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Apps to help ADHD

29 replies

TheActualQueen · 16/02/2026 08:13

Just wondering if anyone has signed up to one of these.

Looking at Liven and Fabulous

If so were they helpful?

OP posts:
BuffaloCauliflower · 16/02/2026 08:15

I did a trial of Fabulous and found it infuriating, made no sense, couldn’t seem to set it for what I wanted. It’s put me off trying anything like that again.
What are you hoping for an app to help you with?

TheActualQueen · 16/02/2026 18:19

They just keep advertising at me! So wondered if they were any good.
I’m not diagnosed - i guess my phones been listening to me saying I think I have ADHD

OP posts:
3beesinmybonnet · 16/02/2026 18:47

I find the Finch app good for building habits though I only use the free version. It's quite cute though I suspect it's aimed at teenagers with ADHD, not forgetful old fogeys like me.

Savonette480 · 17/02/2026 01:59

Do NOT I repeat do NOT sign up to the
Fabulous app.

It appears that a member of my family is being allegedly actively scammed by them.

They received e-mail confirmation from them that their subscription had been cancelled on a particular date last year and my relative has only just discovered that the Fabulous app has continued to take money from their credit card monthly, after that date, and every month right up to last week!

My relative is currently sending them a legal letter,

Lots of complaints on Reddit. I think they are taking advantage of people with ADHD and hoping that they won’t check. It’s pretty despicable!

I don’t know anything about Liven but beware because a lot of these seemingly different apps can be owned by one company.

Savonette480 · 17/02/2026 02:00

BuffaloCauliflower · 16/02/2026 08:15

I did a trial of Fabulous and found it infuriating, made no sense, couldn’t seem to set it for what I wanted. It’s put me off trying anything like that again.
What are you hoping for an app to help you with?

Please check that they are not (allegedly) taking money off you despite cancelling your subscription!

VoltaireMittyDream · 17/02/2026 02:33

I tried Finch but couldn’t get on with it as I found it asinine. I find most of them this way. All the ones where you grow plants and have big-eyed avatars doing cute cartoony things to gamify your to-do list and water consumption and constantly pelting you with affirmations as though you’re an insecure 5 year old rather than a serious adult people are relying on to keep her shit together.

What has helped me has been:

Notion databases for storing information (I.e. searchable databases of tradespeople, holiday clubs, etc)

Saving everything to my Google calendar religiously

Ongoing shopping lists in Google Keep, with an alert that goes off when I arrive at the shop in question

YNAB to keep track of finances (this has made a HUGE difference)

A bright neon phone protector so I don’t lose my phone as easily

Bank cards in an enormous old purse like my mum used in the 80s, in case I lose my phone or it runs out of battery and I can’t use Apple Pay

A pouch with all my essentials in it that I transfer between bags.

Phone charger cables and power banks literally everywhere

A paper diary and pocket notebook, because I still need to physically write things down to make them go into my memory.

TheActualQueen · 17/02/2026 04:32

VoltaireMittyDream · 17/02/2026 02:33

I tried Finch but couldn’t get on with it as I found it asinine. I find most of them this way. All the ones where you grow plants and have big-eyed avatars doing cute cartoony things to gamify your to-do list and water consumption and constantly pelting you with affirmations as though you’re an insecure 5 year old rather than a serious adult people are relying on to keep her shit together.

What has helped me has been:

Notion databases for storing information (I.e. searchable databases of tradespeople, holiday clubs, etc)

Saving everything to my Google calendar religiously

Ongoing shopping lists in Google Keep, with an alert that goes off when I arrive at the shop in question

YNAB to keep track of finances (this has made a HUGE difference)

A bright neon phone protector so I don’t lose my phone as easily

Bank cards in an enormous old purse like my mum used in the 80s, in case I lose my phone or it runs out of battery and I can’t use Apple Pay

A pouch with all my essentials in it that I transfer between bags.

Phone charger cables and power banks literally everywhere

A paper diary and pocket notebook, because I still need to physically write things down to make them go into my memory.

Thank you - good tips 💛

OP posts:
BlooomUnleashed · 17/02/2026 06:52

I’ve used Fabulous (original, not ADHD specific one) for four years.

I’m close to hitting a whole year streak of Morning Routine 🎉

I love it.

I also use Structured Pro for planning and a daily time line because it allows me to plan around energy, not just time.

In my ADHD groups we have a speaker who presented the concept of an ADHD OS, so google calender and apple reminders feed into Structured Pro and I can see if I’ve been too wildly optimistic once I’ve worked out the energy costs.

Goblin tools (free web version) is really good for breaking down tasks

Liven I’ve not tried.

Skybunnee · 17/02/2026 07:04

The podcaster who does the podcast ADHD Chatter promotes TIMO app - apparently it won some award. Haven’t tried it.

SerenityScout · 17/02/2026 07:05

I’ve signed up for both Liven and Fabulous to help with my ADHD, and here’s how they worked for me

Fabulous helped more with structured routines like morning habits, planning my day, and breaking tasks into smaller steps. It made things feel a bit more manageable when I wasn’t sure where to start.

Liven was more about mood tracking and awareness. It was nice for checking in with myself and noticing patterns in how I felt, but it didn’t help as much with actually getting stuff done.

For anyone else with ADHD, I found that using them together was more helpful than just one on its own.

Also, I was diagnosed through ADHD Certify, so I know I’m actually dealing with ADHD, which helped me choose tools that might actually work for me.

Mt563 · 17/02/2026 07:13

As well as already mentioned tips, I use an electric notepad (remarkable). It was expensive but I've tried so many things (notion, filofax etc) and this is the first time I've managed to keep all my notes in the same place and easy to find what I need to reference. It's a big weight off my mind.

Finch is daft but it is working for me, I just don't pay too much attention to the stories and stuff.

As well as everything in google calendar, I also use my phone alarm a lot. Need to take a form to school on Monday? Alarm. Need to get a card whilst I'm at Tesco in Saturday? Alarm.

MostlyFineActually · 17/02/2026 07:25

Have you looked at the Dubbii app? I've found body doubling really helps and it works for me!

TheActualQueen · 17/02/2026 10:19

SerenityScout · 17/02/2026 07:05

I’ve signed up for both Liven and Fabulous to help with my ADHD, and here’s how they worked for me

Fabulous helped more with structured routines like morning habits, planning my day, and breaking tasks into smaller steps. It made things feel a bit more manageable when I wasn’t sure where to start.

Liven was more about mood tracking and awareness. It was nice for checking in with myself and noticing patterns in how I felt, but it didn’t help as much with actually getting stuff done.

For anyone else with ADHD, I found that using them together was more helpful than just one on its own.

Also, I was diagnosed through ADHD Certify, so I know I’m actually dealing with ADHD, which helped me choose tools that might actually work for me.

Did you pay for ADHD Certify?

OP posts:
TheActualQueen · 17/02/2026 10:20

Thanks for the feedback on the apps everyone. Good to know they work for some people ☺️

OP posts:
BuffaloCauliflower · 17/02/2026 10:22

Savonette480 · 17/02/2026 02:00

Please check that they are not (allegedly) taking money off you despite cancelling your subscription!

All good here no worries, I have a YNAB hyperfocus going for 5 years now so nothing gets past me 😂

ForFunGoose · 17/02/2026 10:25

Use chat GPT and make your own.

BertieBotts · 17/02/2026 11:12

I would stay far, far away from any of these apps that bombard marketing constantly. Their marketing is so predatory and they don't tell you anything you can't get from a book or podcast or good Youtube channel like How To ADHD.

Anything making extremely vague claims (e.g. "be a better parent" "improve self-regulation" "be more productive" "achieve goals") is worth swerving. Try the free versions of tools if you want to try them out. Don't pay for something without knowing exactly what you're paying for. The apps like Liven/Fabulous all talk in extremely vague terms and don't explain what you actually get from the app, how they do what they claim to do or why it is better than free or cheaper versions.

Dubbii is a tool for a specific purpose which is body doubling and a virtual support group which is probably a bit more UK-focused than other online ADHD support groups (although they have international participants). That is specific, so you probably have an idea of whether it will be helpful for you or not. IIRC it's also pay as you go type thing? So not a subscription designed to trap you into complicated cancellation policies.

Agree YNAB is good if you get into the theory and understand how to use it, so again this is a specific tool because YNAB is a method first and the app is a tool which makes it easier to follow the method.

I did use Fabulous years ago when it was much less pushed on social media and it did help me set up a morning routine, but it didn't stick. They also seem to promise much more now which makes me suspicious of it. Ultimately years later, I've realised that ADHD means I don't form habits in the same way as NT people anyway, and I don't find habits and routines as helpful as NT people seem to find them. For me a tool to help set a habit or routine will only work for so long and then I fall off the wagon and if it had taken me too long to build up then I don't have the motivation to build it all up again from scratch because the novelty is gone. I don't actually need scaffolding to make NT tips work for me, I need to find my own tips and supports which work for me without scaffolding. That's why I tend to prefer tools or resources which are made by people with ADHD themselves OR by people who are experienced in helping people with a particular difficulty. If you look up who owns these apps, a lot of the ones with the most prolific marketing are tech companies primarily and they are scraping very generic wellness or productivity type advice. There is probably nothing wrong with this advice, which is why it will help some people, but it's very similar to the same things which are in all the self-help books, articles, blogs, podcasts etc etc. Many adults with ADHD already have a stack of self-help books they have tried and not been helped by. If you're hoping for something new then I don't think these platforms will deliver it.

The post by the user gushing about Liven and Fabulous sounds like an ad, sorry if I've got that wrong, but something about the wording of the post.

BertieBotts · 17/02/2026 11:14

ForFunGoose · 17/02/2026 10:25

Use chat GPT and make your own.

Damn I took so long to write a post and this sums it up in seven words Grin

Yes. This is about the quality of the advice you'll get from those types of apps and it will actually be personalised to you. (Just be careful because developing an emotional attachment to a chatbot is dangerous).

VoltaireMittyDream · 17/02/2026 15:36

Skybunnee · 17/02/2026 07:04

The podcaster who does the podcast ADHD Chatter promotes TIMO app - apparently it won some award. Haven’t tried it.

Tiimo was designed for autism rather than ADHD. I tried it and the routines were not adaptable or changeable, and if you were a minute late starting your routine the whole sequence was fucked for the rest of the day basically.

That was 2 years ago, so maybe they’ve improved it since then, but it was far too rigid for me and caused way more stress and frustration than it resolved.

VoltaireMittyDream · 17/02/2026 16:28

@BertieBotts totally agree with the predatory marketing. With so many people now late diagnosed (or peer-reviewed 🤣) ADHD, there has been an explosion of companies keen to exploit people’s explicitly stated difficulies with impulse buying and related tendencies to forget to cancel subscriptions.

Many of these apps have been developed in response to the particular challenges of ADHD developers, and may work for them, but IME part of the struggle with ADHD is that it affects us all in different ways, and most off-the-peg systems don’t hit the spot.

I think most ADHDers have a strong cognitive need for pastiche and customisation, alongside a contradictory but deeply felt sensory / emotional need for order and streamlining and efficiency.

I’ve needed to learn to make the cognitive need for customisation and pastiche support a form of order and efficiency that doesn’t always look efficient from the outside.

I’d love an app that did it all for me, but part of my whole experience of ADHD is a cognitive need to do it myself & an inability to engage with / pay attention to things that are too slickly automated.

BertieBotts · 18/02/2026 10:28

I had an interesting conversation with my child's psychiatrist where she reckons that the longing for order and efficiency is actually more of an AuDHD trait. According to her, someone with only ADHD is often just as much at home in chaos as they are within order, and this does fit for me. The only thing that I struggle with in chaos is the longer term effects of it. Short and medium term chaos is absolutely fine. I love doing different things each day. I love following whims, curiosity and random inspiration. The happiest times of my life have been when I had no idea what I would be doing tomorrow or for the rest of the week. The main problem with this is that none of it is self-sustaining and none of it really contains much of a bigger picture, so over time if I JUST live my life like this, and nobody else is in charge of carving a path, it settles into rather boring nothingness and groundhog day and loneliness and I get a bit depressed with it all. I've loved times of my life though when I've been able to jump on the train of more motivated or long-term thinkers or people with bigger impulses than me (my impulses tend to be short-lived) but then I do worry at times that this makes me passive. And when I don't have someone with a tail to jump on, like DH is currently very stable in his job and our home isn't going anywhere and all of these are good things, but it means if there is to be movement then I need to create it and I'm not so good at that.

I do like things to be efficient, but only inasmuch as it means less effort for me. I think it's part of my ADHD that my sense of avoiding effort is incredibly honed and sharp Grin but it's not especially good at seeing the bigger picture, it's only ever focused on the immediate term.

I used to do that thing which comes up on memes every so often where people try to carry 97 bags at once in order to save making more than one trip and in the process risk dropping everything. And I really liked Dana K White's book about cleaning where she points out several examples of where trying to "be efficient" makes things less effective and sometimes overall it's less work/more efficient/effective to do things a slightly longer way. This is exactly what I thought of when I read what you wrote about learning how to find a form of efficiency which looks inefficient at first glance.

SerenityScout · 20/02/2026 08:58

TheActualQueen · 17/02/2026 10:19

Did you pay for ADHD Certify?

Their screening test is for free, later I opted for their installment plan for assessment.

Ritaskitchen · 20/02/2026 09:04

I just use my calender. I put all appoints in there - with 2 reminders. Plus I then try to remember I have entered the appointment correctly.
Medication helps. Apps
not so much. I have one for screen time called Be present. Has reduced my screen time time somewhat.
Also what do you want the app to help you with?

Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 20/02/2026 09:08

Apps make me worse. The desire to check my phone all the time in case I'm missing something isn't good for me and my ADHD presentation.

I swear by notepads, pens and Writing. Everything. Down. Somehow it's only 'real' to me if it exists in a real life format.

But this might just be me. I'm a bit odd all round.

Madthings · 20/02/2026 09:09

3beesinmybonnet · 16/02/2026 18:47

I find the Finch app good for building habits though I only use the free version. It's quite cute though I suspect it's aimed at teenagers with ADHD, not forgetful old fogeys like me.

Same! I like it also only have free version but I started using it last summer and still going.

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