The 10 Best Apps for ADHD

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) affects about 11% of children and 3% of adults, but those numbers are growing as more adults receive late diagnoses. The most common symptoms of ADHD—distraction, hyperactivity, and problems with focus, concentration, memory, and motivation—can be tough to navigate, especially in a largely digital post-COVID world.  

Luckily, research organizations, for-profit companies, and medical giants alike have turned their attention to apps that can help people with ADHD manage day-to-day life. In this guide, Ability Central shares our top 10 apps designed for people with ADHD. 

These include:  

• Best ADHD App for Long-Term Motivation: Fabulous 

• Honorable Mention: Clarify 

• Best ADHD App for Gamified Task Management: Finch 

• Best ADHD App Backed by Clinicians and Coaches: Inflow  

• Best ADHD App for Daily To-Do Lists: Todoist  

• Honorable Mention: Notion 

• Best ADHD App for Creative Planning: SimpleMind Pro 

• Best ADHD App for Sleep: Calm 

• Honorable Mention: Headspace 

• Best ADHD App for Kids: EndeavorRx 

Best ADHD App for Long-Term Motivation: Fabulous 

Created in partnership with behavioral scientists from Stanford University and Duke University’s Center for Advanced Hindsight, Fabulous is a clever app that’s half accountability partner, half life coach. Designed to help you create—and stick to—daily routines, Fabulous offers a unique mix of task management, motivation, mindfulness, and educational resources to make everyday tasks both approachable and fun.  

The app guides users across three “Mountains,” personalized in-app journeys that tackle aspects of life someone may want to change, like weight loss and exercise or concentration and motivation. Each “Mountain” consists of a small number of daily activities, readings, or meditations. Users follow a guided “Journey” with a colorful, rhyming story that unfolds the longer you use the app.  

Fabulous is all about establishing routines through small, reliable daily changes. When you first start using the app, it limits the number of items you can add to your to-do list to prevent new-system burnout.  

On the paid subscription, users also get access to daily prerecorded coaching sessions and meditations; the kicker is that these audio sessions are rarely more than 4 minutes long. Chopping up mindfulness into small chunks can be hugely helpful for people with ADHD trying to improve their concentration and focus, and the prerecorded content changes daily. (In other words, people with ADHD won’t get bored listening to the same information day after day.)   

You can find Fabulous for iPhone on the App Store or for Android in the Google Play Store. 

Honorable Mention: Clarify  

Clarify, made by the same company that produced Fabulous, is designed specifically for users with ADHD. It provides similar features to the main Fabulous app but adds resources to help people with ADHD understand more about their diagnosis and manage their day-to-day tasks. Built-in daily routines, activities, and motivation tools like Pomodoro timers help people with ADHD organize their time wisely.  

Although Clarify is designed specifically for people with ADHD, we’re calling this an “honorable mention.” That’s because, as of this writing in November 2024, the app is still pretty new, and it doesn’t have nearly as many useful features as the full Fabulous app. We’ve got our eye on it, though, because the team continues to introduce excellent new content!  

Get Clarify for iPhone here or Android here.  

Best ADHD App for Gamified Task Management: Finch 

Finch takes all the stress of ADHD task management and turns it into a relaxing, mindful minigame. Finch users adopt, hatch, and take care of a small bird (which the app calls a “birb”) as it grows up and takes on the world.  

When you complete the tasks on your list, practice self-care activities, or write reflections about your mental health, your birb gains energy to go on “adventures” through unique locations like Cairo, Edinburgh, and Tokyo. With each completed adventure, your relationship with your birb deepens, and you unlock currency you can use to customize your birb, like special outfits or decorations for their home. Your birb can even adopt and take care of their own “Micropets,” small animations that keep them company on their adventures.  

Finch is free to use, but it also has a premium version that includes full access to monthly events. These events offer unique clothes, furniture, and Micropets for every day that you complete your goals.  

Besides being darn cute and a lot of fun to use, the app helps you set healthy habits and daily routines. The more you use the app, the more your birb grows, and the more resources you unlock related to mindfulness, concentration, and more.  

Get Finch for iPhone in the App Store or for Android in the Google Play Store. 

Best ADHD App Backed by Clinicians and Coaches: Inflow  

Based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) techniques developed by actual ADHD clinicians and coaches, Inflow helps users learn more about not only ADHD but their own habits and behaviors. From there, Inflow offers customized tools to improve users’ focus and productivity, manage their impulsive or hyperactive behaviors, and learn skills for emotional regulation.  

Inflow can be a great option for people who are new to their ADHD diagnosis, people who want to learn more about the disorder, or people who struggle to identify the causes behind their own behaviors.  

Try out Inflow for iOS in the App Store or download the Android version from the Google Play Store.  

Best ADHD App for Creating Routines: Routinery  

As you might guess from the name, Routinery is designed to help people establish and stick to daily routines. Beyond its traditional to-do list capabilities, this productivity-boosting app offers habit trackers, recommendations, motivational messages, timers, and more to help people with ADHD stay on top of their responsibilities.  

Routinery is designed for simplified task management, focusing on smaller, more focused features instead of bells and whistles like gamification. One bonus perk of Routinery, however, is that users can set up text reminders, sound alerts, and other notifications that trigger when it’s time to start a new activity or if they haven’t logged into the app in a while.  

Check out Routinery for iPhone and Android. 

Best ADHD App for Daily To-Do Lists: Todoist  

Todoist sets itself apart from other task management platforms with its emphasis on calendar planning. Individuals and teams alike can set up habits, routines, and one-time to-dos at the touch of a button. These tasks can then be viewed in a list, in a “board” visual (kind of like Post-it Notes), or in a calendar. 

The integrated calendar features of Todoist are what makes the app worthwhile. Users can type out a task like “wash dishes tomorrow night” or “finish weekly reading before every Wednesday” and Todoist’s AI will parse their language to automatically create due dates and task reminders. On the paid plan, users can also set up location-based reminders, like reminding you to feed your dog when you get home from a long day.  

Users can also connect other tools like Outlook, Gmail, and Slack, as well as personal tools like your phone calendar or voice assistant. Todoist has plenty of features that are helpful for organizing teams, like visual priority levels, task assignments, and one-click templates, but these features all come in handy for individual users with ADHD.  

You can snag Todoist for iPhone and Android. 

Honorable Mention: Notion 

Notion is a great to-do list app for people with ADHD because it offers massive customization options and powerful AI organization tools. We’re calling it an “Honorable Mention” because those bonus features can be just as overwhelming or distracting as they can be helpful. But for computer-savvy people with ADHD who want to build their own to-do system from the ground up, Notion is a great option with paid subscriptions available for individuals, teams, and students.  

Also available as a web or desktop app, you can get Notion for iPhone here or Android here. 

Best ADHD App for Creative Planning: SimpleMind Pro 

SimpleMind Pro assists people with ADHD through mind mapping, a way to organize and remember information in visual ways. The goal of this system is to improve memory, focus, concentration, and self-regulation, and can be especially helpful for people with busy minds.  

SimpleMind Pro offers a variation on the traditional task-management platform. The app’s mind mapping system is highly customizable, visual-based, and simplified. For visual learners or people with ADHD who do not benefit from regular planners or to-do lists, this version may help improve memory, focus, and concentration, especially with regular use.  

You can give the app a try on iPhone or Android. 

Best ADHD App for Sleep: Calm 

Calm is a delightful little app that helps people with ADHD relax, meditate, or fall asleep. Calm is most well-known for its Sleep Stories, bedtime tales for kids and adults alike, with narration by professional voice actors, behavioral experts, or celebrity guests. (Kevin Bacon, Harry Styles, Lucy Liu, and Idris Elba, among MANY others, have all made appearances in the app!)  

Each Sleep Story is unique; topics include excerpts from popular literature like Peter Pan or The Secret Garden, guided meditations, travel stories on trains or boats, and reimagined fairy tales like “The Big Bad Wolf Learns Anger Management” and “The Wicked Witch Discovers Mindfulness.” They’re designed to entertain and relax people with spinning minds, and are often touching, encouraging, or downright hilarious.  

In addition to its sleep features, Calm offers guided meditations, music, soundscapes, and podcast-style educational recordings for relaxation, stress relief, focus, and more. Bonus: Many medical insurance providers have partnerships with Calm, offering free or reduced subscriptions as part of their coverage.  

Try Calm for iOS here or Android here.  

Honorable Mention: Headspace 

Headspace is another mindfulness app that helps people with ADHD relax and practice self-care. Headspace offers a wide range of features like mental health coaching, fitness and tension release, soundscapes, progress tracking, and daily reminders.  

We named Headspace as an honorable mention because all these extra features can be a bit distracting, especially for someone who already has difficulty focusing. However, people with ADHD who need a change from Sleep Stories or guided meditations may find something new to explore in Headspace.  

Try it out on iPhone here or Android here.  

Best ADHD App for Kids: EndeavorRx 

EndeavorRx is the first video game authorized by the FDA for ADHD treatment. Designed for kids ages 8-17, EndeavorRx combines adaptable gameplay with science-backed customizations, offering a unique experience for every user.  

The game uses trademarked Selective Stimulus Management Engine (SSME) technology that targets specific areas of the brain with in-game challenges. Kids navigate their character through obstacle courses and magical worlds, collecting power-ups and mystical creatures along the way. Parents and doctors can follow their kids’ progress through regular emailed updates, cataloguing each player’s progression and in-game performance.  

One useful feature of this technology is that the game automatically adjusts its difficulty based on the player’s performance. For example, a child who struggles with motor coordination may receive different missions or activities than a child who struggles to stay focused.  

Doctors can prescribe EndeavorRx as part of a child’s ADHD treatment, and it may be covered by health insurance. Speak to your doctor or your insurance provider to find out more. 

In the meantime, try out EndeavorRx’s free demos on Android and iOS.  

What’s next? 

What other apps would you like to see on our lists? At Ability Central, we’re always on the lookout for services and programs that offer support to people with communication disabilities.  

For more info about local nonprofits or organizations serving people with cognitive disabilities like ADHD, check out the Ability Central Service Locator tool.