Why do they even make apps for ADHD. You want me to use my 24/7 handheld immediate distraction device? To manage my 'gets distracted too easily' disorder? Ooooh we developed the perfect tool for managing your anemia. Its hosted in Dracula's castle. 👍
Picked up my phone to consult my task list for today and now I'm reblogging this instead, case in point
i have ADHD! I've learned that the name of the game is to introduce DELAY and FRICTION in the short term, and work out ROOT CAUSES in the long term.
there's an app called one sec which BLOCKS all other apps on your phone. It can also restrict specific apps. It injects a delay in opening the apps - you can customise the message and delay length.
Android (One UI, maybe just samsung, I'm not sure) phones have settings that can whitelist specific apps during specific times or when a particular "mode" is active. This is under Modes and Routines.
In my experience these are the only ADHD apps that work.
More ADHD pro tips: uninstall as many apps as possible
Set your browser to close tabs automatically after a certain amount of time inactive (mine is 7 days I think). If you REALLY need the open tab, bookmark it.
If you really need the delay, set your phone/ computer browsers to clear cookies daily. This will force you to need to log in to websites every day. This introduces DELAY and FRICTION between you and the easy, habitual distractions.
DELAY and FRICTION are short term solutions. The habits run pretty deep and humans can get used to anything; you'll figure out ways to go around the blockers you put in place in time, and you'll need to create new blockers. Use the time to address the longer term ROOT CAUSES, because that's what's gonna actually make it stick.
ROOT CAUSES is harder. What would you rather be doing, if you weren't on your phone? Journal. Journal a lot. Take long solitary walks (LEAVE PHONE AT HOME!) and try to figure out what you really think, what you really want, when you're not on your phone.
I find I tend to use the phone to Escape. I have worked pretty hard to build a life I don't always want to escape from, as well as some mindsets. I know another very common mode is Seeking, and whatever you're trying to find in Phone chances are it's not there.
You need to retrain your brain to try looking somewhere other than Phone for whatever you're Seeking. This is hard. Might take forever, might never entirely break the habit. But the degree and frequency of me being on my phone for way too long has reduced a lot, in a relatively quick timeframe (1-2 weeks). Don't let slips become slides here.
Genuinely I think a lot of the apps marketed for ADHD are scams targeting a population which is most likely to forget they signed up for a free trial and won’t have the attention span to go through the cancellation process. There’s simply no other justification for a glorified to-do list app with a premium version that costs 30 dollars a month.
I will second One Sec, though! The delay on opening apps is helpful when you’re stuck in that loop of opening an app, closing it, and then immediately opening it again. Plus they have ways of blocking apps that are harder to get around than the built in screen time limitations.
The other thing that’s been huge for me is turning off viewing history on YouTube. Without tailored m recommendations it’s a lot easier to mindlessly move on to the next thing, but the biggest benefit is that it breaks shorts. You can still view them on specific channels, and they come up in searches, but you can’t get the infinite scroll. Also with times being what they are, denying a company any data you can feels like a small win!
I am a HUGE proponent for the app ScreenZen. It is extremely customizable and has a ton of different applications of friction and delay that I can set at different times for different apps. For example, apps that have short form video that I might want to use for something else, like Facebook and Instagram, are set so that I can use them for an unlimited amount of time BUT every seven minutes I get cut off to a screen with a message I chose (a cute picture of my kitty and the phrase is this how you wanted to use your time?) and have to choose to open it again. That means if I go to find something on marketplace but get sucked into reels, I’ll get nudged out of it after seven minutes and I’ll have a chance to regroup and try again until I do the thing I needed to do. I can do this as many times as I want. However, I can also change the settings to limit how many opens I have in a day, or how long I have to wait between opens.
I like to read fanfiction in bed and will stay up all night. If I have it hard block after a certain time, I’ll get all grumpy and defiant and decide I don’t need to listen to that and turn it off. So instead, starting at a certain time, I can only open the app for fifteen minute increments, but as many of them as I want. I have to wait 12 seconds between opens and a screen comes up to encourage me to do a round of box breathing, and then I can open Firefox again. After 8 opens, I have a new setting to only allow five minutes at a time, AND each time I open the app it adds 10 seconds to the wait before I can open it again. That means if I really really want to finish a chapter I can buy the friction gets worse and worse each time until I’m waiting well over a minute to open it again. Usually once it’s over a minute I’m out of “the zone” enough that it’s pretty easy to decide I can stop reading and go to sleep.
Anyway I’m a huge fan, it helps so so much and has dramatically improved my quality of life around phone use.
It is available for apple and android.
