I built Tenholm because every productivity app made my ADHD worse
I have ADHD. I've known for years, but I spent most of that time trying to brute-force my way through systems designed for neurotypical brains.
Here's my graveyard:
Todoist — I set up 47 tasks, colour-coded them beautifully, felt productive for three days, then never opened it again. The overdue count became its own source of shame.
Notion — I built an entire life operating system with linked databases, rollups, and automations. It took a week. I used it for four days. The complexity became a wall I couldn't climb over on low-dopamine mornings.
Apple Reminders — Too simple. No context, no connection between areas of life. Completing a grocery list doesn't help me notice that I haven't called my mum in three weeks.
Habitica — Gamification that made me feel like a failure when my character died because I missed a workout during a depressive episode. Punishment mechanics and ADHD are a terrible combination.
Daylio — Good for mood tracking, but it just shows me data. It never connects the dots. It never says "your Body score always dips the week after a big Work push."
The realisation
The problem was never discipline. It wasn't that I needed a better to-do list or a stricter habit tracker or more accountability.
The problem was that every app treated my life as a collection of disconnected tasks. Work tasks. Home tasks. Health tasks. Each in its own silo, each with its own guilt mechanism.
But life doesn't work like that. When work consumes everything, your body suffers. When relationships strain, your focus fractures. When you neglect play, everything feels like obligation.
No app showed me that trade-off. No app helped me see the shape of my life — which areas were thriving, which were starving, and how they connected.
What I built differently
Tenholm is the app I wished existed during every 2am spiral of "why can't I just be a normal productive person."
Everything connects. It's a knowledge graph, not a task list. People span multiple areas. Goals link to habits. Captures flow into the right area automatically. Nothing lives in a silo.
ADHD-first design. Zero shame. No streak-breaking punishment. No overdue counters glowing red. Quick capture for when your brain dumps seventeen thoughts at once. An AI body double that notices patterns without lecturing you.
Your life has a shape. Six areas rendered as a living form. Not a dashboard of numbers — a shape you can feel. When Body shrinks, you see it. When Connection expands, you feel it. The shape IS the data.
Island, not dashboard. Tenholm is designed as a refuge, not another productivity command centre. It has weather you choose (Recover when you're overwhelmed, Focus when you're locked in), time-of-day awareness, and a companion that adjusts its tone to where you are.
Privacy as architecture. Every message is stripped of names and personal details before any AI processes it. Your scores are deterministic TypeScript — pure maths you could audit yourself. Financial data never leaves your device in raw form. This isn't a privacy policy buried in a footer. It's how the system works.
The honest state
Here's what Tenholm is right now:
It's a solo project. I'm the only user. I've been dogfooding it for a week — using it every day, catching bugs, filing friction reports, iterating.
It's rough. Some edges are sharp. Some flows could be smoother. The onboarding could be warmer. The companion could be smarter.
But it works. My Daily Startup has become the first thing I do each morning. The shape on my dashboard actually reflects my life. The quick capture catches the thoughts that used to vanish. The scoring doesn't punish me — it just shows me what's true.
I'm opening it to 10 people to find out if it helps anyone besides me. It might not work for you. That's the point of testing.
The invitation
If you're an ADHD brain who's tried everything and nothing stuck, I'd love your honest feedback.
Not flattery. Not "this is cool." Tell me what breaks. Tell me what confuses you. Tell me what makes you close the app and not come back.
That's the only data that matters right now.
Tenholm is Australian-made, privacy-first, and built for brains that work differently. It's free to start, and your data stays yours.