ADHD & executive function

I built this because I couldn't sit down and use my own flashcards.

I have ADHD. I knew how to study well — retrieval practice, spaced repetition, the whole evidence base — and still couldn't reliably get myself into a chair to do it. So I stopped trying to fix the sitting down.

The hard part was never the studying.

A flashcard session asks for four separate things before you review a single card: start it, decide what to work on, sit still, and hold your attention there. If any one of those is expensive for you, the whole thing stalls — and knowing that retrieval practice works does nothing to get you past it.

Most study tools treat that part as free. It isn't, and not only for people with a diagnosis.

What FlashPod takes off the list.

Starting. Press play. There's no session to build, no scope to choose, no number of cards to commit to.
Deciding what to study. The queue exists before you open the app. You never pick.
Sitting still. Review happens while you walk, pace, drive or do the dishes. Nothing to hold, nothing to look at.
Holding attention for an hour. A card takes seconds. Five of them counts. So does fifty.
Finishing what you started. Cards you didn't reach are simply still due. There's no broken streak and no unfinished queue sitting there judging you.
Keeping track of any of it. What's next, what's shaky, what's coming up — that's FlashPod's job, not yours.

Moving is allowed.

Almost every piece of study advice opens with sit down. For a lot of us that's the most expensive instruction in the whole process, and it's the one nobody thinks to question.

FlashPod doesn't need you still. If pacing the kitchen is what keeps your attention on the question, pace the kitchen. The review works the same.

Where this comes from

Before data science I spent two years as a literacy specialist, working mostly with kids with neurodivergent needs. Spaced repetition and retrieval practice were the daily tools — vocabulary, and the letter sounds early reading is built on. I watched them work on children who had been told they were bad at reading.

Then I went to grad school, couldn't make myself use my own flashcards, and wrote the first version of this for me. I've been studying from it every day since.

More about who's building it

What this isn't.

FlashPod is a study tool. It isn't a treatment, it makes no claim to improve focus, attention or executive function, and it won't do anything for your symptoms. It's a flashcard system built on the assumption that the sit-down session might never happen — which turns out to be useful whether or not you have a diagnosis.

Try it before it's finished.

FlashPod is opening to a small invite-only group first.

Join the private beta