Your ADHD Coach Said 'Get a Planner.' How to Pick One That Sticks

The first step is always "get a planner"

When Dhruv started working with an ADHD coach, the first piece of advice was simple: you need a planner. It's the advice almost everyone hears. What it doesn't say is which planner, and a paper notebook bought in a burst of motivation is easy to abandon two weeks later.

Dhruv's way of choosing anything is to research hard first and then commit fully. The search started with spreadsheet-style all-in-one planners on Google and ended at xTiles. Below are the tests that research comes down to, so you can run them on any planner, including ours.

Test 1: does it hold your whole life, not just tasks?

Dhruv's list was a brain dump, the calendar, tasks, and meal planning with shopping lists. A planner that only does tasks sends the rest back into other apps, and every extra app is one more place to forget to check.

In xTiles, a project can hold notes, task lists, a meal plan and links side by side, and spaces work like folders for separate areas of life: one for the home, one for personal projects.

Test 2: can you see your calendar next to your tasks?

A to-do list without your appointments makes you plan blind. Connect Google Calendar or Outlook in your account settings, and the events show up in your planner next to the day's tasks. You can connect more than one calendar.

Test 3: do tasks from everywhere land in one view?

This is the one that surprised Dhruv most on our call. Any task with a date, in any project and any space, appears in My Planner on that day. You can look at the week, then zoom into a single day to see its tasks, notes and schedule.

So the meal plan can live in the home project, a repair in the house project, and both still show up on Saturday without you copying anything.

Test 4: can you share it with the person you live with, and keep the rest private?

Dhruv shares a workspace with a spouse. Whether or not you both have ADHD, one common place to plan the household cuts down on "did you see my message?"

• A shared space for the household. Anything created inside it is shared with everyone in it automatically, so a new project for the house needs no separate invite.
• A personal space for you. It stays yours; each person sees only what is shared with them.
• A project can move. Started something in your personal space? Move it to the shared space when it becomes a joint plan.

If your household also runs finances, chores and school through one setup, here's how one family splits it into two shared spaces.

Test 5: set it up on the desktop, use it on your phone

A planner sticks when using it takes seconds. Dhruv's rule, after a few weeks of use, is to do the setup work on a big screen and the daily work on the phone.

You set up your templates on the desktop, and then you can use it easily on the app. Dhruv

The xTiles mobile app is built for exactly that: adding tasks, checking the day and the events, opening your projects. Bigger changes to a layout wait for the laptop.

Test 6: you don't have to start from a blank page

A blank planner is one more decision. Dhruv's first impression came from the ADHD planner template, its layout and colors. Start from a template in the gallery, or click the sparkle button and describe what you need, for example a weekly meal plan for two with a shopping list, and AI generates the page layout for you to adjust.

For the meal part, the visual ADHD meal-planning system shows how a week decided in one sitting turns into the shopping list. Recipes you find online can be saved into the same project with the Web Clipper.

AI is optional, and can come later

None of the tests above need AI. When you're ready, you can connect Claude or ChatGPT to xTiles and hand over the chores: ask it which of today's tasks match your focus for the week, or have it move yesterday's unfinished tasks to today.