Talking about why I felt the need to create 「gan·ba·re·yo!」, a todo app for neurodivergent people by neurodivergent people.

I don’t know about you, but I hate todo apps.

Not because I don’t need them, but because they rarely work for me. Tasks pile up. They turn red. They sit on my list for months, silently accusing me. And eventually, they stop feeling like undone chores and start feeling like personal failure.

And on the flip side? When I do complete something, there’s no dopamine hit. No pride. No sense of accomplishment. Just… nothing. Maybe relief. But never satisfaction.

It’s enough to make a person feel broken. But, I’m not broken. Just neurodivergent.

You see, neurotypical people are motivated by things like punishments, rewards, societal pressures, or just general importance. It’s important to shower. So they shower. But people with ADHD just aren’t motivated by the same things. We are motivated by 5 core factors:

• Passion: Your latest obsession. Your favorite hobby. The thing that takes a lifetime to master but you somehow get pretty dang good at it in 2 days but not good enough that you’re willing to put in more effort for it.
• Interest: Learning about something that fascinates you. An innate resonance with the topic at hand. I will always talk to you about manga. Well, maybe not always. But you get the point.
• Novelty: Seeking out new experiences. I personally think of this one as “searching”… digging through record bins, going to garage sales, visiting used guitar shops. It’s not about the buying and the having, it’s about the discovery.
• Competition: Kind of self explanatory, but I think body doubling fits into here as well.
• Hurry: Urgency. MY 25 PAGE REPORT IS DUE TOMORROW TIME TO START READING THE BOOK

And the fact is, unless a task fits one of those categories, it can be really hard, and sometimes impossible, for us to get started on it.

Where does showering fit? Brushing my teeth? Calling the doctor to see if they can do anything about my hip? Those things are easy to let slide. Logically, I understand they are important, and I actually even want to do them. But, sometimes, I just can’t.

I’ve had “call the doctor” on my reminder list for 4 months, and every time I open the app, it’s sitting there, bright red, making me feel like a failure as I limp around my house on a bum hip.

So, yeah, it’s enough to make a person feel broken. And I decided to do something about it.

enter 「gan·ba·re·yo!」

I made my own todo app. For me. But maybe you will like it too. It’s called 「gan·ba·re·yo!」

“Ganbare yo” is a Japanese phrase, meaning “you can do it” or “I believe in you”. It’s gentle words of encouragement from one friend to another. And that’s the philosophy behind this app.

No pressure. No shame. No streaks. No XP. No hit points. Just encouragement.

The interface is simple. On the main screen, you see your tasks for today. Some are one-time. Some repeat. Some were scheduled for the future, and today is the day they showed up. It doesn’t matter where they came from. What matters is that this is today’s list.

Each task has three options:

• Done? Tap it. It disappears.
• Not today? Punt it. It’ll return tomorrow or next week.
• Never happening? Delete it. Nobody will ever know.

In order to give us some approximation of a dopamine hit, I introduced a bit of novelty. Behind your list is an image. Blurry and obscured. As you clear tasks, it sharpens. Gets brighter. As you clear the final task, the image comes into crisp, full view.

What is it? I don’t know either. It changes every day.

Could be a cozy kotatsu with ramen and manga. Could be a snow globe with two friends sharing a hobby. Could be a wizard dog turning people into frogs. It’s different every day. That’s part of the fun. Part of the novelty.

And you can text your friends:

“Did you see today’s ganbare yo? It was so cute!”.

Or, well, you could. If you had friends.

Maybe you do! SORRY FOR PROJECTING!!!

To be clear: you don’t have to complete anything to see the image. You just need to clear your list. Punt it, delete it, complete it… and the glorious picture is yours. Because you showed up. And that counts.

The app isn’t out yet, but I’m beta testing on iOS, with Android coming soon. If you want to try it, reach out. Send an email. Join the discord. I’d love to have you test it. And if this app gets any kind of traction, I have plenty of ideas for features to add.

I hope 「gan·ba·re·yo!」 will work for you the way it works for me.

And if it doesn’t work for you? That’s okay too.

I didn’t make it for you. I made it for me.

And I feel a lot less broken since I started using it.