Three weeks into 2024 I had a planner app. Nice one. Color coded, weekly view, habit streaks, monthly goals page. I filled it in Monday morning at 8:40, coffee in hand, felt like a person with a system. By Wednesday I had not opened it once.
Not because I forgot. Because looking at the week ahead on a screen felt like staring at a wall.
I have ADHD. Not a punchline, just the reason this post exists.
I am not a researcher. I read the papers, badly and slowly, and built a planner out of them. What follows is what survived contact with my own failure and what did not.
Working memory: d = 1.63 to 2.03
Kofler et al. (2020), bifactor modeling, central executive working memory deficit d = 1.63 to 2.03, meaning 75 to 81 percent impaired. Phonological short-term memory intact.
That second half matters more than the first. Storage holds. Holding while manipulating falls apart. I can hold a phone number. I cannot hold a phone number, walk to the kitchen, and dial it without checking.
So a planner that only reminds me asks the broken part to do the work. Reminding requires you to keep the item active and act before it decays. Any planner built on notifications alone was built for a brain I do not have.
In practice: every item lives outside my head or it does not exist. Next action phrased as one physical verb. "Email landlord", not "handle lease".
Time blindness is measurement, not laziness
Mioni et al. (2023) reviewed a decade of adult ADHD time perception studies. Worst domains: time estimation, time reproduction, time management. Ptacek et al. (2019) argue altered time perception belongs in the core symptom list for adult ADHD.
Time estimation is judging how long something takes. Time reproduction is matching an interval with no cue. Both impaired. That is time blindness. "I will do it after this meeting" is not a plan when I cannot feel how long the meeting runs or how far away tomorrow evening sits.
Lidström et al. (2026), pragmatic randomized trial: group-based time-management intervention and individual occupational therapy both improved time management, organization, emotion regulation, and self-efficacy. Effects held at 3 months. Notice what those were not. Not motivation seminars. Skills and structure, delivered by another human.
In practice: I plan in visible durations. Real start and end times. Deadlines counted backward from a fixed point, never forward from today hoping it works out.
Delay discounting: d = 0.43
Jackson and MacKillop (2016), meta-analysis of case-control studies, delay discounting d = 0.43, p < 10⁻¹⁵. Medium sized effect, enormous consistency. Delayed reward loses value faster for me.
This kills long-horizon rewards. "Save for a trip in eight months" is the worst possible instrument for this brain. Luman, Tripp, and Scheres (2010) report immediate reward works better in ADHD. Volkow et al. (2009) describe a differing dopamine reward pathway.
So the planner cannot promise me a better October. It has to pay me on Tuesday. Concrete numbers on the task line. Something visible that registers now.
Emotions, and the self-compassion part
Faraone et al. and Beheshti et al. (2023, PLOS ONE) both land on emotional dysregulation as core, not decorative. More non-adaptive regulation strategies, not fewer feelings.
Here is where I killed my own systems hardest. Every abandoned planner came with shame. Streak broke, I felt like a fraud, deleted the app, told myself I was just undisciplined. That reaction is the symptom, not the verdict on me.
Treating emotional data as disposable and then punishing myself for the resulting behavior is a design error. So the planner does not punish. Miss a day, log it as a miss, move on. No red. No streak death. Nothing that turns a missed Tuesday into evidence about my character.
Sleep counts too. ADHD runs with a delayed sleep phase, roughly 90 minutes. Any planner demanding 6am habits while ignoring when my body actually sleeps is scheduling my failure.
What I threw away
Started with 53 papers. Cut list:
- Gamification as the core loop. Points, badges, levels. Turns the tool into another thing to maintain, and maintenance is the thing I cannot do.
- Social accountability by default. Shame streaks are the exact opposite of the design.
- Any feature needing more than 20 seconds of daily upkeep.
- Deep work blocks first thing morning. My executive function is not there yet at 6am.
- Anything labeled unlimited.
Kept: one capture box, next physical action, visible time blocks, counted durations, missed days logged without penalty, and a sleep phase the app respects.
Why I built it
Not a cure, not selling one. A working memory deficit at d = 1.63 to 2.03 does not vanish because the typography is nice. What the planner does is move load off the part that fails, make time visible, and pay on the timescale I actually operate on.
It is the tool I wanted at 8:40 that Monday. That is the whole pitch. Try it, keep it if it survives your Wednesday.
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