You have cleared a whole inbox in the last ten minutes before a flight.
Not because it mattered more at the gate than it did at home. Because it became a game with a clock, and an ADHD brain starts on a game. The trick is not to find more flights. The trick is to build the clock into an ordinary Tuesday, without building in the part of games that makes you quit.
A challenge is one of the four
An ADHD brain does not start on importance. It starts on interest, novelty, challenge or urgency, in the model the psychiatrist William Dodson calls an interest-based nervous system. Challenge is the one this page is about. A race makes a dull task easier to start, and you already know it from every deadline you have beaten by an hour.
The other three levers are here. This one has a trap in it, so it gets its own page.
The trap: rewards you can count
Points, badges and streaks are the first thing every app reaches for, and the evidence is against them.
A 1999 meta-analysis of 128 experiments found expected, tangible rewards lower intrinsic motivation, the motivation you had before the reward showed up (Deci, Koestner and Ryan). The effect was strongest for rewards you get for doing the task at all. That is the exact shape of "10 points for completing a task."
Streaks add a second problem: a way to lose. A streak counts your bad days back at you, and an ADHD brain has bad days by definition. The morning after a broken streak, the app costs more to open than it gives. So the game must be one you cannot lose, and the score must be one you cannot count.
The rule: race yourself only
The one opponent who cannot make you quit is the person you were last Tuesday.
A CHI 2020 study called Race Yourselves had people race ghosts of their own earlier runs in a VR exercise game. Against their own ghosts they pushed harder and enjoyed it more than with no ghost. Nobody else's score was in the room. A second finding sits underneath: people are bad at guessing how long a task takes, and the fix is to show them how long it took last time. In a series of experiments, people who first recalled how long a past task took predicted the next one much better (Roy, Mitten and Christenfeld, 2008). So the ghost has to be real. Your real usual time, not a target someone picked for you.
Three rules fall out of this, and we built to all three:
- The only opponent is your own past. No leaderboard, no friend's score, no average user.
- Starting is the win. Stopping early still counts. Zero cleared is not a loss.
- Nothing is counted back at you. No points to lose, no streak to break, no red.
The five games we built
Each one is a real clock on a real task, and each one starts with Timi asking, once.
Ten-minute dash. "4 quick ones are open. Ten-minute dash?" Ten minutes on the clock, clear as many small tasks as you can. The end card for zero says: "You started. That was the hard part." Beat your best and it says "New best: 5." Your old best is the only number in the room.
Guess how long. "Guess how long this one takes?" You pick a number of minutes, do the task, and Timi scores the guess, not the speed: "Close call. Guessed 10, took 12." A slow task can still be a good guess, so a slow day is not a bad one.
Race your usual. After you have done a task a few times, Timi knows your usual. "Your usual is 12:00. Race it?" You race the ghost. "2:00 faster than your usual", or "1:30 over your usual. Still done."
The dare. "Bet you can't start 'Reply to Sam' in two minutes." Two minutes to start, not to finish. When you do: "Started. That was the hard part."
The big one. A task that has waited for days becomes today's boss: three small pieces, not one big thing. The whole rule is here.
Why Timi offers one game a day, and never a menu
A menu of games is a decision, and a decision is a task.
So there is no games screen. Games stay off until you turn on "Make it a game". After that, Timi decides whether to offer one today, which one, and when, from what is on your list: a pile of small tasks suggests a dash, a task you have run three times suggests a race, a task that has waited for days suggests the big one. At most one offer a day. If you say no, that is the end of it until tomorrow. If you say yes, the clock starts and Timi goes quiet.
We kept it this small on purpose. A game you have to set up is a job. A game that arrives, once, with a real task's name in it, is a reason to start.
How to do this without Kaapi
You need a clock, a real task and a rule against losing.
- Pick five small tasks. Set a ten-minute timer. Clear what you can. Write down the number. Next time, beat the number, and only that number.
- Before a task you do often, write your guess in minutes. Time it. Keep a list of guess and actual. In a week, your guesses get better, and the task gets smaller in your head.
- Never write down a miss. If the timer runs out at zero, the line in your notebook says "started".
Frequently asked questions
How do I gamify tasks with ADHD?
Race yourself and nobody else. Put ten minutes on a clock and clear small tasks, or guess how long a task takes and time it, or race your usual time on a task you do often. Skip points, badges and streaks: a 1999 meta-analysis found expected rewards lower the motivation you already had, and a streak gives you a way to lose.
Are streaks bad for ADHD?
Streaks you can lose are. They count your bad days back at you, and an ADHD brain has bad days by definition. The morning after a broken streak, the app costs more to open than it gives. A game for an ADHD brain needs a win you cannot lose: starting.
Does gamification work for ADHD?
A challenge is one of the four things an ADHD brain starts on, so a clock on a task often gets it started. Whether it keeps working depends on the design. Racing your own past times held up in a CHI 2020 study; expected rewards did not in a 1999 meta-analysis of 128 experiments. Race yourself, and keep score of nothing else.
What is the best gamified to-do app for ADHD?
Judge any app by three rules: the only opponent is your own past, starting counts as a win, and nothing is counted back at you. Most gamified apps break the third rule with points and streaks. Kaapi was built to the three rules, with games that stay off until you ask.
Sources
- Dodson, W. (updated 2025). How adults with ADHD think: Uncomfortable truths about the ADHD nervous system. ADDitude. additudemag.com/adhd-in-adults-nervous-system. A clinical model from practice, not a trial.
- Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., and Ryan, R. M. (1999). A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 627–668. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.125.6.627
- Michael, A., and Lutteroth, C. (2020). Race Yourselves: A longitudinal exploration of self-competition between past, present, and future performances in a VR exergame. CHI 2020. doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376256
- Roy, M. M., Mitten, S. T., and Christenfeld, N. J. S. (2008). Correcting memory improves accuracy of predicted task duration. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 14(3), 266–275. doi.org/10.1037/1076-898x.14.3.266