According to the Centre for ADHD Awareness, Canada (CADDAC), people with ADHD often fall behind in life. In Canada, over 32% of children with ADHD never graduate high school. Meanwhile, Canadian adults who have ADHD see a higher unemployment rate than adults without ADHD. Considering debilitating symptoms like ADHD paralysis, these statistics should not surprise you. ADHD comes with a host of complications that can leave you feeling frozen, even when you have critical tasks to get done. Luckily, smart companies have created ADHD apps to help you get back to work or school. If you want to know the 15 best apps for ADHD in 2023, keep reading this article.
What Is ADHD?
ADHD is a medical condition where people have difficulty focusing or paying attention. The acronym stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Forgetfulness, excessive fidgeting or talking, impulsiveness, and impatience can also be symptoms of this condition.
Childhood ADHD symptoms used to be attributed to high-sugar diets. However, dietary preference is not a cause of ADHD in and of itself. Instead, genes are the most commonly cited cause of ADHD.
Some risk factors can increase the chances of someone developing ADHD. For example, conditions in the womb are correlated with ADHD. Premature babies and babies with low birth rates have a higher risk for ADHD than non-premies.
Mothers who use substances (e.g., tobacco and/or alcohol) or get exposed to toxins like lead while pregnant also have a higher risk of birthing a baby who will go on to have ADHD.
Brain injuries to the pre-frontal cortex can lead to ADHD-like symptoms, too. ADHD symptoms from brain injuries can occur in people who never presented these symptoms before the injury.
If you think you or your child has ADHD, it’s important to talk to a doctor. Healthcare providers make ADHD diagnoses using symptom checklists and interviews with loved ones.
Receiving an ADHD diagnosis is critical to getting proper treatment. Treatment may include ADHD medication, therapy, or a combination of both.
Your doctor can also prescribe lifestyle changes to help manage the symptoms of ADHD. Lifestyle changes may include eating healthier, exercising more, and practicing mindfulness or meditation daily.
What Is ADHD Paralysis?
ADHD paralysis is not a condition but a symptom of ADHD. It occurs when someone with ADHD gets so overstimulated by their surrounding environment that they feel like they cannot function properly.
Analysis paralysis is another name for this condition, and it includes the following symptoms:
- Freezing when presented with too much information
- Procrastinating on projects, even when you know they are important
- Inability to track time without looking at the clock
- Constantly overanalyzing situations or tasks
- Poor active listening skills
- Poor decision-making skills
- Poor time management skills
- Inability to focus
- Brain fog
- Avoidant behaviour, especially when completing tasks that require deep focus and attentiveness
Many of us have experienced the above symptoms at one time or another. However, most of us can control these behaviours. People who experience ADHD paralysis feel these symptoms are not under their control.
Luckily, you do not have to live with this ADHD symptom forever. Lifestyle changes and life hacks can help you manage ADHD paralysis. For example, setting up a daily reward system can help motivate you through an episode of analysis paralysis.
Other at-home treatments include journaling your thoughts, prioritizing tasks, breaking individual tasks down into achievable milestones, and avoiding taking on too many projects at once.
To make your life even easier, you can use lifestyle applications to help reduce daily disruptions. We will discuss some of the best apps for doing just that below.
The Best Apps for ADHD and ADHD Paralysis
The best apps for ADHD can help you or your loved one better manage school, work, and other items on your to-do list.
These apps are not a treatment for ADHD; you should never use them to replace your ADHD medication. However, they can help you experience fewer negative symptoms of your disorder.
The following 15 apps can help you with everything from organization and productivity to project management and collaborating with teams.
1. Greatness App (Sponsored)
Greatness is a habit-tracking app focused on the small steps that lead to big change. Built around a sophisticated UI and a team of behaviour scientists, Greatness offers pre-built plans as well as customizable routines and options to be the best version of yourself.
Greatness also offers specialized courses and audio coaching. These daily audio coaching and module sessions are created by behavioural scientists to help you stay motivated and focused on your journey. The Greatness app serves as your lifestyle coach. It helps you develop healthy habits and daily routines using behavioural science in these coaching sessions.
I have personally used this app and love how it doesn’t just focus on ADHD, but also provides support around procrastination, insomnia, productivity issues, stress, burnout, anxiety, and weight loss!
2. Forest
The Forest app has the motto, “stay focused, be present.” It was not explicitly designed for people with ADHD. But if you have ADHD, Forest is a great way to stay motivated and focused on your tasks.
How does Forest do it? The super-unique concept of this app is that as long as you stay focused on your work, you can grow a tree on the app. Leaving the app (and quitting your task) causes the tree to wither up and die.
Over time, you can grow an entire forest of trees on this application. And Forest has real-world applications, too. Forest partners with Trees for the Future to plant real-life trees for every tree you grow on your app.
3. Routinery
The Routinery app only launched in 2020. Yet, it is one of the most popular productivity apps around today. Routinery helps you build habits for life, whether you want to build an exercise routine or get more reading done.
For each routine you create in the app, you can choose the exact day(s), time, and the number of reminder alerts. The reminder alerts will go off on the days and times you choose. Then, the alert will keep going off until you log onto the app.
Routinery has multiple pre-set routines to help you get started. Or you can create a customized routine to help you with your ADHD paralysis symptoms.
4. Lifesum
Remember how we mentioned that many doctors prescribe dietary changes to help with ADHD symptoms? The Lifesum app can lend you a hand. It is a healthy diet and weight loss application for adults.
With Lifesum, you can search hundreds of different diets to find the right plan. You can use the app’s built-in calorie-tracking tool to monitor your daily goals. The app also offers educational resources and recipes.
Important for people with ADHD, Lifesum can help you break food habits that are harming your health. Many people who have ADHD suffer from unhealthy food habits.
For example, you may turn to food for comfort when dealing with ADHD paralysis. Using Lifesum can help you stay on track with your health goals. A healthier body means a healthier brain, too.
5. SimpleMind Pro
SimpleMind Pro is an application that makes mind mapping simple. Mind maps are diagrams that can help you organize your thoughts, ideas, or even tasks. They can help improve your memory and brainstorm creative projects.
With SimpleMind Pro, you can access various mind map templates. Add your thoughts or ideas to the blanks on the template. You can then customize your mind map with photos, colours, and more.
The best part of this app is the autofocus feature. It enables you to work without distraction, which is perfect for people who suffer from ADHD and ADHD paralysis.
6. Evernote
Evernote is marketed as a note-taking application, but it is so much more. It can help you track and manage to-do items, stay accountable with work or school projects, and organize your notes in the most helpful way.
You can upload images and documents to get started when you download the app. The app syncs with tablets, laptops, and smartphones to ensure all your notes are shared seamlessly between screens.
Evernote works similarly to a filing cabinet. You can label different folders for various projects, events, or other aspects of your life. The app also features a search function to easily access all your important notes.
7. Todoist
As its name suggests, the Todoist app is a digital to-do list. It can help you stay organized and ward off analysis paralysis in your daily life. Plus, this app is super simple to minimize distractions and maximize focus.
Here’s how it works. Create a new task in the Todoist app and label it accordingly. You can add tasks to your list and include due dates and reminders. Then, check off each task as you complete it.
The app has powerful features like automatic sorting, which can help you prioritize tasks. You can also add filters to further reduce the information the app presents to you so that you can say goodbye to ADHD paralysis once and for all.
8. Pomodoro
The Pomodoro timer is an online timer that you can download via an app onto your phone. Also known as Pomofocus, this timer aims to help users focus on their work, school, or home tasks.
Like Todoist, Pomofocus is super simple to use. You must add daily tasks to the app and set a time estimate for each task. When you log on, you can choose the task you want to complete and set the timer.
Pomofocus includes super helpful break times for when you are feeling overwhelmed. You can even change the colour of your timer to help boost your mood while you work.
9. Trello
Trello is a project workflow management application and a great digital ADHD planner. The makers of Trello built it for small businesses and teams. It is also great for people with ADHD, especially if you suffer from analysis paralysis.
The app uses various boards to help you organize projects. Using these boards, you can track daily tasks, long-term projects or plans, and your progress with your ongoing to-do list.
You can divide your projects or tasks on each board into milestones. Drag and drop tasks into the “to-do,” “working on,” and “completed” sections. Within each milestone, you can also add cards with attachments or additional task breakdowns.
Trello can help you keep from feeling overwhelmed with big projects. You can narrow down individual tasks without ever having to think about the larger picture. That way, you can stay motivated and attentive for longer.
10. Bear
The Bear app is for writers and people like you who want to stay on top of their to-do lists. Apple enthusiasts love Bear because the app offers a similar user experience to Apple’s notes function but with added capabilities.
Bear’s most impressive features include the ability to link notes together, whether they are in the same folder or not. You can also use hashtags in your notes for easy searching and organization.
The application also features a powerful Focus Mode. Turn on this capability to reduce the clutter and information the app presents to you. That way, you can prevent analysis paralysis before this symptom starts to bother you.
11. Productive
As its name suggests, Productive is a productivity app. It can help you create new habits, manage your daily and long-term to-do lists, and track your progress.
It is a simplified version of Routinery, which we talked about earlier. Productive, however, comes with positive reinforcement for consistently achieving your goals.
How does Productive work? All you have to do is customize routines of daily or weekly tasks with their deadlines. Consistently completing your tasks on time will earn you positive feedback from Productive.
12. Clear Todos
Clear Todos, or just Clear, is a super-simplified to-do list application. This is one of the best productivity apps for people who frequently struggle with analysis paralysis. Why?
Like Trello, Clear helps you break down projects and tasks into smaller, easily achievable milestones. You can colour-code each of your lists and organize them in a way that makes sense to your brain.
Best of all, the app does not have any extra bells or whistles. It is pared down to its simplest form for people who want the most minimal information while tackling work or school tasks.
13. Remember the Milk
Another task management application, Remember the Milk is the product you need if you are forgetful. It combines simplified to-do lists with annoying task reminders to ensure you always remember to do something important again.
Remember the Milk allows you to create customizable lists. You can add tasks to your list. Then, you can break each task into subtasks to make your project more manageable.
Importantly, this app allows you to share your to-do list with people in your life. Sharing your goals can help you stay accountable. That way, if the app is not enough to remind you to stay on task, your loved ones will pick up the slack.
That’s not all, though. Remember the Milk is a cross-platform application that syncs with all your other apps. Remember the Milk will organize tasks from your different apps and keep you in the know no matter how busy you are.
14. Coach.Me
Sometimes, these apps may not be enough to keep you motivated. In that case, you may need someone else to hold you accountable for your goals. That is where the Coach.Me app can come in.
The Coach.Me app combines a habit tracker and accountability partner in one. The habit tracking portion of the app is free to download. You can even access a community forum to get support for your habit goals.
For $25 a week, you can also access personalized coaching through the app. Your coach can do everything from offering support as an accountability partner or offering advice directly to help you achieve your goals faster.
15. Priority Matrix
Priority Matrix is a project management application. The makers of this app designed it for companies. Yet, individuals can also find it useful, especially if they deal with symptoms of ADHD.
The app makers designed this product based on the Eisenhower Matrix. The Eisenhower method organizes tasks based on their importance. For example, you can set due dates, and the app automatically organizes tasks by urgency.
People with ADHD have long used the Eisenhower Matrix to reduce information overload. You only have to see the tasks you need to focus on immediately. Your long-term attention will improve, and you can even learn how to delegate tasks when feeling overwhelmed.
16. Memory Helper
Memory Helper is an app designed specifically for students. Of course, you can still use the app if you are not a student. Its overarching goal is to help people recall information they learned previously but can’t recall.
With this application, you can create an automated to-do list. The cool thing about this app is that it pushes your to-do list to your main screen every time you unlock your phone.
When you are experiencing ADHD paralysis, this type of app can be invaluable. You may feel frozen and unable to remember what you were about to do. But your to-do list will remind you as soon as you unlock your phone.
Alternative Methods for Help With ADHD Symptoms
Phone apps don’t work for everyone. The good news is that ADHD experts have come up with other methods for managing your symptoms at home. Learn about three of the latest ADHD symptom management hacks next.
Brown Noise for ADHD
You probably know about white noise already, but have you heard of brown noise? Some claim that brown noise can help improve focus and calm for important tasks.
Brown noise is like white noise; it is a steady and constant sound. It differs from white noise because white noise features high, low, and mid-frequency sounds.
Brown noise only features low-frequency sounds. Some people say it sounds like the ocean during a storm.
But how does brown noise work for ADHD, exactly? Experts suggest that people with ADHD have lower activity levels in a brain area called the cortex.
Lower cortical activity (AKA arousal) may contribute to symptoms of ADHD. So, reversing this effect may help to combat alarming symptoms like ADHD paralysis. White and brown noise can help do just that.
Weighted Blankets for ADHD
Weighted blankets are a great way to give yourself a little deep pressure therapy (DPT). DPT is a scientifically backed method for helping people calm down. People with ADHD respond well to DPT.
These blankets come in 5-pound to 30-pound weight ranges. They offer consistent pressure for your entire body. Or you can add weight to your legs while working or studying.
DPT and weighted blankets can help boost focus. Manufacturers design them to force your body to pay attention to your surroundings. You will feel less mentally distracted and more able to focus on the task.
People with ADHD who struggle with insomnia may experience further benefits from weighted blankets. For example, a recent study found that sleeping beneath a weighted blanket can improve sleep, which has implications not only for ADHD but also anxiety and chronic pain.
Medication and Therapy for ADHD
If you have tried all of the above methods for improving ADHD symptoms and nothing has worked, it may be time to fill out a CADDRA assessment form. Your doctor can give you one of these forms to support an ADHD diagnosis.
Go to this link to find the printable forms you need to receive your diagnosis. Print out each form and complete it to the best of your ability. Your doctor will also review your medical history and rule out any other possible conditions that could be responsible for your symptoms before making a diagnosis.
If your doctor does diagnose you with ADHD, you can get the help you need. Your doctor may prescribe ADHD medication to help with your symptoms. You can also seek therapy to learn how to manage your condition better.
Mindfulness Meditation for ADHD
Incorporating mindfulness meditation into your ADHD management routine offers a multitude of benefits that can substantially enhance your quality of life. This practice centred on maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, has shown remarkable effectiveness in reducing ADHD symptoms. Mindfulness meditation encourages a nonjudgmental focus on the present, which can be particularly valuable for individuals with ADHD who often grapple with distractibility and impulsiveness. By regularly engaging in this form of meditation, you can develop enhanced focus, reduce stress, and improve emotional regulation. These benefits not only aid in mitigating the core symptoms of ADHD but also foster a greater sense of mental clarity and calm, empowering you to navigate daily challenges with increased resilience and mindfulness.
Need Help With Your ADHD Symptoms?
ADHD doesn’t have to ruin your life. Yet, when you experience symptoms like ADHD paralysis, you may feel desperate for a solution.
That’s where these 15 ADHD applications can come in. The apps we mentioned on our list can help you conquer your to-do list, break down projects into milestones, and boost your focus, even when you’re in analysis paralysis.
Are you searching for therapy to help you cope with your ADHD symptoms? Supplement these apps with treatment at Simcoe Addiction and Mental Health. Contact us today to learn more about our ADHD treatment program options.