5 Free Apps for Helping You with Your Neurodiversity & Chronic Illness
Supportive apps can be great to help you with your neurodivergence (such as ADHD, autism, dyslexia) or with the management of your chronic illness.
Access to Work often funds some excellent apps, programs, subscriptions and tools for you, so if you are in work, it definitely worth considering applying. You don’t need to have an official diagnosis and everything you need to know to apply is here.
However, there are plenty of free apps out there that can help. Here are some my clients or I use and would recommend:
Grammarly - on Desktop and Mobile
Grammarly is great for dyslexic folks or for those whose inattentiveness or brain fog can cause errors in writing, such as folks with ADHD or chronic fatigue. It can:
Help reduce mistakes: This app helps correct basic grammar and spelling errors in your writing, making it easier to spot mistakes and making your writing clearer and more professional.
Reduce plagiarism: The free version’s limited plagiarism checker helps you identify potential plagiarism by comparing your text against a vast database of web pages and academic papers.
Usable across platforms: The browser extension integrates with various online platforms like Gmail, Facebook, and Twitter, providing real-time suggestions as you type. Additionally, the web editor allows you to compose and edit documents directly on the Grammarly platform. Grammarly's mobile keyboard app offers basic grammar and spelling checks for your texts and messages on mobile devices.
All in all, the free version of Grammarly is a valuable tool for improving your writing clarity and reducing the mental effort required to write emails, text messages, documents and blogs. It is brillant for cutting down the time and focus required for proof reading or writing chunks of text. It makes suggestions to improve your writing and ensures that your written communication is clear, professional, and error-free. The paid version is wonderful but, at the very least, you can experience lots of support from the free version!
2. Notion
It is free for individuals and allows you to create an unlimited number of pages, meeting notes, databases, tables and blocks, allowing for flexible organisation and extensive note-taking. Overall, it is briliant if you want one place to store all your information - like a hug brain dump!
Templates and Customization: You can access a variety of pre-designed templates or create your own, which means you can tailor Notion to suit your specific needs. It can reduce stress by supporting your memory, organisation and workflows. Tailor it to your specific neurodivergent struggles and add images, icons or automations to make it more visually exciting. I love a good emoji! 🌱😃
Organisation and Notetaking: Use it to create to-do lists, done lists and to record meetings to help take some of the load off your working memory. If you have one place to keep your to-dos, colour code and categorise them by theme or area of your life, it is much easier to keep track of all you need to do!
Sync Across Devices: Sync your content seamlessly across desktop and mobile devices, ensuring you can access your notes and documents wherever you are.
Integration with Third-Party Apps: Integrate with popular apps and services like Google Drive, Trello, and Slack, streamlining your workflow and centralizing your information, which helps reduce distractions from having so switch tabs or apps. It helps keep things all in one place to avoid forgetting what you were doing when you have to log into yet another app or website!
Version History: Access version history for each page, allowing you to review changes and revert to previous versions if needed, for when you change your mind or want to remind yourself what versions you had before. Never lose your work if you accidently delete a whole section! 😬
Offline Access: Use Notion offline on desktop and mobile devices, ensuring you can continue working even without an internet connection.
Overall, the free version of Notion provides robust note-taking, to-do lists, organisation, and collaboration features, making it a powerful tool for you to manage your projects, tasks, meetings and recording any extra information effectively. It might take some time investment to set up your system, but once you have it set up, it can help keep you on track and organised both at work and at home!
3. Goblin Tools
All-in-One Tool: It combines various features essential for neurodivergent folks on a single platform. Clients describe this as a lifesaver. They seem to be adding features all the time, but at the time of writing, this is what the app does:
Magic Todo helps you create a to-do list and break it down into steps that are manageable and easier to manage.
The Professor will break the idea down into simple explanations with examples. It is your mini teacher to help explain concepts, ideas and words to you.
The Chef allows you to input all the food in your cupboards and fridge and create a simple meal for you to cook.
The Judge and The Formalizer help you understand the tone of other people’s written communication and help you write in different tones to better communicate with others. This is particularly brilliant for autistic folks who struggle with written or spoken communication with allistic people. Your autistic communication skills might be excellent but this will help you with your allistic communication skills!
The Estimator estimates roughly how long a task with take, which is helpful if you have ADHD and are always running late or feel you are behind with everything.
The Compiler allows you to brain dump everything on your mind to reduce overwhelm and anxiety to help you to get all the things out of your head and in a written format. You can then put them into the ‘Magic ToDo’ function and start making an action plan!
Goblin Tools is a comprehensive and user-friendly tool that empowers us neurodivergent folks to conquer stress, burnout, fatigue and overwhelm, as well as communication barriers. It can empower us autistic and ADHD folks to overcome the day-to-day difficulties we face. It’s fantastic! I’m a fan, can you tell?
4. ChatGPT
The free version of ChatGPT offers several benefits:
Conversation and Assistance: ChatGPT is an app involving text-based conversations. It understands most questions and responds in a conversational manner, allowing users to communicate like how you would talk to a friend. It’s like texting a friend who is knowledgeable and can providing information, answer questions, and offer assistance on a wide range of topics.
Personalised Responses: ChatGPT tailors its responses based on the context of the conversation, providing relevant and helpful information to users. This means neurodivergent folks can use it for specific struggles or questions, e.g. asking it to create a two-week meal plan, or break up a project into manageable steps.
General Knowledge: It possesses a vast amount of general knowledge across various domains, enabling it to provide informative responses to most subjects. It is mostly accurate but you should always double check that the information. This is especially true if you are using it for studying, and also ensure you are not plagiarising other people’s work. Ensure you rewrite whatever you find, to fit your own needs.
Entertainment and Engagement: ChatGPT can engage users in entertaining conversations, tell stories, generate creative content, and even play text-based games. It can help you to gamify life to better achieve your goals!
Accessible Anywhere: ChatGPT is accessible through various platforms and interfaces, including web browsers, messaging apps, and other applications, allowing you to interact with it from anywhere that has an internet connection.
Unfortunately, this one isn’t without its vast environmental impact. Please look into the ecological impact that using ChatGPT has on CO2 emissions before using it. It is estimated that a short conversation uses the same amount of energy as boiling a kettle! So care is needed to ensure you are using it effectively and only when necessary to ensure environmental impact is justified. There are lots of videos out there that can train you on how to get the most out of this app so that you have conversations on ChatGPT that are the most worthwhile and necessary!
The free version of ChatGPT serves as a versatile and accessible conversational AI tool, providing neurodivergent folks with information, assistance, entertainment, and engagement in natural language interactions that feels like talking to a friend. It has its flaws and is environmentally problematic, but, as a resource, it seems to be improving as time goes on. Definitely not to be overlooked as an assistance app for neurodivergent folks!
5 - Stashcook
Stashcook is a wonderful cookbook, meal planner, grocery shopping all-in-one app! The free version of the Stashcook app offers lots of benefits:
Recipe Search: You can type one ingredient into the search box and it will bring up all the ones in your cookbook that have that in!
Cookbook: Store all your online recipes, as well as input ones from physical recipe books at home to ensure all your favourite meals are stored in one place!
Bulk Cooking: Stashcook has a function where you can adjust the recipe for more people, which takes away the stress of calculating how much more you need to buy or cook when hosting a dinner party or bulk cooking!
Excellent Planning and Organisation: Organise your recipes into folders and plan your recipes for the forthcoming days, weeks, or even months(!) on the meal planner tab. Great for those who want to be super organised!
Shopping Management: Create shopping lists based on selected recipes. With the tap of the screen you can add all the ingredients from the recipe you want to make to your shopping list. This help you plan your shopping in advance to ensure you get all ingredients you need to buy for your meals whilst also reducing food waste so you don’t buy what you already have. It is great for removing that feeling you aren’t sure what you are buying when you walk into the supermarket!
Cooking Guides and Tips: Access cooking guides, tips, and tutorials to improve your culinary skills and confidence in the kitchen, assisting both novice and experienced cooks alike.
Personalised Recommendations: Receive personalised recipe recommendations based on your dietary restrictions, cooking preferences, and past recipe interactions, helping you discover new dishes tailored to your tastes.
Overall, the free version of the Stashcook app provides a comprehensive platform for recipe discovery, meal planning, and culinary inspiration. It helps you stay organised and enables you explore new flavours, improve your cooking skills, and enjoy delicious homemade meals without the extra added stress.
Apps for Neurodivergent Folks
There are many more apps out there, but these are some of the common free ones that are helpful for neurodivergent folks. I hope you enjoy trying them out and if you are only just starting exploring adding tech to your neurodiversity toolbox, let me know how it goes! Many other apps that are helpful but costly can be funded through Access to Work, along with essential Workplace Strategy Coaching, so be sure to check those out as well!
If you have ADHD or are autistic or dyslexic and found this post useful, you may want to get in touch. If you want more ideas on how to manage your organisation and productivity, please get in touch to find out more about coaching by booking a free discovery session below!
