ADHD project planning
Project Planning for Brains That Don't Fit Project-Management Tools.
A flat list is hostile to the way your brain actually thinks. Asana, Linear, Notion — they're all built for brains that pick a starting point from a uniform list. Map the project as a shape instead. Branches by area, depth by next action, and Focus Branch when one area becomes the world for an hour.
Why this matters
The dump-to-execution bridge most tools never build.
My ideas lived in one world, my tasks lived in another, and my brain had to be the integration layer.
— Indie Hackers founder, paraphrased
That gap is what most ADHD project-planning advice never addresses. Brain-dump tools capture great but the dump dies in a doc. Task tools force prioritization decisions the brain isn't ready to make.
The bridge — the act of *turning* a dump into a plan — usually happens entirely in your head. Which is exactly where it shouldn't happen.
Same canvas, dump becomes plan
Dumbnote is the bridge. The same canvas that catches the dump becomes the project map: drag clusters into branches, expand branches into sub-projects, tag the urgent ones, park the unclear ones.
Because it's an offline mind mapping surface — not a task tracker — there's no per-task field to fill in. No due date you'll lie about. No priority labels you'll regret. Just a shape that matches the project. Sunday-night-you can be honest about what's there; Tuesday-morning-you reads the shape at a glance.
How it stacks up
How Dumbnote compares vs ADHD-friendly project tools
| Capability | Dumbnote | Notion | Asana | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Non-linear / spatial structure | ✓ | × | × | ✓ |
| Focus Branch (silence the rest) | ✓ | × | partial | × |
| Float nodes (park unplaced ideas) | ✓ | × | × | ✓ |
| Zero system-building / no templates | ✓ | × | × | ✓ |
| Works offline | ✓ | × | × | ✓ |
| Free, no login | ✓ | partial | partial | ✓ |
For your work
For Brains That Build the System Instead of Doing the Work.
The honest version: ADHD project-planning often becomes ADHD system-building.
The dopamine hit from perfecting a system feels productive, but it's actually a sophisticated form of procrastination.
— r/productivity, ADHD-self-identifying user
The 30 days configuring Notion, the templates downloaded from Twitter, the elaborate Linear workflow — none of it ships the work.
No template store. No plugin ecosystem. No Dataview queries to perfect. No CSS snippets to tune. When system-building urges hit, there's nothing to build — which means the only thing left to do is the actual work.
How it works
How to plan a project as a shape, not a list
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Center node: the project, not the deliverable
"Q1 launch" not "Q1 launch — deck v3.docx." The project is bigger than any single deliverable; the center node holds the bigger thing. Deliverables become branches.
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Branches: areas of work, not phases
Phases imply linear order; areas imply parallel work. ADHD brains parallel-process. Make branches for "research", "design", "writing", "talking to people" — whatever the actual work areas are. The order will sort itself out.
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Depth: next action, not all actions
For each branch, the first child is the next physical action ("open the Figma file"). The second child is the action after that ("export the artboard"). Resist filling in the whole tree right now — that's system-building. Stop at "the next thing I would actually do."
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Tag the day, not the priority
Forget "high/medium/low." Tag what you might actually do this week vs. not this week. Two tags is enough. Press 1 or 2 to filter the map to just those nodes when you're ready to work; press Esc to see the whole shape again.
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Focus Branch when one area becomes the world
Shift+click a branch and the rest of the map fades to 35%. The remaining branch IS your task list for the next hour. The other branches still exist — you can see them in your peripheral vision — but they're not competing for attention. Press Esc to release.
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Float nodes for "I had a thought about this"
Mid-execution, an unrelated idea arrives. Add it as a float node — off the tree, on the canvas. It survives until you decide what to do with it. Tomorrow you'll see it and either slot it under a branch or delete it. Either way, you didn't have to interrupt your current focus to file it.
Common questions
Questions visitors ask before they try it.
Why not just use Asana or Linear?
Asana and Linear are great if your brain produces flat task lists naturally. ADHD brains often don't — they produce clusters, branches, half-formed ideas with unclear parents. Forcing those into a flat task tracker means doing two cognitive jobs at once (capture + categorize), which is precisely what ADHD brains struggle with. The mind-map is a one-job tool: capture the shape.
Can I share my project map with a team?
Yes. Click Share — anyone with the link joins the same map in real time. End-to-end encrypted, no account, nothing stored on a server. Useful for "let me show my co-founder what I'm thinking" without committing to a shared workspace setup. When the conversation ends, the session ends — no permanent shared doc to manage later.
Will this scale to a real project with deadlines and dependencies?
For "real project" definitions that mean cross-team coordination with formal dependencies — no, that's Asana/Linear territory. Dumbnote is for the planning step before you commit to a tracker, and for the personal-project step that doesn't need a tracker. Many users do both: Dumbnote for "thinking about the project," Asana for "executing the project."
Does it work offline?
Yes. Single HTML file, browser-only, no internet needed after first load. The Sunday-night project map can happen on a plane.
What about deadlines? Can I add dates?
Dumbnote doesn't have a built-in date system because dates in mind maps tend to be lies (the deadlines you put in are aspirational; the real deadline lives in your calendar). The pattern that works: put the real deadline in your calendar with a reminder, and put a node on the map that says "deadline: see calendar." Two systems, each doing what it's good at.
Is it free?
Yes. Free forever. No team tier, no premium, no per-seat pricing.