My ADHD Productivity Stack

How I manage to finish data visualizations, clean my house, feed my dogs, and stay employed

Recently, I gave a talk at work about ADHD and its presentation, misdiagnosis, and underdiagnosis in women. Over the following weeks, numerous people contacted me via Slack, inspired to talk to their healthcare providers about the challenges they faced that sounded a lot like mine. During the talk, I shared the apps I use to manage my time and tasks, so I was inspired to write a little more about my ADHD Productivity Stack. 

Photo by Lukas Blazek on Unsplash

⏰ Time Management: Toggl Track

In the world of Agile software development, we are asked to assign “story points” to each task we’re working on. Story points are essentially a way of measuring the relative time and effort involved in a task or group of tasks.

My ADHD-associated time blindness means I don’t have a realistic sense of how long things take me to accomplish. Since I am a data analyst, I decided to collect some data to find out. Initially, I’d make a note of the time I started then almost always forget to note the time I finished. Enter Toggl Track. I keep a Toggl tab open in my web browser all day and just click the start button when I start something and, you guessed it, the stop button when I stop. (I do forget to stop the timer occasionally, but it’s easy to edit your entries in Toggl Track.) Toggl integrates with my calendar, so I don’t even have to type the name of the meeting I am attending or project I am working on once I create it. 

✅ Task Management: Any.do, Google Assistant

I’ve tried a LOT of to-do apps, and I’m convinced there’s one for everyone. I needed one that had Mac desktop, iPhone, and iPad apps with Google Assistant integration. Any.do provides exactly the amount of functionality I need — I can have multiple lists, color-code and tag items, add URLs, phone numbers, or subtasks, and — most importantly — yell out, “Hey, Google! Add bananas to my grocery list!” I almost never remember things I am running out of, so this is literally the most important feature. There’s a free version, but since it’s one of my most-used apps, I shelled out the $40 for a year of premium. Totally worth it. 

💊 Medications: Round

Round, an iOS app, literally just reminded me to take my meds. A free app with a clean and pleasing user interface and minimally annoying notifications, Round helps me avoid a mid-morning freak out about whether I took my medications. (The first review in Apple’s App Store is from a fellow ADHDer with the same tendency.)

🧊 Stress Relief: Fidget Cube

For years, a retractable pen was my main means of fidgeting. I’d click it repeatedly all day long. I wonder how anyone ever shared a physical office with me. That must have been so annoying. A colleague suggested Antsy Labs’ Fidget Cube. The cost may be the best ten bucks I ever spent. This super stress reliever comes in numerous colors— I have the Graphite and Retro cubes — plus some limited edition variations. It has eight surfaces with different stimuli from buttons to wheels to switches. If you prefer a fidget spinner, Antsy has tons of those, too. 

📝 Notes and ideas: Craft

Somewhat similar to Notion and Coda, but less complex than both, Craft holds my meeting notes, blog ideas, dataviz project ideas, links, home improvement plans, instructions for my dog sitter, proposals for my freelance clients, travel itineraries, and — well, basically everything I don’t put in Any.do as a to-do. Each release of the app introduces new, helpful features, and any page you create can be shared via email or a link. You can allow collaborators to comment (or not) and even create workspaces for teams. There’s an active and helpful Slack community, too.

Do you have apps or other tools that help you manage ADHD that I didn’t mention? Let me know!