I'm Neurodivergent. Every Productivity App Made Me Feel Worse. So I Built My Own.
I got diagnosed with AuDHD — that’s ADHD and autism, co-occurring — at 30. And the first thing I felt wasn’t relief. It was anger.
Not at the diagnosis. At every single productivity app I’d ever tried. Every streak I’d broken. Every “overdue” badge that screamed at me in red. Every beautifully designed system that made me feel like the problem was me.
I’d tried them all. Todoist, Notion, Things 3, TickTick, Google Calendar with color-coded blocks, bullet journaling, the Pomodoro technique, Eisenhower matrices. Some worked for three days. Some for three weeks. None lasted. And every time a system collapsed, the shame got a little heavier.
So I did what any self-respecting developer with too many side projects would do: I built my own.
This is the story of Denly.
The problem nobody talks about
Here’s the thing about most productivity tools: they’re built by and for neurotypical brains. That’s not a criticism — it’s just a fact. The entire productivity industry is built on assumptions that don’t hold when your brain works differently.
Assumption 1: Consistency is achievable. Todoist’s streak system is a perfect example. Miss a day? Broken streak. The implicit message: you failed. For someone with ADHD, where executive function fluctuates wildly from day to day, streaks aren’t motivating. They’re a countdown to guilt.
Assumption 2: More structure = more productivity. Notion is incredible. It’s also a perfect trap for ADHD brains. The infinite flexibility means you spend three hours building the perfect dashboard instead of doing the one thing you needed to do. I’ve been there. I have a graveyard of Notion templates that each represent an evening of hyperfocus on the wrong thing.
Assumption 3: Deadlines are motivating. For neurotypical folks, seeing “Due: Yesterday” in red might create a healthy urgency. For many of us with ADHD, it creates paralysis. The task doesn’t feel urgent — it feels impossible. It’s tainted now. Contaminated by failure. So you avoid it, and the list grows, and the shame compounds.
Assumption 4: Everyone has the same energy every day. No app I’ve ever used asked me how I’m doing today before showing me my task list. They all assume you wake up at the same capacity, ready to tackle the same workload. But with AuDHD, some days I can build a feature in four hours. Other days, answering an email feels like climbing Everest. And both of those days are valid.
The idea that wouldn’t leave
I started sketching Denly during a particularly rough shutdown — that autistic thing where your brain just… stops. I was lying on the couch, unable to do anything, staring at my phone’s home screen full of productivity apps with badge notifications. Each badge a tiny accusation.
And I thought: what if the app asked me how I’m doing first?
That’s the core idea behind Denly’s Aurora system. When you open the app, before you see any tasks, you check in with yourself. Not a detailed mood journal — just a simple energy check. How are you feeling right now? And based on that, the app adapts.
Aurora has 12 modes that represent different energy states. Not “good” and “bad” — just different. Because a low-energy day isn’t a bad day. It’s a day where your brain needs different things.
On a high-energy day, Denly might show you your full task list, let you batch-process things, and encourage you to tackle that big project you’ve been avoiding. On a low-energy day, it strips everything back. Maybe you see three tasks. Maybe just one. Maybe it suggests you rest and celebrates that choice.
The point is: the app meets you where you are. Not where productivity culture says you should be.
The anti-features
What makes Denly different isn’t just what it does. It’s what it deliberately doesn’t do.
No streaks. Ever. Your worth isn’t measured by consecutive days of output. Took a three-day break because you were overwhelmed? Cool. Denly doesn’t know and doesn’t care. When you come back, it greets you the same way it always does.
No guilt. Tasks don’t turn red. They don’t shout “OVERDUE” at you. If something didn’t get done, it gently rolls forward. Or you can dismiss it. No judgment either way.
No overdue shaming. This one’s related but worth calling out specifically. Most apps actively punish you for not completing tasks on time. Denly treats time as a suggestion, not a contract. Some tasks have real deadlines — and those are respected. But the default is soft, flexible, human.
No leaderboards. Nobody needs to know how “productive” you were compared to strangers on the internet. Productivity isn’t a competition. It’s personal.
No infinite customization. This is the Notion trap I mentioned. Denly is opinionated by design. You don’t build your own system from scratch. You use a system that was built for brains like yours. Less friction, less decision fatigue, less time spent on meta-work.
No notifications by default. Notifications are a consent issue. You opt in to what you want, when you want it. The app doesn’t buzz you into anxiety.
The tech behind it
I’m building Denly as a solo developer, which means every technical decision gets weighed against the reality of one person maintaining the whole thing.
Rails 8 is the backbone. Say what you want about Rails in 2026 — it’s still the fastest way for a solo developer to build a full-featured web app. The new Solid Queue and Solid Cache in Rails 8 mean I don’t need Redis for background jobs or caching. Less infrastructure, less that can break at 2 AM.
Hotwire (Turbo + Stimulus) handles the interactive bits. No heavy JavaScript framework. Pages feel snappy, the bundle is tiny, and I don’t need to maintain a separate frontend build pipeline. When you check in with Aurora or drag a task around, it’s Turbo Streams doing the work.
PostgreSQL for the database. Boring, reliable, powerful. Exactly what I need.
PWA (Progressive Web App) instead of native apps — at least for now. It means Denly works on any device with a browser, installs to the home screen, and works offline for basic operations. Building native iOS and Android apps is a future consideration, but PWA lets me ship to everyone with a single codebase.
GDPR by default. I’m based in Switzerland, and privacy isn’t a feature — it’s a baseline. Denly collects the minimum data needed to function. No analytics trackers. No selling data. No “we may share with partners.” Your productivity data is yours.
The solo-dev reality also shapes the product. I can’t build everything at once, so I ship in small, focused increments. The core loop — check in, see your adapted task list, do what you can, close the app without guilt — that’s what I’m perfecting first. Everything else is a layer on top.
Who Denly is for
The obvious answer is people with ADHD, autism, or AuDHD. And yes — that’s the primary audience. If your brain works differently and every productivity app has made you feel broken, Denly is for you.
But it’s also for:
Solo entrepreneurs and freelancers who are tired of the “hustle culture” productivity stack. If you don’t want to gamify your workday or compete with strangers on a leaderboard, Denly offers a quieter alternative.
Anyone going through a tough time. Depression, burnout, grief, chronic illness — these all affect your capacity. An app that asks “how are you today?” and adjusts accordingly isn’t just neurodivergent-friendly. It’s human-friendly.
People who’ve tried everything and nothing stuck. If you have a shelf (digital or physical) full of abandoned planners and unused app subscriptions, maybe the problem wasn’t you. Maybe the tools just weren’t built for the way you work.
The name and the hedgehog
“Denly” comes from “den” — a retreat, a safe space. A place where you can curl up when the world is too much, and emerge when you’re ready.
The mascot is a hedgehog. Not because hedgehogs are trendy (though they are adorable). Because hedgehogs curl up when they’re overwhelmed. They have spikes for boundaries. They’re small but resilient. They go at their own pace.
If that’s not the most neurodivergent animal metaphor you’ve ever heard, I don’t know what is.
The hedgehog doesn’t judge you for curling up. It doesn’t time how long you’ve been in a ball. It just waits until you’re ready to uncurl and go find some snacks.
That’s the energy I want Denly to have.
Where things stand
Denly is live at denly.app. It’s early — I’m building in public, shipping incrementally, and being honest about what works and what doesn’t yet.
The core is there: Aurora energy check-in, adaptive task views, the anti-features I described above. I’m actively working on routines (repeating tasks that respect your energy patterns), a focus mode for deep work sessions, and better offline support.
If you’re curious, you can sign up and try it. No credit card. No trial period that auto-converts. No pressure.
If it helps even one person feel less broken by their task list, it’s worth every late night I’ve spent building it.
I’m Stefan, founder of Stivio and the solo developer behind Denly. I write about building products, neurodivergent entrepreneurship, and making technology that adapts to humans instead of the other way around. If this resonated, I’d love to hear from you.