AI for ADHD: what the assistant actually does

When I first started using artificial intelligence, I was concerned about what it would do to my own ability to work and to think independently — to do the things I would normally do the old-fashioned way, by hand.

I enjoyed the process of working out where the advantages were and where the limits were, the way most of us have been doing over the past few years.

Then I read something that connected it on a different level. David Butler, writing at Divergent Systems, made a case I hadn't seen put that way before:

For neurodivergent people, an AI agent isn't merely a productivity tool. It's a prosthetic for the parts of your brain that don't work like others.

He takes it further:

If your primary disability is the gap between intention and action, an agent that bridges that gap is mental mobility assistance.

A productivity tool is something you use to get more done. A prosthetic is something that closes a gap you didn't choose to have. If what you struggle with isn't knowing what to do but getting from knowing to doing, then a tool aimed at that specific gap isn't optimisation.

It is also why so much of what we build is aimed at the first move rather than the whole job — a five-minute sprint on something you've been circling, or deciding to drop a task so it stops taking up room.

The more I read, the more it came into focus that I had already been using some of these capabilities without framing them that way, and that it would make sense to build a standalone tool rather than a set of habits I happened to have.

What I did not see was that it might be worth anyone else's while. That was Stephane, my co-founder: if it works for you, it will work for other people. I was building myself a tool. He is the reason it became a product.

That is the vision Herding Chickens came out of. I read David's piece in June, started building not long after, and closing the gap he describes — between intending and doing — is its key design principle.

The short version

What the AI does today

There are two places where AI is actually doing work in Herding Chickens right now, and they are not equally AI.

Breaking a task down. You take something that sounds monolithic — the kind of item that sits on a list for three weeks because you can't find the first move — and the app splits it into manageable steps. This one is genuinely AI. Most of what looks like procrastination is a task that hasn't been made small enough to start. We've written about that separately in when "just do it" doesn't work, break it down instead.

Filing a task into an area. When you capture something, it gets sorted into one of four areas: 🟦 Work & admin, 🟨 Family & friends, 🟩 Health, or 🟪 Personal.

Most of that filing is a plain set of rules — fast, free, and it never sends your task anywhere. The AI only steps in when the rules can't place something, which tends to be the short or oddly-worded captures. It files the task and gives you a moment to correct it, and you can change the area later from the task itself.

What we would like to add

This isn't the end of the road. There are things we would like to build; here are a couple of them.

Capturing by voice, so you can say a task instead of typing it. I dictated the first draft of this post rather than writing it, which is exactly the argument for it — the friction between having a thought and getting it down is where many tasks are lost.

Connecting tasks to each other, so you see not just a list of individual items but how they relate. As that gets more systematic, it could start to show you something about how your own life is organised, making it more than just a list.

We work to a principle here that we are guided by what users ask for rather than by what we happen to find interesting. So these features will get built if there's appetite for them, and they'll wait if there isn't.

If there's a feature you want — one of those two, or something we haven't thought of — tell us. That's the actual mechanism by which this gets decided.

We read every single message.

The first version is Telegram for the waitlist. There isn't a store download yet. Join the waitlist if you want a launch email.

Keep reading

• ADHD task paralysis: break it down instead of "just do it"
• If ADHD stops you from boring tasks, try a 5-minute sprint
• With ADHD, dropping tasks from a long to-do list is a win
• ADHD Telegram bot: why not an app you'd have to open
• More on AI & Automation

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Herding Chickens is a productivity app in development, not medical advice, therapy, or an ADHD diagnosis. If you are struggling, talk to a qualified clinician. In the UK, start with the NHS ADHD in adults page.