ADHD Todo List for Mac: How to Plan Your Week

If you have ADHD and a Mac, you probably do not have a to-do list problem. You have a one-list problem. Everything — the report due Thursday, "figure out health insurance," the thing you promised a friend, the ambitious rewrite of your life — lands in the same column. Monday looks intentional. Wednesday is a guilt pile. Friday you archive the app and start over in Notes.

That cycle is not a character flaw. A single inbox asks working memory to sort, date, and start work on the fly. ADHD makes those the expensive operations.

TL;DR: Stop using one dumping-ground list. Put dated work on a week board, keep Today short next to your calendar, park standing intentions in Loops (Pressing / Important / Backlog), and write one win per horizon in Goals. Focuh is a free Mac app (v0.3.0, early beta) plus a web app. Both need a free account. System-wide blocking is Mac-only, during a focus session. Primary next step: Download for Mac.

Why do ADHD to-do lists collapse by Wednesday?

Most Mac lists — Reminders, Things, a beautiful Notion database — are good at capture. Capture is not the hard part. The hard parts are:

Too many open loops in one place. "Email Sam" and "become someone who journals" are not the same kind of item. Mixing them makes every glance at the list feel like a life audit.

No honest Today. If today is "everything still unfinished," it is not a plan. It is a scoreboard of yesterday.

Time is invisible. A list does not show that you already have three meetings. ADHD time blindness makes "I'll do it this afternoon" feel true until the afternoon is gone.

Starting is a separate skill. Even a perfect list does not initiate the first five minutes. That is task paralysis, not missing a checkbox.

The planner that holds is not stricter. It is split. Dated work, today's slice, standing intentions, and a longer-horizon win live in different rooms so none of them has to impersonate the others.

What should an ADHD planner hold instead of one giant list?

Four buckets, and only four. If an item does not fit, it is not ready to be a task yet.

Bucket	Question it answers	What belongs there
Today	What fits this calendar day?	A short list, next to events, with room to miss
Week	What is actually for a date?	Work you can drag onto Monday–Sunday
Loops	What is still true with no date?	Standing intentions you pull onto a day when there is room
Goals	What would make this horizon a win?	A few lines, not a second to-do list

That is the whole system. You can run it in any app that can fake those four rooms. The rest of this post uses Focuh's names because they match the rooms.

Today is a day's tasks beside a time grid. Drag a task onto the calendar to schedule it. Tasks group as Critical, Important, and Nice to have. Nice to have can collapse so it stops shouting.

Week is the board: day columns, same priority groups, drag between days. This is where "I'll do it this week" has to pick a date or admit it is not dated.

Loops are undated. They sit in Pressing, Important, or Backlog. From a loop you can add it to Today, Tomorrow, or This weekend. That pulls a copy onto the day. The loop stays. It is not a calendar repeating task and it does not vanish after one check.

Goals are a short checklist by horizon: This week, This month, This year, This decade. Keep them that size: "What would make this week a win?" not a second identity document.

If you only remember one rule: a loop is not a today task until you pull it. A goal is not a today task until you break off one dated action.

How do you plan a week when you have ADHD?

Do this once, on Sunday evening or Monday morning, for about twenty minutes. Timer on. Phone in another room if you can.

1. Write one weekly win. Open Goals → This week. One sentence. "Ship the draft," "inbox under 20," "two workouts." If you cannot say it in one line, it is not this week's win.

2. Dump, then sort — do not organize in place. Capture everything that is buzzing. Then, item by item, ask: does this have a date this week? If yes, it goes on the Week board. If it is true every week ("move more," "stay in touch with X"), it is a Loop. If it is a horizon, it is a Goal. If it is a maybe, Backlog loop or delete.

3. Underfill the days. ADHD planning fails by optimism. Put less on each day than a neurotypical tutorial would. Leave a column with obvious white space. Yesterday's unfinished work is allowed to stay unfinished rather than migrate as a blob onto today.

4. Schedule only what has a real slot. On Today, drag the one or two Critical items onto the time grid, around existing events. If Google Calendar is connected, you already see the meetings. Do not time-block the Nice to have list. That list is a menu, not a promise.

5. Stop when the timer ends. A half-finished week board you will actually open tomorrow beats a perfect board you never look at again.

This is timeboxing at the week scale: the week is the box, not the task. You are not committing to finish your life. You are committing to a dated slice.

What are loops, and why do they beat a repeating reminder?

Repeating reminders feel responsible and then become wallpaper. "Pay invoices every Friday" that you ignore for six Fridays trains you to ignore the whole list.

Loops are GTD-style open loops: still true, no date. Triage is the feature.

• Pressing — will hurt soon if nobody pulls it
• Important — real, but it can wait for a hole in the week
• Backlog — captured so it is not in your head; not this week's problem

When there is a hole in Today, pull one loop onto the day. The loop remains, so you do not have to recreate "write to Sam" after you do this week's version. You also do not have a ghost task sitting on Wednesday forever.

If a loop has been Pressing for two weeks and you never pull it, the honest move is to change the goal, delegate it, or delete it. The bucket is a mirror, not a shrine.

How do goals stay useful when today is already loud?

Goals fail ADHD brains when they are motivational posters, and they fail when they are 40 more tasks. Keep them tiny.

This week: one win (you already wrote it).

This month: where should the month land? One or two lines.

This year / this decade: only if looking at them does not spike shame. It is fine if those sections stay empty for a while.

Each morning, glance at This week before you add to Today. If today's Critical list does not serve that win, you are in busy-work. Pull a loop or schedule a task that does. Then close Goals. You do not live in that view.

Where does Focuh fit — honestly?

Focuh's homepage line is "For the creatively chaotic." The next line is the product: plan your week, block distractions, and focuh on what matters.

What that actually is, today:

• Price: 100% free. No premium tier, no subscription.
• Mac app: v0.3.0, early beta, signed and notarized. Apple Silicon and Intel DMGs on the download page. macOS 12+.
• Web app: same planning views in the browser. Launch it from the homepage.
• Account: Mac and web both sign in with a free Clerk account so Today, Week, Loops, and Goals stay in sync. Sign-in is required.
• Today / Week / Loops / Goals: as described above, including drag-to-schedule on Today and pull-a-copy from Loops.
• Google Calendar: two-way sync, so events sit next to the day's tasks.
• Focus sessions: a timer; on the Mac app, a live tray countdown.
• Blocking: system-wide websites and apps on Mac only, during a focus session, via Accessibility APIs. The web app does not block your laptop.

What it is not: a Windows or iPhone planner, a body-doubling room, a medical treatment, or another "how to block YouTube" utility. Blocking is the Mac enforcement layer around the plan. The plan is the product.

If you want a premium daily-planning ritual with Jira and Asana ingest, that is a different category — we compared that shape in Focuh vs Sunsama. If you want a roundup of timers and blockers, see best focus apps for ADHD. This post is the weekly list.

Primary CTA: Download for Mac (v0.3.0 DMGs).

Secondary: Launch the web app if you want to try Today / Week / Loops / Goals in the browser first.

What does a real week look like with this setup?

Sunday (15–20 min). One weekly goal. Sort the dump onto Week vs Loops. Underfill three days, not seven.

Each morning (5 min). Open Today. If yesterday spilled, leave most of it on yesterday or park it back to Loops — do not swallow the week into today. Pull at most one loop. Drag one Critical task onto a real gap in the calendar.

When you sit down to work. Start a focus session on the Mac app if distraction is the failure mode. Use a short box if starting is the failure mode (Pomodoro, adapted). The list is already visible; you are not choosing a life purpose in that minute.

Midweek. If Wednesday is a wreck, do not "catch up" by stacking Thursday. Delete or loop the overflow. Protect the weekly win even if Nice to have dies.

Friday. Check off the weekly goal or admit it moved. Move surviving dated work. Do not rebuild the app.

The system is working if you still have a Today on Thursday that a stranger could understand in ten seconds. It is not working if you have a gorgeous Week you only open when you feel behind.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best ADHD todo list for Mac?

The one that keeps dated work, today, standing intentions, and goals in different rooms. Focuh is a free Mac app plus a web app with those rooms (Today, Week, Loops, Goals). You need a free account. System-wide blocking is extra, and only on the Mac app during a focus session.

How do you plan a week when you have ADHD?

One weekly win, dated work on specific days, white space, loops for anything without a date. Each morning, cut Today to what fits next to the calendar and pull at most one loop. Do not repay yesterday by overfilling today.

Is Focuh free, and do I need an account?

Yes and yes. Focuh is free forever — no premium tier. The Mac app (v0.3.0, early beta) and the web app both sign in with Clerk. Grab the DMGs from Download for Mac, or launch the web app.

Does the Focuh web app block websites?

No. Blocking is Mac-only, system-wide, during a focus session. Use the web app to plan; use the Mac app when you need the block.

What are loops in an ADHD planner?

Undated standing intentions in Pressing, Important, or Backlog. Pull a copy onto Today, Tomorrow, or This weekend; the loop stays. They are not repeating calendar reminders.