick, the ability to complete tasks in the past and set up automated scheduling helped take the cognitive load out of future chores.

I’ve also accepted that, despite their promises, some things are simply out of the scope of apps. There are some that are truly helpful, but also plenty that make guarantees they can’t deliver.

It points to a misunderstanding about productivity — that it’s simply a matter of willpower. The reality is a lot more complex and intersects with your health, responsibilities, support systems, mental health, stressors, and financial situation.

I still like to try out different productivity tools, especially if I think that they could be useful to others. I’m also just curious about the apps out there. At the same time, I think that it’s time for important conversations to be had about how helpful some of these solutions really are.

While I’ve set up workflows that work better for me, my migraines still significantly affect my productivity (though new medication has reduced their frequency). But it’s only through ditching the hustle-and-grind mentality and giving myself some compassion that I could find the space to figure out what works best for me.