I’ve tried everything. Notion, Things 3, TickTick, Remember the Milk, Apple Reminders, paper planners, bullet journals, sticky notes on my monitor. Most lasted a week. A few made it a month. Todoist has been on my phone for six months and I still open it daily.

That’s not a small thing for an ADHD brain.

TL;DR for ADHD Brains

Aspect	Rating
ADHD-Friendly	★★★★☆
Setup Time	15 minutes
Rabbit Hole Risk	Medium
Abandonment Risk	Low
Price	Free tier works / $4/month for Pro

One-sentence verdict: The quick-add feature and natural language processing make capturing tasks fast enough that I actually do it.

Best for: ADHDers who need speed over customization Skip if: You need visual project boards or time-blocking built in

The ADHD Problem This Solves

My tasks used to exist in three places: my head (bad), random notes apps (worse), and text messages to myself (worst). By the time I remembered I needed to do something, I’d forgotten where I wrote it down. Classic.

The real problem isn’t remembering tasks exist. It’s the friction of capturing them. If adding a task takes more than 5 seconds, I won’t do it. My brain will say “I’ll remember this” and then I absolutely will not remember this.

Why This Works for ADHD (When Other Tools Don’t)

Natural language input is everything. I type “call mom tomorrow at 3pm” and it creates a task called “call mom” scheduled for tomorrow at 3pm. No dropdown menus. No date pickers. No switching between fields. Just typing like a human.

The keyboard shortcut (Cmd+Shift+A on Mac) opens quick-add from anywhere. I’m in a meeting, someone mentions a deadline, I capture it in 4 seconds without leaving my current app. This matters more than any other feature.

The inbox is forgiving. Tasks go to the inbox by default. I don’t have to decide where they belong when I’m capturing them. That decision paralysis kills me in other apps. With Todoist, I brain-dump first, organize later (or never—the inbox works fine as a flat list).

The Setup (Realistic Time Estimate)

15 minutes if you resist the urge to build an elaborate system.

Here’s what I did:

1. Downloaded the app (2 minutes)
2. Created 4 projects: Work, Home, Errands, Someday (3 minutes)
3. Added 10 tasks from my mental backlog (5 minutes)
4. Set up the keyboard shortcut (2 minutes)
5. Moved on with my life (3 minutes of restraint)

Warning: The templates section is a trap. Don’t browse project templates. You’ll spend 2 hours building a “productivity system” you’ll abandon by Tuesday.

What I Actually Use It For

Daily task capture. That’s it. I’m not using it for project management or goal tracking or habit building. It’s a place where tasks go so my brain doesn’t have to hold them.

I check it twice: morning (what’s due today?) and evening (anything I forgot to capture?). Some days I check it zero times and that’s fine too. The tasks aren’t going anywhere.

Where It Falls Short

No time-blocking. I can’t see my tasks alongside my calendar in a meaningful way. I use a separate calendar app for that.

Subtasks are clunky. If I need to break down a task into steps, the interface gets annoying. I usually just make separate tasks instead.

The karma system is dumb. Todoist gamifies task completion with points and streaks. For some people this helps. For my rejection-sensitive brain, missing a day and “breaking my streak” made me want to delete the app entirely. I turned off all notifications and ignore the karma screen.

Recurring tasks can be confusing. “Every Monday” vs “every week on Monday” vs “every week starting Monday” all behave differently. I’ve messed this up multiple times.

ADHD Danger Zones

The projects rabbit hole. You can create unlimited projects with color coding and nested sub-projects. You don’t need this. I spent an entire Saturday once building a “perfect” project structure. Used it for 3 days then went back to dumping everything in the inbox.

Filter building. Todoist has a powerful filter system. You can write queries like “due today & #work & !subtask.” This is cool and completely unnecessary. Resist.

The templates gallery. I mentioned this but it’s worth repeating. Don’t browse templates. You don’t need a “GTD Weekly Review” template. You need to capture the thought “buy milk” before it evaporates.

The Price Reality

Free tier is enough for most ADHD needs. You get 5 projects, basic features, and the critical quick-add functionality.

Pro ($4/month) adds: Reminders, comments, labels, and filters. I use reminders occasionally. The rest I ignore.

Business tier exists but you don’t need it unless your company is paying.

I paid for Pro for 3 months, realized I only used reminders, and went back to free. No regrets.

Alternatives for Different ADHD Brains

If you need visual boards: Try Trello or ClickUp. Warning: more setup, more rabbit hole potential.

If you want simpler: Apple Reminders or Google Tasks. Fewer features, less friction.

If you need body doubling for tasks: Focusmate pairs you with a stranger for accountability. Different tool, different problem.

If you hate all apps: A paper notebook works. The capture friction is higher, but some brains prefer analog.

The Bottom Line

Todoist doesn’t cure ADHD. It doesn’t fix executive dysfunction or make me suddenly love doing taxes. What it does: remove the friction between “I need to do something” and “I wrote it down somewhere I can find it.”

That’s a low bar. But for ADHD brains, low bars are the only bars we clear consistently.

I still forget tasks. I still procrastinate. I still have days where my whole list rolls over to tomorrow. But now I know what I’m avoiding, which is weirdly better than not knowing.

If you’ve abandoned dozens of task apps, Todoist might stick. Not because it’s magic, but because it gets out of the way fast enough for our brains to actually use it.

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Written by someone who forgot to write this article three times before finally adding it to Todoist.