Apps are what keep me going. They help me with every part of my day. From waking up to falling asleep and everything in between. Technology is amazing but one thing I have found is I need to learn how to make it work for me because if not, things can go quickly downhill and next thing I know I’m an hour deep into watching cat videos on Instagram. So today I wanted to share what apps and hacks work best for me.
Alarmy. Because lets face it, ADHD or not, waking up is hard. I am the self proclaimed queen of snoozing. Which means my mornings are chaotic to say the least. They are usually spent rushing to get myself and daughter ready in a ridiculously short amount of time because guess who snoozed too long… This is where Alarmy comes into play. Alarmy is great because it has different options for turning the alarm off. Some of the options are doing a math problem, walking a certain amount of steps or taking a picture of something. I opt for one of the ones that requires me to get out of bed. This is nice because unlike the iPhone alarm this actually gets me up and gets me going. It also has an option that asks if you’re awake and you have 100 seconds to respond or else you have to get up and turn the alarm off again. Every morning I’m cursing myself for setting an alarm that requires me to get out of bed to turn it off, but guess what? It gets me out of bed and I wake up. So thats a win.
Hue. These ridiculously cool light bulbs not only help turn my room into a disco rave but they also help with waking me up. The hue light bulbs use the hue app which allows you to set up a routine that simulates sunrise at whatever time you decide. This is great because when my dreaded alarm goes off, my room is nicely lit which helps in waking up. Also some days I notice that the soft glow helps me peacefully wake up before my alarm.
Calm. Meditation is great to help me reset my mind. But did you also know that calm has bedtimes stories narrated by Matthew McConauguey to help you sleep. And if he isn’t your cup of tea, there’s plenty of other stories narrated by other celebrities. These stories are great because they help me zone out and fall asleep. It stops me from laying in bed thinking about everything thats gone wrong in life to focusing on stories of magical landscapes.
Any.do. This has quickly become my go to productivity app. Any.do is great because it works with your current calendar app. It allows you to see appointments but also lets you schedule tasks to do throughout the day. It integrates really well with Siri and the reminders app on the iPhone. Any reminder I set through Siri is automatically added into the app.
Tody. Cleaning has never been my strong point. It has always seemed like a huge chore so my cleaning is sporadic at best. This is where Tody comes into play. The app breaks down different areas in the house and within each area you can assign different chores. It allows you to set a frequency of how often you want to clean things which is nice because if you’re like me, you probably can’t remember what you had for breakfast, let alone the last time you dusted. The app also has a status bar that turns all green when all tasks are up to date which feels like a gold star. It also has a feature where you can share it with another family member that way you can assign household chores to different family members.
Focusmate. This last one is not an app but deserves a huge shout out and I recommend it to everybody, whether they have ADHD or not. Focusmate is a website that uses the idea of “body doubling”. The idea behind body doubling is having someone keeping you company while you work on a task. Focusmate allows you to schedule a time and you are partnered with another Focusmate user. At the beginning of the session you quickly talk about what you’ll be working on and then begin your work. Once the session is over, you summarize how everything went and VIOLA. Focusmate has helped me so much, especially while working from home. Just knowing that I have someone else there is enough to keep me on task. Every now and then, I will find myself start to check my phone but then I remember “hey someone is here” and then I quickly get on task.