Things 3 vs Todoist for ADHD: Which One Will You Actually Stick With? (2026)

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Most people with ADHD don't have one task manager. They have a graveyard of them. Things 3 that you bought, used religiously for three weeks, then stopped opening. A Todoist account with 214 overdue tasks you're too ashamed to look at. Maybe a notes app in between where the actual to-dos secretly live.

So the honest question isn't "which app has the better feature list?" It's "which one will still be open on my Mac six weeks from now, instead of joining the pile?" For an ADHD brain, that comes down to how each app handles the two things that break every system: capturing a task fast enough that it doesn't evaporate, and not becoming so much work to maintain that you abandon it.

Full disclosure: we make Focusmo, a Mac focus app that connects to both Things 3 and Todoist. We'll get to where it fits at the end, but the bulk of this is a straight comparison — and we'll tell you plainly which to pick even though we sell neither.

The 30-Second Version

If you don't want the whole breakdown:

Choose Things 3 if you live entirely in the Apple ecosystem, you're calmed rather than motivated by a clean, quiet interface, and you'd rather pay once than manage another subscription.
Choose Todoist if you switch between a Mac, a phone that might be Android, and a work PC, you capture tasks best by just typing "email Sam tomorrow 3pm," and a little gamification actually nudges you.
Know this about both: a task manager lists tasks; it doesn't start them. If your real problem is staring at a perfect list and still not moving, the app matters less than what you put around it — more on that at the end.

Why the ADHD Lens Changes the Answer

Most "Things vs Todoist" reviews rank on feature count, integrations, and power-user filters. That's the wrong scoreboard for an ADHD brain, where the app with more features often loses — it becomes one more system you maintain instead of a tool that gets you working.

Three things decide whether a task manager survives contact with ADHD:

Capture friction. If getting a thought out of your head and into the app takes more than a couple of seconds, the thought is gone. ADHD working memory doesn't hold it while you navigate menus.
Overwhelm at a glance. Open the app on a bad day. Do you see one clear next action, or a wall of red overdue items that makes you close it immediately? A list you avoid is a list that doesn't exist.
Maintenance load. Every label, filter, and nested project is a small tax. ADHD brains happily build elaborate systems during a dopamine-fueled setup weekend, then can't sustain them by Wednesday.

Hold those up against each app and the differences get sharp.

Things 3 for ADHD

Things 3, by Cultured Code, is the minimalist's pick. It's deliberately quiet: lots of white space, no gamified streaks, no nudging. Its structure is simple to hold in your head — Inbox, Today, Upcoming, Anytime, Someday — with Projects grouped under Areas, and headings and checklists inside those.

What it does well for ADHD:

Low visual noise. This is the big one. For a brain that's easily overstimulated, an uncluttered screen with one "Today" list is genuinely calming — less to react to means less to avoid.
Fast capture where it counts. Quick Entry jots a task with a keyboard shortcut from anywhere on your Mac, and parses natural-language dates ("Friday," "next Monday"). With the Inbox, you dump first and organize later — exactly what an ADHD brain needs.
A "Today" vs "This Evening" split. Instead of one intimidating pile, today's work divides into now and later-today — a small touch that lowers the overwhelm of a single long list.
Buy it once. No subscription to resent or forget to cancel. You own it.

Where it struggles:

Apple-only, full stop. Things 3 runs on Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro — and nowhere else. No web version, no Android, no Windows. If any part of your life lives outside Apple, tasks captured there can't reach it.
The price is per device, and it's not small. At the time of writing it's a separate one-time purchase per platform — roughly $49.99 on Mac, $9.99 on iPhone, $19.99 on iPad (check Cultured Code for current pricing). Wanting it on Mac and phone means paying twice. A 15-day Mac trial lets you find out if it sticks first.
No external motivation built in. The same calm that soothes one person leaves another cold. Things 3 will never gamify you, remind you insistently, or manufacture urgency. If your brain needs a hook to engage, it won't find one here.

Things 3 is the right pick when a quiet, beautiful, low-maintenance list is what keeps you coming back — and when "Apple-only" describes your whole digital life anyway.

Todoist for ADHD

Todoist is the opposite personality: flexible, cross-platform, and quietly gamified. It runs essentially everywhere — Mac, iPhone, Android, Windows, Linux, the web, browser extensions, even email — and syncs instantly across all of them.

What it does well for ADHD:

Best-in-class quick capture. You type in plain English — "pay rent every 1st at 9am #home p1" — and Todoist parses the date, recurrence, project, and priority automatically. With a global shortcut and browser extensions, it's about as frictionless as capture gets — and for a thought that'll vanish in five seconds, speed beats any feature.
It's on the device you're actually holding. Because Todoist is everywhere, the task goes in whether you're at your Mac, on the bus with your phone, or on a locked-down work laptop. Capture that only works in one place isn't capture.
Karma and gentle gamification. Completing tasks earns points and streaks. It's divisive — some find it motivating novelty (an ADHD brain loves a visible score), others a hollow nag. But for people who respond to external feedback, it's a real hook Things 3 doesn't offer.
Powerful filters and priorities (P1–P4, labels, sections) let you build a "Today, only the important stuff" view and hide the rest.

Where it struggles:

Feature sprawl invites overwhelm. All that flexibility cuts both ways. It's easy to spend a Saturday building an ornate system of labels, filters, and projects — then feel buried by the very structure you made. The app that can do anything can become a second job.
The free plan is tight. The free "Beginner" tier caps you at a handful of active projects and limits reminders. Time-based reminders — arguably the feature an ADHD brain needs most — sit behind Pro, which runs about $5/month billed annually (roughly $7 monthly; Todoist raised prices in late 2025, so check their site). It's not expensive, but it's a recurring cost.
Red overdue counters. Left unmanaged, Todoist's badges and overdue tallies can turn into a shame pile that you start avoiding — the exact failure mode a task manager is supposed to prevent.

Todoist is the right pick when you need capture that works on every device, you don't mind (or actively like) a bit of gamified feedback, and you can resist the urge to over-engineer it.

Head-to-Head for ADHD Brains

| What matters | Things 3 | Todoist | | --- | --- | --- | | Visual calm | Very high — minimalist | Moderate — more to look at | | Quick capture | Excellent (Apple devices only) | Excellent (everywhere) | | Cross-platform | Apple ecosystem only | Mac, Windows, Android, web, more | | Price model | One-time, per device | Freemium; Pro ~$5/mo | | Built-in motivation | None (deliberately) | Karma points, streaks | | Overwhelm risk | Low | Higher if over-configured | | Best for | Quiet, all-Apple minimalists | Cross-device, feedback-driven |

There's no winner row: the "better" app is the one whose personality matches yours. Things 3 removes stimulation, Todoist adds it — neither is correct in the abstract, only for a specific brain.

We've compared the adjacent pairs too: Apple Reminders vs Things 3 for ADHD if you're weighing Things against the free Apple option, and Todoist vs TickTick for ADHD if you're torn between the two big cross-platform players. For the full field, our best task manager for ADHD on Mac roundup rates seven of them honestly.

The Part Most Comparisons Skip: A List Isn't a Start

Here's the truth that applies to both apps — and every task manager ever made. A task manager solves capture and organization: it gets obligations out of your head and into a trusted place. That's valuable. But for many ADHD adults, capture was never the bottleneck. You can have the most beautifully organized Things 3 database or the most cleverly filtered Todoist view on earth, sit down, look at the perfect list… and still not begin.

That's because the wall isn't disorganization. It's task initiation — the executive-function hurdle of getting moving — and no amount of list-tidying pushes you over it. There's a related trap: a task you can't currently see stops feeling real, so a to-do buried two taps deep in a project quietly ceases to exist to your brain until it's suddenly, painfully overdue.

Choosing between Things 3 and Todoist picks the best place to keep your tasks. It says nothing about starting one — and that moment, not the capture, is where most ADHD days fall apart.

Where Focusmo Fits (Honestly)

We'll be straight: Focusmo isn't a task manager, and we're not trying to replace Things 3 or Todoist. If you want a place to organize projects, keep using whichever won above — genuinely.

Focusmo is a free Mac menu-bar app that handles the part a task list can't: turning a chosen task into work that actually happens. It connects to both Things 3 and Todoist (plus TickTick, Apple Reminders, Microsoft To Do, Google Tasks, and Obsidian), so you pull a task you already captured and then:

Start a focus session (Pomodoro or open-ended flow) that gives the task a defined beginning and end — so "start the report" becomes "25 minutes on the report, now," and time stops being invisible.
Get accountability check-ins that nudge you mid-session to confirm you're still on the task you named — the external pressure an ADHD brain uses to re-engage.
See where the time actually went through automatic activity tracking, so your future task estimates get based on data instead of hope.

In short: your task manager answers "what should I do?" Focusmo answers "okay, start it now, and stay on it." Different jobs — which is why plenty of people run a task app and a focus tool together. For a head start on structuring the day around it, our free ADHD focus planner is a good place to begin.

How to Decide in One Minute

Is your whole digital life inside Apple? Yes, and you value a calm, quiet screen → Things 3. No, you touch Android/Windows/web → Todoist.
Does gamified feedback help or annoy you? Helps → Todoist's Karma. Annoys → Things 3's silence.
Pay once or subscribe? Once, and you'll commit → Things 3. Rather rent and stay flexible → Todoist.
Most importantly — is the problem capturing, or starting? If it's capturing, pick the app above that fits your brain and move on. If it's starting, the task manager is only half your system, and you'll want structure around it.

There's no universally best task manager here. Things 3 and Todoist both excel at what they set out to do — one by removing stimulation, the other by adding it. Match the app to your failure mode, give it two honest weeks, and don't mistake a tidy list for a finished task.

And if you land on that last point — great list, still can't get moving — that's the exact gap we built Focusmo to close. It's free to start and runs quietly in your Mac menu bar, right next to whichever list you chose.