The Vision Behind DopaDone
Why This Exists
I built DopaDone because I couldn't get myself to do the boring-but-important things. Finances, invoices, lingering conflicts with people, promises I'd made — tasks that don't give immediate results but quietly rot when ignored. I have ADHD, and no existing productivity tool understood why those tasks felt impossible. They'd show me a neat list and expect motivation to appear. It never did.
I didn't want to go the medication route, so I built a tool instead. DopaDone is the third app I've made in this space, and it carries every lesson from the first two. The core insight is simple: every engagement trick that platforms use to hijack your attention — randomization, streaks, XP, timers, progression systems — can be pointed at your own goals instead.
I'm using all of the tricks in the book for how to manipulate and create engagement — in order to create engagement into my own stuff rather than engaging in things where some Silicon Valley giant's interests are.
Who It's For
- People with ADHD who avoid boring-but-important tasks despite knowing they matter
- People who want engagement without medication — or alongside it
- People tired of productivity tools built for neurotypical motivation
- People who recognize their dopamine is being hijacked by platforms and want to reclaim it
How It Works
The Slot Machine
You hit "Start Run" and a tumbling dice animation kicks in — the system is picking your next task from a weighted pool of everything in your backlog. Todoist tasks, internal tasks, habits, calendar prep — all mixed together. Higher-priority, more urgent, and longer-lingering tasks are more likely to come up, but anything can appear. You're a witness to the randomization. You didn't pick this task; the machine did.
That reframe is powerful: instead of agonizing over what to do, you're forced into a decision about this specific thing. The app asks rotating questions — "What CAN you do on this task right now?", "What's the biggest dent you can make?", "What would you do if this task were easy?" — framing you toward action, not perfection.
You get a five-minute timer. That's it. Just make any progress. Delete it, set a next action, call someone, start some research — all of that counts. You don't have to finish anything. You just have to move it forward.
Runs & XP
Consecutive usage builds into runs. You earn XP, level up during a run, and build momentum. After 12 hours of inactivity, the run resets and you see a summary of what you conquered — top tasks, XP earned, time by project. Then you start fresh. It has roguelike energy: each run is its own arc with a beginning, a middle, and a score screen.
Every task earns base XP, with bonuses stacking for priority, urgency, deadlines, how long a task has been lingering, and whether you stayed in the same project (flow bonus). Complete a task before the timer expires and you earn a time bonus. The celebrations scale too — small completions get a subtle chime and shockwave, but finish a high-value task and you get confetti bursts, epic sounds, and floating XP text. Level up and the screen erupts.
Focus Check-ins
When the timer runs out, instead of forcing you to stop, the app asks: "Still working?" Click it and the timer resets, your focus multiplier increases, and the XP bonus for this task grows. Stay locked in for three check-ins and you've earned triple the focus bonus. The system rewards deep engagement rather than penalizing you for going over five minutes.
Progress Over Completion
This is the most important idea in DopaDone: you never have to complete a task. Any progress whatsoever counts. When a task comes up, the biggest, most prominent button — glowing purple, gently pulsing — is Progress, not Done. The UI itself tells you: moving forward is the point.
Your options are all forms of movement — mark it done, record progress (it stays in the backlog for next time), skip it, or abandon it. Jot a quick note while you're at it. The goal is forward motion, not perfection.
One Task at a Time
Your anxious mind gets one thing to focus on. Not a list of 47 things generating guilt. One task, one timer, one decision. The narrowing of focus is itself a feature — it cuts through the paralysis of seeing everything at once.
Habits
Breakfast. Lunch. Medication. Life maintenance. When you're hyperfocusing inside DopaDone, the app surfaces habits at the right times — things you'd otherwise forget because your brain is locked onto something else. They appear in their time windows with support for recurring schedules, dependencies between habits, and cross-day lingering so a missed evening habit can carry into the next morning. They mix right into the task pool alongside your regular tasks.
Calendar Prep
Connect your calendar feeds and DopaDone creates prep tasks automatically. 48 hours before an event: "Do you need to prepare for this?" Two hours before: "What needs to happen for this to happen?" As the event gets closer, the prep task's urgency weight escalates — it becomes harder to ignore. Calendar events stop being surprises you scramble for and become tasks you've already thought through.
Contexts
Not every moment is the same. During work hours, you get work tasks. In the evening, relaxation and entertainment. On errands outside, location-tagged tasks get boosted — the app uses geolocation to detect whether you're inside or outside a defined radius. Contexts activate on schedules (day of week, time of day) and can overlap. Multiple active contexts multiply their weights together, shaping the probability pool in real time. They're fully optional — use what works, ignore the rest.
Your Data, Your Files
Everything is stored in markdown files. Your task history, daily logs, notes — all human-readable, AI-processable, and portable. The Log tab shows a timeline of everything you did today: tasks completed, habits done, notes you wrote. Click any entry to edit it. Add reflections at the bottom. It doubles as a journal. No proprietary database, no cloud lock-in. The files are yours.
Todoist Integration
Pull your existing backlog from Todoist. Use labels for location and context filtering — set up an "errands" label and boost its weight when you're away from home. DopaDone respects Todoist's project hierarchy, sequential projects, and collaborator assignments. It doesn't replace your task manager — it makes your task manager's backlog actually get worked on.
Design Principles
- Progress over completion — any movement counts. Delete it, delegate it, start it — all valid. The Progress button glows; the Done button doesn't.
- One thing at a time — reduce cognitive load. Prevent the anxiety of seeing everything at once.
- Gamification for self, not platforms — every dopamine trick serves your goals. Tiered celebrations, escalating focus bonuses, XP breakdowns — all designed to make doing your own tasks feel as rewarding as scrolling a feed.
- Optionality everywhere — contexts, habits, calendar prep, labels — use what works, ignore the rest.
- Data you own — markdown files you can read, process with AI, or move anywhere.
- Five-minute commitment — low activation energy. Just five minutes. Still working? Five more. That's it.