Best ADHD Planner Apps for Developers and Knowledge Workers (2025)

This article is not medical advice and does not diagnose or treat ADHD. It’s written for adults who already suspect or know they have ADHD and are looking for practical ways to structure their workdays.

If you have ADHD and work as a developer, designer, writer, or any kind of remote knowledge worker, you already know this:

Traditional productivity advice doesn’t fit your brain.

You’ve probably tried:

• Paper planners with complicated layouts
• Bullet journals that turned into a second full-time job
• Task apps overflowing with overdue tasks
• Pomodoro timers that just created more guilt

Most of these systems silently assume a brain that remembers, prioritizes, and context‑switches easily. For ADHD brains, that’s not reality.

What usually works better is less friction, fewer decisions, and simple structure you can repeat daily.

This article walks through some of the best ADHD‑friendly planner apps in 2025—specifically for developers and remote knowledge workers—and why a simple Plan → Focus → Shutdown system can be a game‑changer.

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What ADHD Brains Need From a Planner (Especially in Remote Work)

Before comparing apps, it’s worth naming the real problems:

Overwhelm on start: You open your laptop and see 20 Jira tickets, 15 Slack pings, 10 “quick” tasks. Your brain freezes.

• Context switching spiral: You start Task A, get bored or interrupted, jump to Task B, briefly open email, end up doom‑scrolling.
• Time blindness: You underestimate how long tasks take, lose track of time, or forget what you worked on.
• Guilt loop: You end the day thinking “I did nothing,” even though you actually did a lot—just without structure or visibility.

A good ADHD planner app for developers should:

• Make deciding what to work on trivial
• Help you work on one thing at a time
• Give you visible, simple time containers
• Show you what you actually did so the guilt loop calms down

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1. Todoist – Familiar and Flexible, But Easy to Overload

Todoist is often recommended in ADHD communities because:

• Quick capture everywhere (web, Mac, mobile)
• Labels and filters can adapt to ADHD workflows
• Natural language input keeps friction low

Pros for ADHD knowledge workers:

• Easy to add tasks before you forget them
• Filters like “Today + Deep Work + Work” can create simple views
• Shared projects help when collaborating with clients/teams

Cons:

• Easy to create too many projects, labels, filters
• No built‑in concept of focus sessions or one‑task‑at‑a‑time execution
• You still need a separate system for time and focus

For many ADHD developers, Todoist becomes a nice inbox—but not a full planner that structures the day.

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2. Sunsama / Motion – Calendar‑First, Great for Meetings, Not Always Brains

Calendar‑based tools like Sunsama and Motion let you drag tasks into time blocks.

This can help ADHD brains by:

• Creating visual structure for the day
• Making tasks feel more concrete (“this is my 10–11am block”)
• Reducing open‑ended “when will I do this?” anxiety

But there are trade‑offs:

• Engineering tasks rarely fit neatly into 30‑minute chunks
• When a task runs over, you end up constantly reshuffling blocks
• It pushes you toward calendar obedience, not ADHD‑friendly flexibility
• You still need strategies to avoid spending the day rearranging instead of working

This can work if your day is meeting‑heavy. For deep work, many ADHD engineers find it too rigid and brittle.

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3. Notion Templates – Powerful, But Often Too Much

If you search “ADHD Notion planner,” you’ll find stunning setups:

• Weekly dashboards
• Habit trackers
• Multi‑view task databases
• Mood logs, reflection spaces, daily reviews

They look amazing. The problem is maintaining them.

For ADHD brains:

• High‑maintenance systems usually collapse after a few weeks
• Too many views = decision paralysis
• “Set up the system” becomes a procrastination activity

Notion can be a fantastic knowledge base for ADHD folks (especially to externalize memory), but it’s rarely a good low‑friction daily planner on its own.

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4. Locu – Simple Daily System for ADHD‑Friendly Work (Plan → Focus → Shutdown)

Locu isn’t an ADHD medical tool. It’s a daily execution system that happens to align extremely well with how many ADHD developers and freelancers naturally work when things are going well.

It gives you a repeatable, low‑decision structure:

Step 1 – Plan (5 Minutes, Once per Day)

Each morning, you:

• See tasks from Jira/Linear or ones you added manually
• Drag what matters into Today
• Put the 1–3 most important tasks at the top
• Optionally set a daily goal like “4 focus sessions”

This solves the “open laptop → overwhelmed” moment. There’s a small, finite list. You don’t need to touch the backlog.

Step 2 – Focus Sessions (Your Actual Work)

Instead of staring at a long list, you:

1. Start a 60‑minute session
2. Choose one task from Today
3. See the full context (notes, breakdown, links)
4. Work on just that, with a visible time container
5. If you switch tasks, you consciously pick the next one

For ADHD brains, this does a few important things:

• Time isn’t abstract; the session is a visible container
• You reduce unconscious context switching—there’s a clear “this is what I’m doing now” choice
• You can park ideas in notes instead of spiraling into 5 new tasks mid‑session

Time is tracked automatically to whatever you worked on. Freelancers get clean billing units, and employees get an honest view of their focus.

Step 3 – Shutdown (5 Minutes, End of Day)

At the end of the day, Locu shows you:

• Which tasks you worked on
• How many focus sessions you did
• How much of your day was focused vs unfocused

Then you write a short note to future‑you:

• “Continue from here tomorrow”
• “Blocked on review from X”
• “Next step is Y”

This calms the “I did nothing” feeling that many ADHD folks know too well. You have a concrete work history, not just a vague memory.

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5. How to Choose the Best ADHD Planner App for You

A few simple tests:

If you often forget tasks entirely:
You need fast capture (Todoist, Notion) + low friction.

If you start many things and finish few:
You need one‑thing‑at‑a‑time sessions (Locu, or any system that enforces focus).

If you lose days to chaos and then feel guilty:
You need a daily structure that’s repeatable and visible (Plan → Focus → Shutdown).

If you bill clients:
You need time tracking baked into the workflow, not added later.

For many ADHD developers and freelancers, the winning combo is:

• Simple capture (your favorite inbox tool, even Apple Notes)
• A lightweight daily planner that forces prioritization
• A session‑based execution system that gives structure and visibility

That’s exactly the niche Locu serves: not a complex ADHD tracker, but a daily execution system that happens to be very ADHD‑friendly.