I have ADHD. I needed help, so I built the app I needed.

First, some background

I have ADHD. Bad. I have for as long as I can remember, but I didn't know I did. I always knew I was different than other people somehow, but I just thought I was weird. I can remember being in school and being embarrassed that I would forget to do an assignment. To date myself, I went to school WAY before there were things like PowerSchool and Canvas. My PowerSchool was my 6th grade teacher saying, "Do the questions after chapter 6 before Friday" just as we are packing up to leave for the day.

In one ear, and out the other.

Oh, I heard him. It just didn't make it from my short term memory and register as a "to do" in my brain. By the time I was halfway down the big hill behind my neighborhood elementary school, it was completely gone from my brain. I couldn't figure out how everyone else in my class remembered to do it, but I didn't. I was a good student. I did well on tests. When I did my assignments, I always scored high. Those zeros hurt, though. That's a quick way to bring down an average grade!

That's just one example of many. It followed me into adulthood. Before I know it, I'm getting bored with jobs quickly, starting project after project and not finishing very many of them, starting new habit after new habit only to abandon them a few months later. Procrastination is the one thing you always can count on from me. I think I just work well under pressure (I do!), but in reality, time means almost nothing to me.

The diagnosis

I had a doctor, who is unfortunately now retired, who wasn't just my doctor, he was also my friend. One day, after telling him of my latest struggle, he says to me, "Rick, have you ever considered that you might have ADHD?" I told him that I really wasn't hyper at all, so I didn't think that could be it. He explained to me that could be one of the symptoms, but that part often isn't as bad once a person with ADHD hits adulthood. He said that his son was recently tested and his numbers were pretty bad and that I remind him of his son. He finally talked me into getting tested, and when he did, he said, "Remember when I told you about my son and how bad he is? Well, your numbers are much worse, as bad as I've ever seen!" Great. I always wanted to be the best at something, but having ADHD wasn't the thing I wanted to excel at.

Living with ADHD as an adult

Since being diagnosed, I've worked hard to try to cope with having ADHD in many different ways. I resisted medication for a long time (really too long!), but that has fairly recently changed. I still struggle with many things, but I'm slowly learning how different tools and coping mechanisms can help me overcome some of the difficult challenges I face on a daily basis.

One of my worst symptoms, and it's something no medication I've found yet has helped me with, is just doing some of the simplest daily tasks. Not only that, but remembering if I've done them or not. Did I take my medicine this morning? Well, the daily pill minder is empty for today, but did I take the wrong day's pills yesterday? It's Friday, and I forgot to do my timesheet for work, even though I have to do it every Friday. Did I send my weekly status report this week? It's a nightmare.

I've tried all of the usual tricks. My first try was Google Calendar. My entire life is in Google Calendar, surely this will work! It did not work. The calendar reminder would pop up and I'd ignore it. So I got an app that would remind me every 10 minutes if I didn't dismiss the notification. It worked for a couple of days, and then I would get tired of the stupid sound and just dismiss it even if I didn't do whatever it was I was supposed to do. Then I'd feel guilty about not doing the thing I was supposed to do and I'd beat myself up over it.

Next, I tried to-do list apps, habit tracking apps, specialized calendar apps, AI-based calendar or to-do list apps. Some of them did some things well, but others didn't. I thought gamification would help. Nope. I'd miss a day and then not even want to open the app to see my failure after that. Nothing felt really made for me and my struggles.

Well, I'm a developer, which is the only reason this story ends with an app instead of a notebook. Somewhere in the pile of deleted trackers I started sketching one that worked the way I need it to.

Every decision came from something that had gone wrong for me before:

• Rest days keep the streak. Miss a day, take a rest day, no big deal. Keep it going tomorrow.
• No red X's, anywhere. Not one. No guilt. No shame. It's just happy to see you again. (Not really. It's an app. But after using it myself for a while, I like to think that it's happy that I'm there.)
• Reminders tied to my routine, not the clock. A 9:00 AM alarm is something I swipe away in my sleep. "After coffee" is something I actually do. Time means nothing to me. I need something that just works "about the time I do that other thing" or something like that.
• A low-stimulation mode. Some days the confetti is Too Much. On those days it turns off the confetti, the sound, the bounce, all of it, and just gives me a quiet list.
• Opening the app counts. Seriously. On the bad days, opening it is the habit. Celebrate the minor victories!

I tested the "remind me when I leave home" feature at one in the morning by driving around the block, the night before I submitted the app to the stores. That's how it goes when you're one person with ADHD building a thing for people with ADHD. You ship at 1 AM because that's when the focus showed up.

What it isn't

It's not a treatment. It doesn't fix anything. I still skip days sometimes, often Thursdays. I could never get the hang of Thursdays. The difference is that Friday no longer starts from zero, and I haven't deleted the app yet in frustration.

So... that's why I'm here. It's why this app exists. Honestly, it exists because I needed it. Then after I made it and used it for a while and it worked well for me (and still does!), I thought that maybe other people might want to use it too. I know there are a billion other to-do list and habit tracking apps out there, but if you are frustrated by them all like I was, maybe this is the app for you.

If you decide to try the Premium version, early supporters get the annual plan for $24.99 instead of $39.99 through October 31, 2026. On Android, it applies automatically. On iPhone, use the code CHECKYEAH25. That's my thank you for reading this far and trusting me to help you through this ADHD maze.