App Hopping and System Clutter in ADHD

Last year I had four to-do apps on my phone. In my drawer sat three half-used notebooks. The first ten pages of each were very tidy, and the rest was empty.

All of them were flawless on the day they were bought. I had chosen the colors, set up the categories, entered the sample items. By the third week none of them was being opened.

In the glossary it is called app hopping, and for a long time I thought it was a search for order. It was not.

Why a new system every time

Novelty pays off right away. Setting up a new system is an enjoyable job. You choose colors, build categories, adjust settings. All of it produces visible progress and pays out the reward the same evening.

The meta-analysis by Plichta and Scheres (2014) shows that the response of the reward circuits during reward anticipation is different in ADHD. In everyday terms: a reward that comes right away becomes decisive, and a reward that will come later stays weak.

Setting up a system pays its reward that evening. Using the system pays its reward months later. Which one I choose is obvious.

Novelty fades. By the third week the app is familiar, and what is familiar becomes invisible. In me this period is almost always the same: between ten days and three weeks.

When a system breaks, a new one comes instead of a repair. When an arrangement falters, fixing it is boring and building from scratch is exciting. In the glossary it appears as the fresh start effect, and it took me time to admit how strong this effect is in me.

Looking for a new system feels like working. That is exactly why it is the hardest form of procrastination to notice.

Productive procrastination

This behavior has a name: productive procrastination. Instead of doing the real work, dealing with something you think will make the real work easier.

How to recognize it:

• Feeling the need to build a system for a job before starting it.
• Making the system you built more detailed than the real work.
• Evenings spent on app comparison videos.
• Spending many times more time reading about the method than applying it.

In Steel's (2007) meta-analysis of procrastination this behavior fits quite clearly: a pleasant job with a near reward takes the place of a boring job with a distant reward.

An example from my own story: before starting a client job I spent three days building a file naming system. The system really was good. The job was three days late and I never used that system again.

System clutter

Abandoned systems do not disappear. They accumulate and form what the glossary calls system clutter:

• Three half-filled apps.
• Two different notebooks.
• Notes on the fridge.
• Emails sent to yourself.

This has a concrete cost: you do not trust any of them. Because you do not trust them, you still keep everything in your head. So the purpose of building a system is turned upside down and the mental load increases.

On the digital side this accumulation has a separate form; I covered it in the article on digital clutter.

The way out

1. Promise three months. Decide that you will not change the tool you are using now for three months. Even if it feels inadequate. According to the review of habit by Wood and Rünger (2016), a behavior becoming automatic requires repetition, and repetition is only possible when the tool stays fixed. I described how a habit is built in the article on building habits.

2. Empty them all. Open all the old systems one by one, move what is in them to a single place, then close them. Details in the article on the single list rule.

3. Choose the simple one. A tool with few features lasts longer than one with many, because there is nothing to adjust. The smaller the surface to fiddle with, the less fiddling there is.

4. Imprison the fiddling. The urge to play with the system does not disappear completely, and this has to be accepted. Give it a time: the last five minutes of the weekly review. Details in the article on the weekly review.

5. When the system breaks, repair it. The question to ask when an arrangement falters is: which exact part of this system did not work? The answer is usually a single part, and changing that part is enough.

Before downloading a new app. Ask yourself one question: what exactly did not work in my current tool? If the answer is not concrete, the problem is not in the tool. In me the answer comes out almost always the same: "I haven't opened it for three days."

Small things that delay the death of a system

Promising three months was not enough on its own. A few details made me keep the promise.

Leave the system incomplete. When setting up, I no longer adjust everything. One list, one calendar, that is all. The part left incomplete leaves a space to fiddle with in the third week, and that fiddling does not break the system, it feeds it.

Do not treat a one-day gap as a catastrophe. I do not even remember how many systems I abandoned because I did not open them for one day. The rule now is this: if I have not opened it two days in a row, I always open it on the third day, without trying to fill in what I missed.

Keep a usage record. I mark how many days a week I open it. This small mark leaves no room to guess by feeling whether the system works. The feeling in me always says "it doesn't work," and the record often shows the opposite.

Does the tool not matter at all

It does, but much less than people think. Two things decide:

• Being quick to reach. A tool that takes three taps to open does not get used.
• Being visible. A tool you do not remember unless you open it is a tool that does not exist.

Beyond these, tools are surprisingly alike. A paper notebook can do the same job as the most expensive app. I currently use a mix of the two, and it works not because I chose it but because I have not changed it for a year.

And there is this: sometimes you really do need to change

I would not want you to read this article as "never change." There are situations where changing a tool is justified:

• If the tool is no longer supported or loses data.
• If your life has changed and the tool physically does not fit the new arrangement.
• If after using it regularly for three months you can name and describe a concrete shortcoming.

The distinction is here: changing after three months of use is a decision, changing after three days of use is an escape. To tell these two situations apart I use a single criterion: can I write the shortcoming in one sentence?

Where the real issue stands

While writing this I have to admit something. Underneath the search for a system there is often a hope: if I find the right tool, I will get better.

That hope leans on the wrong place. A tool can remind, can carry things outside, can make things visible. But it does not make you start the work. Not being able to start is a separate matter and one that no app solves; I covered it in the article on not being able to start a task.

The search for a new system looks like a search for a solution. Most of the time it is an escape, and what is escaped is usually a single task.