I tried a free AI tool that helps people with ADHD break down difficult tasks. It helped me clean my closet and be more creative.

• People with ADHD often struggle with organization and finishing projects.
• A free app called goblin.tools breaks down big tasks into smaller to-do lists.

As someone who has ADHD, one of the biggest roadblocks I face is completing tasks that, to other people, seem simple and straightforward.

Over the years, I've learned some hacks to cope, like writing absolutely every to-do down in the Notes app on my phone. No item is too small, from cleaning my kitchen to emailing my insurance company back. That's because for me, if it's out of sight, it's definitely out of mind (until I lose $100 because it's too late to return a dress that didn't fit).

But I still find myself avoiding chores that would take 15 minutes to complete, all while feeling ashamed that organization isn't intuitive for me.

So I was excited when, while I was perusing a subreddit for women with ADHD, I saw a few people mention goblin.tools, a free, AI-powered app that claims to be designed "to help neurodivergent people with tasks they find overwhelming or difficult."

The website offers several tools, like "The Judge" to help you assess the tone of a message, or "The Chef," which finds recipes based on ingredients on hand, dietary constraints, and other factors.

But the one that many ADHD users gravitate towards is what the website calls the "Magic ToDo," which uses AI to auto-generate task lists.

One Reddit user announced they "cleaned my absolute health hazard of a kitchen in record time," while another said it helped their husband better understand how their ADHD brain works.

I decided to try it for three different tasks I usually struggle with:

• Organizing my closet
  
• Overcoming writer's block
  
• Reaching out to long-distance friends more often
  

I found it an incredible tool for some things, and a little silly for others, but overall it was still very helpful.

It was the best for breaking down intimidating chores

Because I have limited space in my apartment,I've been wanting to swap out my summer clothes, which were hanging in my closet, with my fall and winter clothes, which have been stashed in a back closet and hard to see.

This task has been looming over my head for weeks, so much so that when I discovered goblin.tools, I immediately wrote it in.

I also used another app in goblin.tools, The Estimator, to see roughly how long this would take, since I can be overly optimistic about time sometimes.

The Estimator said that the whole task would probably take between two and four hours, which seemed doable. Energized, I tackled everything in one night, ending up with three bags of clothes to take to my local thrift shop and my winter wardrobe now easily accessible.

The AI tool also helped reframe my writer's block

Outside of work, I've also been trudging through a very rough first draft of a novel. Annoyingly, I'm so close to the end and at the part I thought would be easiest to write — but I've been stuck on it for months.

Some of the advice, like "Identify the area where you're stuck," revealed the limitations of AI. If I knew why I was stuck, I wouldn't need this tool!

But one thing that I liked about this tool is that you can break down each subtask into more subtasks (seemingly infinitely!) by clicking the blue wand.

While it couldn't solve my creative problem for me, it gave me some more options. I could brainstorm a bunch of different endings to the novel, switch to other writing projects, look up some writing prompts, or run the plot by other people.

In the end, seeing the steps written out helped me decide to switch projects,and I ended up editing a short story instead. I felt more confident that I'd eventually get unstuck in the bigger project if I gave myself some space.

It was less effective for friendship advice

I'm super attentive when I'm hanging in person with my friends. But if I can't physically see them, I can forget to reach out for months — a common symptom of ADHD that makes friendships more difficult.

I've wanted to get better at initiating phone calls, something I was doing during the pandemic and then stopped as life got busier again.

I looked at the AI's advice, which started with evaluating my communication habits. I realized I don't like to call most friends spontaneously and unannounced. I always worry I might be bothering them, but I also find scheduling phone calls tedious.

The list didn't give me any definite answers or "right" way to approach this, which was frustrating at first. But it also reminded me that there's no one way to think about social interactions. I can analyze my communication patterns and find a fix, and I can also forgive myself for being less responsive sometimes, especially if my friends also forgive me.

Unlike cleaning out a closet, some things, like relationships, can't be optimized by AI. That's probably for the best.