Llama Life is a productivity app built by a founder with ADHD. I’ve used it for a while and really like the way the app works and the philosophy behind it. Marie, the founder, has put a lot of effort into designing the app so it subtly nudges you into single focusing instead of multi tasking.
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Why it helps with ADHD
Combatting the urge to multitask
If your ADHD brain is like mine, you’re constantly coming up with new ideas. The temptation is to drop what you’re doing and act on the new idea immediately. The end result is that nothing gets finished and I reach the end of the day feeling exhausted but dissatisfied with my progress.
The way Llama Life helps is by gently coaching you to just work on one task at a time. If you have another idea, that’s fine - you can quickly dump it into the task list - but you commit to staying on track with that one task.
Other apps try to do this too but the execution isn’t right. It feels like a drill sergeant yelling at you: “Stand up tall! Put that shiny object down!”. The cute llama mascot is so adorable that my mental dialogue is like “I really want to do this other thing but I don’t want to let the llama down..I’ll stick it out”.
Improving time blindness through sound effects
The trouble with this approach is that if I just do one task, I get into hyperfocus. Ten minutes into that task I was dreading, I’m now so immersed that I forget to eat, go to the toilet or leave the house for the doctor’s appointment. Two hours later, I’ve finished my tax return but my kitchen is on fire because I forgot to turn the stove off (“I’ll just work on this for ten minutes while my lunch is cooking”).
Llama Life has got this part covered too. The task player sits in the background with a countdown timer going. That’s easy to ignore - I become fixated on the task at hand and don’t notice it there - but luckily it has sound effects! When the timer finishes, there’s a gentle chime that draws me back to the outer world again. I can choose to extend the task or if it’s done, tick it off.
The app also plays white noise while you’re working which I find helps get me into hyperfocus faster especially if there is background noise.
My verdict: try it
The app keeps getting better. It’s available on Web, iOS and soon on Android. If you’ve got ADHD, you’ll probably benefit from the single tasking philosophy behind the app and you’ll love the gentle soft productivity approach.
(It works great with Focus Bear BTW. You can have your tasks going in Llama Life and use Focus Bear to block distractions to increase the likelihood that you’ll get them done.)
Hi I'm Jeremy, and I understand the challenges of living with ASD and ADHD.
