Goblin.tools: simple, single-task tools to help neurodivergent people with tasks
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Assuming even a tiny amount of those are loud when exploring their discovery would mean a lot of people talking about it online.
This is likely also combined with Millennials (my cohort at least) being one of the most self-aware generational cohorts in history (while also being a tad self-centered).
I have my own journey with ADHD ("many markers" but no official diagnosis, as that could negatively affect my life in Sweden) and it was really liberating to learn that, no, I wasn't just lazy, that I may have an issue with executive function and if I work around it I can at least partially tackle it.
The amount of stress that gets applied by society for people who are "not performing up to their potential" or slacking off or what-have-you is actually quite immense when you cannot force yourself to work, so I understand people who feel liberated in the moment and who seek solutions, loudly.
Half of the population are provably on a different circadian rhythm than the other half, but we force everyone to function only one way.
There’s a dozen more examples, related to psychiatry and medicine.
i hope we move away from pathologizing and toward making social and economic structures adaptive for people that are currently challenged by them, and likewise find better ways for people to adapt their lives to fit how their minds work
Nonetheless, the rest of your post resonates with me and and your points stand on their own :)
Here is a reputable source that claims 25%
https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/mediaroom/pressreleaselisting/...
The broader point that's often missed is that this is a naturally occurring and common phenotype that doesn't gel well with office-work culture and the modern regimented schooling system, forcing people to sit for unnaturally long times focusing on anxiety-inducing problem solving all day. It's not normal, and it's a recipe for burnout, and our only answer, is not to change the system, but to try and medicate it away, with sometimes devastating consequences.
Sincerely, person diagnosed at age 35
I went my whole life thinking that I was broken. I had intense anxiety surrounding social interaction, was horribly depressed, got terrible grades through high school, and just generally did not enjoy most of life. I eventually learned how to cope and function normally to an outside observer, but still would go through cycles of intense anxiety and depression that I didn't know how to explain.
A few years ago I finally was diagnosed with ADHD and suddenly everything clicked. My anxiety, my depression, my grades, my intense hyperfocus on one thing at a time but also inability to keep consistently focused on one thing for more than a few weeks. All of that suddenly made sense, and there were people in the world who knew exactly how I felt. And the thing is, the anxiety and depression have largely gone away. Now that I know what's going on inside my brain I don't have to beat myself up about it, instead I can learn from and lean on hundreds of thousands of other people who have to cope with the same thing.
So yeah, today I will often notice "oh, that's an ADHD thing" at random times in my life. But it's not so much that it's an essential part of my identity as it is that it's enormously comforting to finally have an explanation for all of the weird quirks that I have, and it's a huge relief to have a community of people who experience the same things that I do. When I say "that's my ADHD", it's me reminding myself that I am not broken, just different, and different is okay.
But a while later, I found it was not enough. I hadn't reached "true happiness" or at least whatever I can call my current state of being. I took a different path, shed all my labels, self-prescribed or otherwise, and am happier than I was before.
I still think I am "different" and have quirks, etc. So in practice, not a whole lot different than before. I just don't use the labels to describe these differences that others might use instead.
I think this only emphasizes that one approach does not necessarily apply when generalized to all people. In my case it only served as one step towards a greater solution, and hopefully even more effective solutions I can build on top of that later.
The same goes for heightened awareness for ADHD. More knowledge can be a blessing (as in your case). At the same time, the population such awareness can serve is shaped like a very complex blob, the form of which nobody truly knows, but I believe some clinicians/promoters see the "blast radius" of promoting awareness as a perfectly round circle overlaid directly onto the population.
My experience also made me realize what one can term "ADHD" may change with overarching cultural shifts or personal growth. I think ADHD should be seen closer to a symptom of a constellation of any number of potentially unrelated causes than a "disorder" to be focused on alone. Unfortunately the established terminology seems to have won out there.
The way we see health conditions and the words we choose to describe them can have profound effects on our understanding of ourselves.
I think a far far greater number of people experience the exact same problems of focus and distress, and learn to cope effectively in their own deeply personal way. I identify strongly with all the symptoms stated. A label feels useless, or worse - constraining, as it becomes your identity. I still have to drag my ass out of bed, do enough good work everyday next to colleagues who figuratively lap me every day, make a to-do list to remember to buy soap, go without soap for a week, .. etc lol.
I call it being me.
You could use the exact same line of reasoning to ask "if just talking about an issue with a professional alleviates an issue, isn't that a placebo?"
And the answer is obviously, "No, talk therapy is an extremely well-known mental health intervention with an extremely high effect size on average"
Anxiety and depression are disorders in the way you think about things. If you provide someone with a different and effective way of thinking about things, your are directly treating the disorder. The "maladaptive pattern" flowchart[1] might be a meme, but it's also a very real concept in psychology.
From a more personal point of view: while a label can defining be used in a confining way where it serves as an excuse to not "have to" do a thing (and I certainly know people like that), I find it's very useful to have something concrete to point at and say "this method that other people claim works great won't work for me because my brain doesn't work like that, I need to find a way to alter the method to make myself successful".
I suspect if you just have a "label" it doesn't do much. But the label now makes information a keyword search away. Hence their commentary:
instead I can learn from and lean on hundreds of thousands of other people who have to cope with the same thing.
Which would lead to learning strategies to deal with the day to day rather than struggling to find your own way.
Knowledge is power. But power still has to be used to mean anything.
Once you've learned the strategies that work for you. Then I guess the label loses it's power.
I think this can become a double-edged sword in some cases. When applied to certain problems, especially ones with no clear-cut solution, additional knowledge can end up being misleading. (Disclaimer: this is only my experience, and I do not intend to speak for others!)
Example, I always used to frame issues I worked with in the language of ADHD, because I believed that was what best described my pathology. My lack of efficiency at work was an issue of a faulty "executive function". My ability to work uninterrupted for extended periods of time was "hyperfocus". My inability to accept criticism without feeling dejected is an indicator of "rejection sensitive dysphoria".
Yet, after I got therapy that worked for me, I realized three things in short order:
- In my own view, there were no deficits in my executive function. It had been intact the entire time. It was actually uncontrolled stress that was causing my executive function not to operate at its maximum capacity. Hence my problem had not been one of executive function, but of stress relief.
- "Hyperfocus" was merely another way for me of saying "putting sustained attention on an activity to cope with unchecked stress." I no longer consider myself to hyperfocus (which I define as working 3+ hours straight at a time, only stopping for food in between), but at the same time I don't perceive I've lost any of my abilities. On the contrary, I gained the ability to participate in and actually enjoy a wider variety of activities more consistently (cooking, cleaning, socialization, exercise, reading, and many others), as well as start and stop each activity when I please, without losing too much time to activities I only used as a coping mechanism for stress (doomscrolling, social media, etc.). In a sense, my interests became more balanced, even though I still carry the same level of passion for a few niche activities (arguably even stronger for some).
- Criticism does not hurt me as strongly as it did before, when I am aware the criticism is coming from a constructive place and is not merely the feelings of the other party making themselves clear in dramatic fashion. If it's the latter, I now have the ability to ignore the other party and move on. I am now also motivated to avoid going to places where people are likely to criticize me unconstructively. I understood that this was the way to deal with criticism in the past, but I was unable to internalize how to act and feel about criticism until now. Hence, I am no longer dysphoric in this way, if I ever was.
So at least in my view, after I gained a sense of inner peace not having to deal with runaway stress anymore, several problems that I used to see as pathological - having terms such as "executive function" and "dysphoria" - turned out not to be any kind of pathology at all. They were only the aftereffects of excessive daily stress.
In my case, these terms weren't the most helpful for me to understand and work on the real issues underlying my core self, and thus get back a much greater return for the effort I expended - which was much less effort than spending months, years and a lot of money on recurring therapies tailored towards framing my problems in an ADHD-centric way.
Absolutely! But with a label you have:
- meaningful options you didn't have before
- hope drawn from those around you who have found ways to cope.
- knowing that you are not alone
The label doesn't fix you. But it's a good starting point. Answers don't jump out and grab you; you have to filter and verify.
And from the rest of your post it seems you managed to do that. And by having your experience here you have provided valuable context for others in a similar scenario. Thank you.
Think of it this way: The shape of a hammer compels you to hammer things down with it, but with sustained effort and creativity you can use it for chiseling marble instead.
To reach where I am now, I had to undo some amount of (but not all!) progress I'd made in one direction (since I had bought into the therapy circuit for treating ADHD already) and actively resist attempts to pathologize my own behaviors.
People say "don't treat ADHD like an identity" like it's easy, but the nature of a label compels you to treat it like an identity sometimes. Especially in the society I live in where awareness and destigmatization of conditions is pushed on social media all the time. And especially when your life lacks other meaning and you crave an identity to anchor yourself onto ("just don't make it your identity" sounded like "just don't be depressed" innumerable times to past depressed me, and I saw little reason not to take hold of a new identity for myself). This is a function of depression so I don't blame anyone for it, but I ultimately felt better served by other movements as far as making tangible gains in my mental health.
To use the metaphor again, the art of chiseling was unlikely to make itself known in my current state, but deep down inside I preferred to be there than where I was, so I had to deliberately seek out a teacher and undo the preconceived notions about myself in order to get there. In reality that was just finding another form of therapy that was more effective for solving my problems.
Sounds extremely normal to me. I wonder what I'm missing.
For example, suppose a typical person decides to learn a new language.
At the beginning, they are very excited and enthusiastic about it. They might buy a textbook, download an app or sign up for language classes, and spend lots of time on it for a couple of days.
After a week or two, as the tediousness sets in and the goal seems farther off than they expected, they start to shift their focus to something else. After a month, there's a 50/50 chance they completely forget about language study and stop doing it. Only a very small minority will last more than a year.
That's what I'd consider normal. How is ADHD different?
Another example: meditation. A new meditation practitioner may try to focus on their breathing, but then find they usually get distracted and start thinking about something else within 10 seconds.
I have a feeling that if I were to say "I find it difficult to focus my attention on something for 10 seconds without getting distracted", many would reply "that sounds like ADHD." But this is, in fact, quite normal.
ADHD is different in that sustained focus takes a ton more of energy than for non-ADHD folks - if you're high functioning. And is almost impossible if you're not high-functioning.
Totally agreed that "can't focus on my breath for 10 seconds today" isn't ADHD. "I have repeatably sub-par executive function" very much is, though.
For your language learning example, it's more that somebody can't stay focused on the learning, even if they want to/have to and are aware their focus is sliding away.
There's a reason ADHD diagnosis is technically a process that's a bit involved, you're trying to test for both sub-par function, and for the repeatable part. I'd take self-diagnosis with a bit more salt, especially it's of the "I often forget my car keys" kind.
That would be quite normal. A determination of ADHD is made based upon the severity of impact. Everyone gets distracted to some extent, but is it significant enough to be destroying your life, Y/N?
That's the determining factor.
Mostly it's changed my attitude towards myself. I'm naturally a strong perfectionist, which doesn't combine well with ADHD. That has historically led to me constantly beating myself up when I do anything wrong, ruminating over conversations for days to figure out what I should have said differently, and generally being anxious and depressed. After receiving the diagnosis, I've been able to separate "me" from "my ADHD", which has helped me stop kicking myself while I'm down, which in turn has actually increased my ability to stay functional because I don't get into anxious/depressed spirals.
I completely agree with you though, I don't mention it to people generally. I may be quirky and might have some weird rigid rules about how I work personally, but I hate the idea of sharing it publicly.
Final note: I think it's a good marketing tool for productivity tools. "It's such a good to-do list that people with ADHD can find success with it! That implies that if you don't have ADHD, you will be a superhero when you use it!"
But I will also say that ADHD, if you have it, is an essential part of your identity regardless of your awareness of the label.
eg relationship advice says you shouldn't "change your personality" for your partner, but in my last relationship both of ours changed quite a lot when our medication changed or even if we hadn't taken it that day, so I don't really feel attached to it.
Part of the problem is the identifying with a spectrum of symptoms we assume to be eternal and unchanging.
Source: I had / (have?) ADHD, don't think about it at all anymore, just keep working hard, stick with hobbies and you can do great things regardless of what "labels" society has assigned you.
It's a cluster of executive-function-related symptoms, any number of which a given person with the disorder can have a little, a lot, or even not at all. (I forget what all of them are offhand, but I have about a half-dozen of them in noticeable amounts, and several others that seriously debilitate many people with ADHD I've never had problems with.)
So while you may be able to "[not] think about it...just keep working hard...and do great things regardless", that's guaranteed not to be true of everyone with ADHD.
The worst advice anyone with ADHD can give someone else with it is "just do exactly what I did, and you'll never have problems again". That goes triple when "what you did" is ignore it.
The best advice I know of is to learn and understand what having ADHD means to you. Then use that knowledge to figure out how best to mitigate the problems it causes. For some, that will be medication. For others (like me), it may mean finding specific interventions for individual symptoms, and learning to live with some of the others.
Whether I believe that the number of people who actually get diagnosed with ADHD is correct, especially in places that have medical systems and cultures like the USA, I’m not sure, but certainly I now see how for some people it can be completely disabling.
Somewhere along the way, the mission moved away from the aspirational culture of identifying problem areas and addressing them, to a more stagnant culture that only goes so far as to validate your present behavior and mindset. It feels good and positive on the surface, but it lacks productivity over the long term.
I was diagnosed late at 28. When I got diagnosed, my psychologist told me that I had to reassess my life. Many behaviors that people had misinterpreted as laziness, carelessness, or lack of commitment were actually manifestations of my ADHD.
Friends who thought I didn't care when I forgot plans, teachers who believed I wasn't trying hard enough, and colleagues who saw me as disorganized - they were all seeing untreated ADHD symptoms, not character flaws.
Understanding this was liberating because it meant I wasn't fundamentally flawed as a person. I had to rebuild myself, my confidence - it was a new start in life.
It's a process to relearn and teach yourself that you can do it now. Labeling publicly, saying to your friends and family that you are ADHD makes it so that you OWN your change, you OWN your disability.
tldr, ADHD as an IDENTIY is for me : Reclaim control over your narrative instead of letting others define your behaviors
Create accountability for yourself and set realistic expectations with others
Remove shame from the equation by openly acknowledging your challenges
Enable yourself to access appropriate accommodations and support systems
I tend to notice that more with younger people who find out earlier and get it treated.
Finding out in your 30's because you realize things shouldn't be going so inexplicably wrong is different.
Honest question: why is this an issue? If someone makes it part of their identity its because they feel its important for others to know, and that can be for a variety of reasons.
Is there a reason we shouldn't make it part of our identity, if we so choose?
Secondly, when we do attach, we now have a shield we can use to abdicate responsibility for, well, the duties of being a human in a society. I've had to remind people who have thrown their hands up to exclaim, "I have ADHD!" that hey there buddy, so do I, but I still have to live my life right here in the same society/job/relationship they do.
Where diagnoses like ADHD are useful is as frameworks to understanding your own symptoms, but there's no reason to pull them in as part of you, and I've seen a great deal of harm done in our generation by people insisting on playing out their identity fantasies.
That ADHD is over diagnosed?
That it doesn’t require tailored interventions or advice?
That social media is exploiting interest in ADHD to provide low quality advice?
Or something else? Can you clarify your point?
1. I can focus and solve hard problems, but you’ll notice my legs swinging restlessly, hand gestures, or me suddenly typing a completely unrelated web address.
2. I was always a great student, but I was also the most restless; making jokes and talking constantly, no matter how hard I was punished for my behavior.
3. The toughest part of my ADHD is inconsistency. My performance can fluctuate a lot, and it takes tremendous effort to stay consistent. I get bored quickly with easy tasks, so I rely on alarms, calendar events, and other reminders to help me stay on track.
4. People like me are prime targets for distraction businesses, whether it’s social media, gambling, or other addictive behaviors. And a lot of my energy goes to resist them.
All in all, even for a functioning person like myself - managing ADHD takes a lot of effort. In my late 30s, I’m finally feeling a bit more in control. I’ve accepted that this is part of who I am, and while I can’t fix it completely, I’m doing my best to avoid letting it impact the people around me.
- get the proper amount of essential fatty acids
- experiment with vitamins, especially magnesium
- green, leafy vegetables
- minimal processed sugar & zero alcohol
And exercise. Get some cardio, even if it's just walking for a half-hour to an hour.
It's a struggle, but learning your body will help you optimize your performance and consistency.
Peace be with you, and I wish you the best of luck.
If that person had caught it, and referred me on to get an ADHD assessment, I would be miles better off.
Instead he gave me exactly the advice you just did, and it achieved nothing. Guy actually owned the whole food / wellness / woo store he referred me to which makes it worse.
Now I have my medication I look back on shit like this with absolute scorn. I know you probably intend the advice in good faith but its absolutely not a replacement for medicine.
I'm not selling anything, my friend. I'm sorry I didn't tell anyone that I was diagnosed with ADHD over 15 years ago, but I've been in the trenches for a long time now.
And, absolutely, medicine is next-level helpful, but if you can't use it, as I can't, then you have to do the best you can. Out of my love for others like me, I simply offered the best non-pharmaceutical advice I could, because that's what I use.
Peace be with you.
No but it actually is though. The entire thing with ADHD is that the whole attention mechanism is defective.
Yes I can purposefully focus on something, but not consistently or over longer periods. That's the handicap. It's not a matter of not trying hard enough or figuring out one crazy trick. People with ADHD work differently from normal people and so far there's no fix for it.
There are extreme methods you can take that legitimately solve for the "defective wiring", such as meditating 10 hours a day. It's not permanent once you go off it, but you, yes you, can read a novel straight through.
But you don't actually need to go that far to reap 80 percent of the benefits. Real, effective protocols lower the threshold for stimulation. Constant novelty (seeking escape in external stimuli such as phones and computers) exacerbate our symptoms.
This whole identifying as a person with ADHD thing has gone way too far, and I say this as someone who has struggled with it my entire life.
You can do something about it and that something about it isn't only restricted to medication.
I was simplifying, maybe too much, but honestly I am sick and tired of people that keep telling me to "just try harder". I'm running at redline fucking 24/7 and it's barely enough to survive.
I wasn't implying that if you've got ADHD you might as well give up trying to focus or productive. I'm just saying that expecting an ADHD person to get the same results as someone without without lots extra effort is absurd.
You can say what you like but ADHD is a real handicap for which we do not have a cure. We've got workarounds with different levels of efficacy. I'm tired of being expected to measure up to a standard which I both can't do and don't even want to do.
I'm diagnosed ADHD, too.
My luck is that I have a loving wife who helps me. It would be far more difficult without her, but I guess I would have to use checklists if I had to do this on my own.
I should've said that I've been ADHD since my early 20s and have been coping for over 30 years.
Or maybe it should have been obvious by the specificity of my advice.
I see lots of harmful "advice" pushed by supposed ADHD sufferers.
One time I saw an older ADHD sufferer trying to mentor a young person with ADHD by telling him to cut out preservatives and take up meditation.
Leafy Greens and Pay Attention are barely a step beyond vagina crystals and positive thinking, and its awesome that you think they worked for you, but people should be referred for proper medical treatment, always. Even if you add your other wins as supplementary options, it should never be seen to be something alternative to medicine.
I had a psychiatrist for my Adderall prescription, but he was really just a drug dealer who was forced to retire after one of his patients committed suicide. But that was long after I had quit Adderall and learned how to deal with my shit on my own.
Anyway, I wish you well, and please find a medical professional that can evaluate your real problem.
Meditation can and does help those with ADHD, especially in conjunction with correct medication.
>in conjunction with correct medication.
>in conjunction with correct medication.
You're not arguing in good faith, and haven't everywhere you've commented in this thread. You've been nasty, short, and insulting to everyone you've engaged with.
Equating the benefits of meditation and learning to exercise the muscle of attention to "vagina crystals" is pure ignorance with an agenda.
But it's very, very important to remember and understand that these things don't make it go away.
I'm not saying you're suggesting that doing these things will make ADHD go away—but your comment is ambiguous as to whether that's where you're going with it, and there's definitely a lot of people who don't really believe that ADHD is a "real" disorder, many of whom give advice just like yours and end with something like "...and if you do all of this right, you'll be perfectly normal!"
So I want to both heartily endorse your recommendations (both the general "eat well," and these specific items), and also caution strongly against expecting miracle results.
I'm still a foot-tapper at nearly 60, with high blood pressure putting the kaibosh on Adderall, so I do the best I can with what I can.
Those are the techniques that I have found to work for me, but I wouldn't and didn't call any of them a miracle. No, this programmer's life is non-trivially difficult for we ADHD folks, friend.
I apologize for not making that clear, but I'm certainly not downplaying ADHD's reality or difficulty after having dealt with it for over 30 years.
And taking Adderall is not without its side-effects, so I wouldn't recommend either it or pharma-grade cannabis, because I'm not a doctor, and those things are dangerous. I only recommend the safest possible path. Besides, all my recommendations actually helped me get the most out of Adderall for the few years I had my prescription.
In my experience, there are no miraculous shortcuts, but those are the ways I have found help me tamp it down, after years and years of struggling with it, which has been daily for me with my passion for programming still going strong.
I explain this more fully in my other comments in this thread.
This isn't woo, my friend; it's the advise of programmer who has been in the ADHD trenches for over 30 years. And it's the best advice I can give because it's the best set of advice that I wished I would have gotten those decades ago.
We know what happens when ADHD is underdiagnosed and not recognized in society (which requires it to be labeled appropriately). You have scores of children who get labeled as “problematic” or “bad students” ans suffer from that discrimination for the rest of their lives.
Labeling may not help a particular individual but helps all in society as a whole
After clicking through a few of them that seemed interesting, I discovered the same thing you did: most of them take a very typical day-to-day problem (need to organise my wardrobe, need to organise my notes better) and frame it as an explicitly ADHD problem.
I'm glad we live in a time of greater awareness, and I'm glad people are receiving useful diagnoses that lead to management that improves peoples' quality of life. I'm very happy for people who eventually find ADHD can be their superpower rather than a detriment.
But I do wonder if there's a quiet grift going on (maybe just on YouTube? Not sure) taking advantage of this. There are a lot of people saying "You have ADHD therefore you have this specific problem that neurotypical people don't" - where the first half might be true, but the second half is not.
Which seems to me to be framing the identity / otherness-from-neurotypical-ness in an unhealthy way in order to push more content. And possibly leading to the over-attribution of everything to ADHD rather than just... life.
Again, I don't want to minimise the impact of ADHD or the problems it can create for people, but this is definitely a pattern I've seen pop up on the Internet only in the last 5 or 6 years.
In my mind, ADHD and identification with ADHD (self labeling, medical system labels, etc.) is only a liability.
ADHD is a structural brain difference that results in different and in some cases paradoxical responses to various things that affect alertness, attention, etc. Which makes a very good reason to distinguishing between things “for concentration” (presumably targeting neurotypical audiences) and things “for ADHD”.
I ask because my experience is similar to yours (I also have ADHD). Anecdotal so take it with a grain of salt: I work in software engineering, know and have worked with a lot of self-diagnosed ADHDs who make it part of their identity, while some of them probably do have ADHD, the vast majority of them feel like perfectly normal people who would latch onto any opportunity to prove that they have ADHD. (e.g. people who have a single habit that could be stimming but otherwise don't exhibit and ADHD traits saying stuff like "sorry I can't help myself because of my ADHD brain").
In contrast those I know who have been properly diagnosed don't behave like they constantly need to tell people they have ADHD. They are usually deeply interested in the condition but you probably wouldn't know unless there is a proper setting for them to disclose it (invited to talk to an audience about their experience) or if you're someone they trust.
It feels like people who have the tendency to make ADHD part of their identity just want to been seen as special and important in some way (I don't mean this negatively) perhaps because that's how they see their genuinely neurodivergent peers. They tend to have many excuses for not getting a diagnosis because they won't risk the chance of finding out that they don't have ADHD as they have already made it part of their identity.
On the uglier side, there is also no shortage of people lying about having medical conditions for clout and money on the Internet.
It’s likely that those using it in a self diagnosed way are using it as a way to have an excuse for something they do that is unpleasant.
That said, I have no trouble freely talking about it either. The shame is gone for me now. It is part of my life therefore my identity in some form
This is the reason: people who know they’re definitely carrying the gene will start to ascribe any clumsiness, any brain fog, anything at all to the disease once they know they’re definitely carrying definitely have it.
I have seen the same thing with everything from cancer to divorce to death of a child.
A label by itself isn’t useful until, you understand the condition, how it impacts you, and what things you can do to make your life better, know you know.
Re symptoms like “daydreaming whilst reading a book” tbh think this misses the point. The frequency a barrier happens and the amount of disruption it causes to someone’s everyday is highly significant.
Neurotypical people also daydream whilst reading a book. The difference is if you can’t focus on a book so much you barely get through the first page, on every page you attempt etc.
I’m adhd, autistic and dyslexic. The value of these diagnosis is to be empowered to understand myself, rock where I rock, accept the things I probably will waste time trying to fix, and use various things to address the challenges I have, that are possible to address and worth effort.
I'd advise goblin.tools to market itself differently and aim for the neurotypical market as well.
#my2cents
I need an integrated app, not a website, not a standalone app. It must seemlessly integrate into Android. A webinterace is okay for maintaining purposes. But the app itself must be an integral part of my smartphone. Visible in my taskbar and stuff like need. Without any detours.
Something that integrates with Outlook/Gmail. Why? That helps to keep information synchronized. I need synchronized information, not the 12th app that offers me to help my organizing my day, while infact it's adding up another item to my mind-pile.
Of course it must be simple. Not a fancy interface. Not too much UI elements. No bling-bling.
And one feature I like specifically: A reminder, that tells me how many days/hours/weeks/months I am overdue for recurring tasks. Like a dynamic todo list where I can uncheck items. Let's say the task is "Watering Plants", every 2 days. I must uncheck this item, otherwise it would increase the amount of days its overdue.
With one exception, as I don't know what you mean by "Visible in my taskbar and stuff like need". I don't have a taskbar on my phone, but if you mean on a desktop, then I solve that using sync. I access synced tasks with desktop apps, which this is not. I also share one synced task list with my spouse. Other phone integration I use is having multiple task widgets on my home screens.
All of my personal reminders and tasks are tracked in this app. I use a lot of recurring tasks. While it doesn't explicitly count days overdue, it does show and can sort by due date, and can (re-)trigger notifications X days past due.
Chances are your plants don't need watered every 2 days. If you're actually married to the exact implementation you described, carry on and good luck! Otherwise, having learned from my share of drowned plants and as I read those requirements, they'd be met by a task recurring for a due date 4-10 days after completion and a start date 1-3 days before due, so you'd not see it again until a few days after it was last completed and have some days in which to complete it, where this repeats as desired regardless of when it actually gets done. This is a common pattern for me, such as my "check tire pressure" task recurring X weeks after completion. The start date controls how many days before that next due date that it starts being shown again, I do not worry about it going negative, and, after the start date, I get a location-based notification when at the location where I normally complete the task.
>> Visible in my taskbar
On Android, when you pull down from the top, you have like songs currently played and/or other currently active programs. So, it's the one area of the screen that is available from every other screen.
>> If you're actually married to the exact implementation you described
Not really, it was just the kind of solution that came into my mind when thinking about this kind of problems. I am very bad in keeping track of tasks. From the outside it looks like lazyness, from the inside it's a mixture of "forgetting" and "priorities". Having a feature that lists long overdue tasks at the top, could ease that. You haven't watered your plants for two days? Ok, they can handle that. But what about tire pressure overdue for 12 days - its about time!
Anyways, will try it. Or, which is on my plate for a while now, will build my own app. That's what I do for a living, except: I couldn't find the time to do it because of the other thousand things to do before.
The insight was that a lot of the noise pulling me off center was coming from built up clenching of muscles around my head and back, and a destabilization of core posture while sitting, leading to shaky leg and such.
The project I built was simply a mixable tone dashboard for different frequencies. Ive been dogfooding it hard, and its my goto to push around my headspace to clear out the noise and make a protected space for work. The easiest litmus for tone choice has just been, 'does this help or hurt'. On my better days its like im giving my brain a massage and I have the most productive times.
https://1ps0.github.io/binaural
A note: i load the file directly from repo when I use it on Firefox, theres an audiocontext policy i havent been able to figure out. Should work great on mobile and elsewhere.
I'm not saying that a semicolon and an Oxford comma are _necessary_, here - but I am saying that I did a double-take at my first interpretation that we are now naming and personifying AIs.
There are more reasons to use an Oxford comma than not, and I remain continually surprised that it is not taught as the default.
(Just sharing grammatical curiosity, one ~~pedant~~ enthusiast to another - I agree with your second paragraph!)
In any case, I saw quite a few time something "expanding the list". Usually it works less than anything that actually asks you on the next step - in this case, my go-to are recent LLM models. For example, it split "take out the trash" into 8 steps - quite a lot of detail, even for an autist.
Choose a pie
Gather necessary utensils (fork, plate, napkin)
Place the pie on the plate
Cut a slice of the pie
Pick up the slice with the fork
Bring the slice to your mouth
Take a bite of the pie
Chew and savor the flavor
Repeat until finished
Dispose of any leftovers responsibly
Clean up the utensils and plate
Maybe an absurd example but I feel like something like this makes it seem even more intimidating to do basic tasks
At the lowest you get
- Select a pie
- Grab a fork or your hands
- Take a piece of the pie
- Bring it to your mouth
- Chew and swallow the pie
I did "get a haircut" and it was a pretty good breakdown. Same with "Paint a room in my house". I think these types of tasks are more suitable for step-by-step breakdowns than "eat a pie".
I think what's worse is that it still over detailed the steps but left out the actually additive steps of the OP's list which I would say is the bit about the getting/cleaning the dishes and trash
It's like taking an old school BASIC program and modularising it into small self-contained functions. That may increase the lines of code by a lot, but it still makes it simpler and easier to process because you only need to keep one function in mind at a time.
Sometimes also making them rewrite it in a different style then rewriting that manually again
It then gave a time estimate of 3 hours 25 minutes, but I know from my own time tracking that doing a similar series of steps takes me 40 minutes on average.
It seems to overestimate the time taken to do very simple tasks, so if you break the task down too far then it will always wildly overestimate. Perhaps a fix would be to ask the LLM to make one estimate for the overall task, make separate estimates for each subtask, and then ask it to reconcile the two? Something like chain-of-thought/reasoning.
https://github.com/Podginator/TickGPTick
It needs updating, but basically you set a tag that let’s you expand tasks out much in the way goblin tools does.
If I might ask, how was your experience working with the TickTick API? I've been waffling on whether my frustration with some of the pain points I have with it (e.g. no way to hide recurring daily tasks that you've already completed today but aren't actionable for tomorrow from cluttering the "tomorrow" heading in every smart list) justify building my own dashboards for it.
I was so excited when I found The Judge: Am I misreading the tone of this?
What a wonderful tool to have at hand when things go awry in email threads, chat rooms etc.
Generated like 10 sub-items for me, 5 of which were relevant. But to remove the 5 junk ones, you have to open the dropdown for each and hit delete.
How long to build a Space Shuttle? "5 to 10 years"
How long to build a Time Machine? "5 to 50 years"
Tearing down the governance systems of the United States of America and replacing them with a dictatorship? "Several months to several years"
My largest executive function issue is the guilt of not doing some other thing.
If I have a very stressful situation, I can easily organise my thoughts and ruthlessly prioritise what is important from what is not important.
In "peace" times, this doesn't work at all, and instead if I have something that I know will take half a day (say, for example, fixing a subtle bug in the email system) then I will feel guilty about doing that over something else (say: doing paperwork for the worked hours that month).
Thus, I do neither. Until one becomes critical.
It's fucking stupid, but I can't fix it.
I've also started to write a to-do list on paper and keep it always open in front of me on my desk. This is the only thing that seems to work for me. If I keep a virtual to-do list, I lose track of it, forget to check/update it and it eventually becomes useless.
You're not alone, hope you find something that works for you!
I have a similar function built into my app, which takes the proposed name for a checklist and description and uses it to generate steps. Have heard many use it for executive function management: https://steplist.app
So like I'm renovating a house and I've got to find someone to help with drywall, get a new top of the septic, get quotes on the driveway, etc. Multiply this a few times with my job and side project and so on.
It would be great if it would just ask me what's new with each thing and update tasks and remind me to follow up with the person not calling me back etc. Of course, all this can be done in your mind or with Todo apps but just something to talk to and nudge would be great.
Why use "AI" at all? Because now I have something to yell at me and ask if I actually finished the thing I said I would before jumping into some new thing. If I have not, it can give me a concrete next step to help me overcome the analysis paralaysis that may be preventing completion.
I've worked hard to configure the thing so that it won't tolerate my bullshit. It is entirely structured around pushing me to function as a normal adult should. Yes its sad and pathetic I can not do this alone, how broken must I be that an "AI" is any level of assistance in this area etc. The idea I am sure seems ludicrous to 'normal people' who would never even remotely consider using it for such a thing. However it is what it is, and I would prefer the shame that comes with the extreme benefit I have received as opposed to the opposite.
---->
Identify the need to stay hydrated
Determine the time of day to drink water
Locate a clean source of water
Decide which container to use for drinking
If using a bottle, check if it’s clean
If using a glass, wash it if necessary
Go to the location of the water source
Open the water source
If it’s a tap, turn on the faucet
If it’s a bottled water, twist off the cap
Position your chosen container under the water source
Fill the container with water
Monitor the amount of water being poured
Stop pouring when the container is sufficiently full
Turn off the water source if applicable
If using a bottle, securely close the cap
If using a glass, hold the glass in your hand
Bring the container close to your mouth
Tilt the container slightly
Allow the water to flow into your mouth
Ensure that you are swallowing the water
Continue drinking until you feel satisfied
Place the container back down on a surface
If applicable, wipe your mouth with a tissue
Notice how your body feels after drinking
Reflect on the importance of hydration
Make a mental note to drink water regularly
Plan for the next time to drink water
If you have used a glass, wash it after use
If using a bottle, check if it needs refilling
Recognize when your thirst returns
Consider drinking water with meals in the future
Remind others around you about the benefits of drinking water
Incorporate water-drinking breaks into your daily routine
Stay aware of your personal hydration goals
Adjust your water intake based on physical activity
Explore flavored water options if desired
Track your water consumption if it helps you stay accountable
Celebrate when you reach your hydration goals
And then I close the tab! (naturally, ofc)
A little bit of onboarding / guidance on how neurodiverge peeps can get the most out of it would go a long way.
Would love this as a todoist extension for brainstorming subtasks.
You want to do this well, lean into pre-defined (and user-defined!) checklists instead. Sure, use AI to help people generate the checklist if you must, but the value is having a repeatable procedure.
Dish Name: Simmered Water Broth
Serving Size: 1 cup (240 ml)
Ingredients:
- Water: 1 cup (240 ml)
This is a good example of how wide the ADHD spectrum can be. From my perspective, I’d actually call this mild, not because it is, but because I never finished high school at all. My parents bought into stigma and refused meds against medical advice, and the fallout ruined both my childhood and much of my adult life.
I get you're aiming for a cautious take, but I’d urge anyone reading this to think hard before following it. If you do have more than mild ADHD, this kind of “avoid meds” advice can be genuinely harmful, it’s the kind of thinking that keeps people suffering for years when they don’t have to.
As an adult, I refused meds while my life continued to fall apart. Convinced by stigma and those that constantly shouted "MEDICATION BAD." So as my life spiraled ever downwards, I increased the rate at which I beat my self up telling myself constantly I just needed more willpower, better systems, or the right therapist and it would all change. Spoiler alert: none of it worked without the baseline support stimulants gave me and refusing to medicate was one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made. It did such a degree of damage to my life it's not even possible to begin to describe it.
Stimulants aren’t inherently dangerous when used properly. What is dangerous is untreated or mistreated ADHD and the damage it causes, to you the individual and those around you. The therapeutic ladder should start with what works, framing meds as a “last resort” is unhelpful and rooted in stigma, not reality.
If you think you have ADHD, get off the internet and see a real doctor. Work with them to figure out what actually helps you without assumption or expectation and don’t let other people’s experiences or stigma decide your treatment for you.
I don't say that because I think medication is inherently evil, but because I believe the therapy actually worked quite well in my case. If other people can get the step change in their quality of life for the cost of relatively short term, and avoid a lifetime of medication, why would they not? I want people to consider this option.
And yes, see a real doctor - and not one who, like mine, heard my story and said "OK you've probably got it, here's a prescription for adderall".
Edit to add: I feel you wrt to the parental stigma. It burned me as well. My parents took me to some lab visit where they hooked me up to an EEG and made me press buttons when lights went on. Weirdly enough, the novel situation was quite stimulating for me, and I was given a clear negative diagnosis. Any time the topic came up again after that I was shut down. Took until my 20s to get any help for it, and another 5 years to seek therapy, which has been great.
I'm not sure about "neurodivergent people" part though. I don't think I'd call myself neurodivergent or anything close. Pretty sure the app will be useful for anyone.
- Open a web browser
- Type "MyProjectName website" into the search bar
- Press "Enter"
- Locate the official MyProjectName website link in the search results
- Click on the link to access the website
- Wait for the page to load
------
EDIT:
Rate limited, so to reply: I think most people understand there is a difference between launching a website and viewing a website.
If the AI wanted to know more about my role - whether I am a programmer, a designer, or someone that would use a high level Wix/Squarespace type tool - it should ask me.
I typed in "get a haircut" and it worked great.
In reply to your edit:
>I think most people understand there is a difference between launching a website and viewing a website.
I don't think so, at all. Non-tech people at my work come to me and say "I couldn't launch Outlook this morning", or "Google won't launch". They don't mean that they are building an email client or search engine. Most people use "launch" in the non-entrepreneurial way.
Gather cleaning supplies (broom, mop, vacuum, cleaning solutions, cloths)
Declutter each room by picking up items that don’t belong
Dust surfaces such as shelves, tables, and electronics
Wipe down surfaces with appropriate cleaning solutions
Clean glass surfaces and mirrors
Sweep or vacuum all floors
Mop hard floor surfaces
Clean carpets (vacuum or spot clean if necessary)
Freshen up the bathroom (clean toilet, sink, and shower)
Organize items back to their designated places
Take out the trash and recycling
Final walk-through to ensure everything is tidy
In the 1990s, we frequently used the phrase "launch a website" to mean "navigate to the website", so your prompt could have been clearer than just three words.
[1] https://crafty-butch.tumblr.com/post/638122754578726912/by-w...
No. Only if these people work in IT or somewhat interested. Most people will be pretty confused actually, they understand "starting\launching a business".
Many people are sure that you can create a website just by going into Gmail menus and doing some "techy magic".
that's a little more complicated than these tools, but it seems within reach given publicly available technology. image segmentation models are really good now, the list of objects would be pretty reliable at least.
Needs a bit of UI love for mobile. If you break down tasks 3 levels deep in becomes unusable.
This is essentially a thin wrapper around an LLM. Hardcoded prompt templates. The value isnt in the template itself, but more-so the curation of the template. So curate better.
Instead of hardcoding the prompt template, allow people to create/share/vote on arbitrary templates. A prompt library of sorts.
A "break down task into steps" would be a great feature for every todolist app.
Not at all. There is the selection mechanism and the universe of templates. Both can be greater in a system where there is user creation and voting. Otherwise we're saying Goblin.tools has searched and found the best templates possible. Seems unlikely. And even if true now you dont need Goblin.tools anymore because you have just recreate the static templates.
That's a fair point. But the current thin wrapper around an LLM doesnt help them either. Better to help someone at least.
Once again, we see that AI stands for automated irresponsibility, not artificial intelligence.
Obviously, the foremost treatment today is various stimulants. But other, more healthful ways of increasing brain energy, such as nailing down blood sugar management, lowering inflammation, and reducing environmental irritants, are probably also helpful. These interventions need not even be expensive or dramatic. Using lower glycemic index carbohydrate sources (i.e., fructose vs starches), consuming Thiamine (Vitamin B1) to improve glucose metabolism in cells, alongside taking in adequate cholesterol for the production of stabilizing neurosteroids such as progesterone, is a more specific description.
Quotation from Mind and Tissue, by Ray Peat:
``` The brain, with its extremely high energy requirements, is usually the first to suffer from energy deprivation. At slight levels of deprivation, the brain will simply lose functional efficiency, but more serious or prolonged deprivation can produce lingering modification, or even structural damage which is relatively permanent (and may even have transgenerational effects).' Just as the skin (or muscle) has a lower energy requirement than the brain, the various parts of the brain have different requirements. The parts which are most resistant to damage are the "lowest" and "oldest" parts of the brain, the parts we have in common with frogs. These parts regulate physiological processes, such as breathing, and so it is biologically useful that they should be most resistant to damage. When a person is given an anesthetic, the first parts to stop functioning, or to go to sleep, seem to be just those parts that have the highest energy requirements, and which are least resistant to damage. The anesthetized person keeps breathing, for example, until very high doses of anesthetic are given, but other functions disappear one by one as the dose increases. The front part of the brain, which is most uniquely human (and "newest) but which doesn't have "specific" function, in the usual sense, is one of the most sensitive parts of the brain. It is a very large piece of tissue, and it seems to be involved in planning and choosing, in governing the other more specific functions (This part of the brain, as well as the cerebral cortex in general, gives us the ability to "disregard" stimuli, to use Lendon Smith's term.) The famous Russian neuro-psychologist, A.R. Luria, has described the behavior of dogs when this tissue is damaged or removed:
..destruction of the frontal lobes leads, not so much to a disturbance of memory as to a disturbance of the ability to inhibit orienting reflexes to distracting stimuli: ..such an animal cannot perform tasks involving delayed responses under ordinary conditions, but can do so provided that irrelevant, distracting stimuli are removed (if the animal is kept in total darkness, if tranquilizers are administered, and so on). The role of the prefrontal cortex in the synthesis of systems of stimuli and the creation of a plan of action is manifested not only in relation to currently acting stimuli, but also in the formation of active behavior directed towards the future? Various theories of what causes hyperactivity, e.g., low blood sugar, weak radiation from fluorescent lights and TV. 3 or food additives, 4 and the observation that drugs which stimulate the sympathetic or adrenergic nerves (ephedrine or caffeine, for example will relieve the symptoms, are all consistent with the idea that not enough energy is being supplied to permit this tissue to function properly. Low blood sugar will starve the nerves; food additives or any low-level poison can serve as a stressor of nerve tissue, leading to increased energy requirements;
many forms of very weak radiation' can lower the efficiency of metabolism, increasing the tissue's energy requirement, and brain tissue is the most sensitive to at least some kinds of radiation.
Intestinal irritation can cause disturbances of the nervous system, and should be considered as a possibility in "disorders of attention." Toxins produced by intestinal bacteria can affect the brain directly, but more often act by damaging the liver's ability to regulate blood glucose. The commonest cause of hypoglycemia is hypothyroidism, and a thyroid deficiency increases the tendency toward a high-adrenaline state, but more importantly, thyroid hormone is the basic regulator of efficient energy production. Memory and attention are impaired by even a slight thyroid deficiency. The Russian paradigm, with its emphasis on energy and inhibition, suggests that thyroid function should be carefully examined in cases of hyperactivity. Too often, western physicians think only about hyperthyroidism in hyperactivity. ```
The more recent book "Brain Energy" by Chris Palmer offers similar perspectives in terms of dysfunctional mitochondria as a fundamental causative factor in just about every mental illness.