Lowering the cost of engaging with tasks¶

The question: what lowers the cost of starting a task, staying with it, stopping and coming back, for the people for whom that cost is highest: adults with ADHD, autistic adults, people in burnout? This note covers task initiation, time blindness, working memory, decision fatigue, transitions, shame and avoidance, and long lists. It draws on the research literature and on the task apps used in neurodivergent communities.

Researched on 3 October 2026. "Built", "next" and "refused" say where Sioul stood on 4 October 2026. The rules in short are findings 6 to 20 of research.md; the features are in tasks.md.

How evidence is graded, as each source was graded at the time:

• meta, RCT: meta-analyses, controlled trials;
• study: smaller or observational research, its kind said (experiment, field, diary, qualitative);
• clinical: a clinician's model, guidance or book, without trials;
• user reports: reviews, Reddit, forums;
• vendor: an app's own claims.

Quotations are from the sources. Sources are listed under each section.

Research¶

Choice overload and decision fatigue¶

• More options do not hurt on average, but they do when choosing is hard. Across 50 experiments (N = 5,036), the mean effect of more options was virtually zero, with large variance (Scheibehenne, Greifeneder & Todd, J Consumer Research 2010; meta). Overload appears reliably when the choice is hard, the options are hard to compare, preferences are uncertain, or the person wants to save effort (Chernev, Böckenholt & Goodman, J Consumer Psychology 2015; meta).
• A to-do list for a tired, anxious person meets all four conditions: tasks cannot be compared (a tax letter against the dentist), preferences are unclear, energy is low.
• "Decision fatigue" as a depleting resource rests on ego-depletion research that failed large replications (Hagger et al. 2016). The robust part is the conditions above, not a willpower tank.
• Rule: one recommended next step by default, with its reason (the closest date, how many steps it frees), and at most two alternatives behind a key. When several steps are equal, pick one and say so.
• In Sioul: built. Now shows one step, why it comes now, and the one after it; equal steps are picked, with "Picked for you among equal steps"; two other choices wait behind one click (tasks.md, rule 1).
• Sources: https://abcwest.cogs.indiana.edu/pmwiki/pdf/scheibehenne.options.2010.pdf · https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/research/detail/2015/when-product-assortment-leads-to-choice-overload-a-conceptual · https://www.atticusli.com/replication-crisis/choice-overload-jam-study/

Shame, rejection sensitivity and the overdue pile¶

• Rejection-sensitive dysphoria (William Dodson's term) is not a formal diagnosis. Research measures rejection sensitivity instead: students with more ADHD symptoms report more fear of negative evaluation (2024); adolescents with ADHD react more strongly to both praise and criticism (2018). The 2026 studies are in done-for-the-day.md.
• Criticism and self-compassion in adult ADHD. 162 adults with ADHD or high traits described criticism with "negative consequences for self-worth and wellbeing", most often for inattention; "receiving understanding from others played an important role in whether criticism was perceived" (Beaton, Sirois & Milne, PLoS ONE 2022). In 543 adults with ADHD and 313 without, self-compassion was lower with more ADHD traits, partly through more perceived criticism, and low self-compassion went with poorer mental health (same authors, J Clin Psychol 2022). Study (qualitative, cross-sectional).
• Self-forgiveness lowers later procrastination. Among 119 students, those who forgave themselves for procrastinating before a first exam felt less negative affect and procrastinated less before the second, mainly the heavy procrastinators (Wohl, Pychyl & Bennett, Personality and Individual Differences 2010). Study (correlational, prospective).
• Broken streaks lower later engagement, more so with self-blame (Silverman & Barasch 2023; finding 8 of research.md).
• Rule: the voice is never evaluative: no "overdue", "late", "missed", "failed". A past plan date lapses and the task is simply ready again. Only a real deadline carries a date, said as time left. Text about what happened is descriptive ("Moved to Friday. Moving plans is normal."), the system takes the blame where it is due (the plan held more than the window), and nothing counts postponements.
• In Sioul: built. Nothing is ever overdue; a day to start that passed says nothing; the date asked is said as time left and, once passed, as "Date asked: 1 October", never in red, never counted; no streaks, no postponement counters, no score (tasks.md, rules 2 and 9).
• Sources: https://www.psypost.org/the-adhd-symptom-no-one-talks-about-rejection-sensitive-dysphoria · https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1199919/experiences-of-criticism-in-adults-with-adhd-a-qualitative-study · https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/183986 · https://bps.org.uk/research-digest/cure-procrastination-forgive-yourself

The Wall of Awful¶

• Model: "the emotional impact of repeated failures around a particular task creates a barrier"; "the more one avoids a task, the more bricks are added to the wall": failure, disappointment, shame, fear of being exposed. A task dodged ten times is harder than the same task new. The barrier is emotional, not informational. Unhelpful responses: freeze, flight, fight (self-bullying as fuel), avoidance. Helpful ones: "climb" (pair the task with something pleasant), "build a door" (change the emotional state first), and name the bricks (Brendan Mahan, Overcoming the Wall of Awful, Balance/Hachette, September 2026, written for ADHD, autism, trauma and anxiety). Clinical, no trials.
• Rule: the age of a task never shows as weight (no "postponed 9 times", no red, no growing badge). An optional one-tap "what makes this hard?" leads to one matching help. A pleasant pairing can be set once and offered when the task starts.
• In Sioul: "What makes it hard?" is built, without the AI: five answers (I do not know how to start, it is too big, I dread it, it is boring, no energy today), each with one help: its notes and messages opened, a step added, two minutes to start, a lighter day (tasks.md, rule 5). Pairings ("sides"): next.
• Sources: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brendan-mahan-med-ms/overcoming-the-wall-of-awful/9781538778951/ · https://mishpacha.com/?p=172625

Starting for two minutes¶

• Once started, a task is rarely as bad as feared. Students paged at random for one to two weeks rated avoided tasks as stressful and unpleasant beforehand; once started, "the ratings of task stressfulness, difficulty and unpleasantness decreased significantly". Starting also improved self-attributions the next day, even without finishing (Pychyl's experience sampling; study, small, students, not ADHD-specific).
• An interrupted task pulls to be resumed. A 2025 meta-analysis found "no memory advantage for unfinished tasks" (Zeigarnik) but "a general tendency to resume tasks" (Ovsiankina) (Ghibellini & Meier, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 2025; meta; figures in done-for-the-day.md). A started task is easier to re-enter than a fresh one is to begin.
• The formal "5-minute rule" has almost no trials (one student project, n = 10, no reported results). Its support is indirect: the sampling above, the pull to resume, and procrastination as mood repair (Sirois & Pychyl 2013).
• Rule: a two-minute start on every task, ending with a real exit ("stop here, it counts") or "keep going". Stopping after two minutes must count as a success, or the trick loses its honesty.
• In Sioul: built. "Start" offers two minutes first; at the end, "Keep going" or "Stop here, it counts" (tasks.md, rules 5 and 6).
• Sources: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/dont-delay/200803/just-get-started/amp · https://journals.macewan.ca/studentresearch/article/view/1184 · https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/palcom/v12y2025i1d10.1057_s41599-025-05000-w.html

Open loops and plan-making¶

• An open goal costs attention until it has a plan. Unfulfilled goals caused intrusive thoughts and worse performance on unrelated tasks; writing a specific plan for the goal, without doing it, removed the interference (Masicampo & Baumeister, JPSP 2011, five experiments). Study (lab, students; the same lab's ego-depletion work later failed to replicate; this result has not been tested at scale).
• Rule: capturing a task is not enough to quiet it; capturing its next step with a when is. A task with a planned step can be shown as parked and leave the view.
• In Sioul: closing the day names the first step for when work comes back, written as a cue and an action ("After breakfast, open the form") (done-for-the-day.md). The question "first step, and when?" at capture: next.
• Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeigarnik_effect · https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/tech-support/201310/why-your-to-do-list-drives-you-crazy · https://scrapbox.io/nishio/consider_it_done

Interruptions and getting back in¶

• After an alert, office workers spent about 10 minutes on the side task and another 10–15 minutes before returning to focused work on the suspended one (Iqbal & Horvitz, CHI 2007; study, field logs).
• A short warning before an interruption lets people encode where they are and what comes next, which shortens the time to resume; keeping the main task visible during that moment helps (Trafton, Altmann, Brock & Mintz, IJHCS 2003; study).
• A "ready-to-resume" plan frees attention for the next task. In four studies (the first a field survey of 202 professionals), leaving an unfinished, time-pressured task left attention residue that lowered performance on the interrupting task; a one-minute plan (where I stopped, where to resume, what is left) significantly reduced it (Leroy & Glomb, Organization Science 2018; study, field and lab).
• Interstitial journaling (2–4 lines between tasks) is a practice without a trial. Blogs credit it with a "23%" gain citing Di Stefano et al., but that study measured end-of-day reflection in call-centre training, not transitions: the number is not reused.
• Autistic adults say the same: "I just can't get back to the place I was before" (Buckle et al. 2021, below).
• Rule: a breadcrumb on pause. Stopping asks for nothing but offers one line, "next time, start by…"; the task reopens on that line with what it is tied to; a planned switch gets a heads-up of a few minutes instead of a hard cut.
• In Sioul: built: one line on stopping, shown when the task comes back; everything tied to a task in its panel; a heads-up two minutes before a session ends (tasks.md, rule 6). Pre-filling the line from the last action (the last mail opened, the field reached): not built.
• Sources: https://www.erichorvitz.com/CHI_2007_Iqbal_Horvitz.pdf · https://interruptions.net/literature/Trafton-IJHCS03.pdf · https://www.washington.edu/news/2018/01/16/task-interrupted-a-plan-for-returning-helps-you-move-on/ · https://nesslabs.com/interstitial-journaling

Implementation intentions ("when X, I do Y")¶

• Meta-analyses: d = 0.65 on goal attainment across 94 tests (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 2006). In people with mental-health problems, d+ = 0.99 (k = 28, N = 1,636), but smaller for starting to act (d+ = 0.42), with an asymmetric funnel plot (publication bias likely); the only adult ADHD study, a dissertation with 12 people per group, found d ≈ 0.13 for initiation (Toli, Webb & Hardy, Br J Clin Psychol 2016). Meta: strong in general, weak for adult ADHD initiation.
• Children with ADHD: if-then plans raised Go/No-Go inhibition to non-ADHD levels (Gawrilow & Gollwitzer 2008) and improved delay of gratification and set-shifting (Gawrilow, Gollwitzer & Oettingen 2011a, b); mental contrasting with implementation intentions (WOOP) helped children at risk of ADHD most (Gawrilow et al. 2013).
• The mechanism: the plan hands control to a cue in the situation, so starting depends neither on remembering nor on deciding.
• Rule: each next step carries a cue, not only a date ("Tuesday window, after coffee → open the form"), chosen from a short list (a window, an event ending, "after lunch") and shown as written when it comes. An optional obstacle line: "If I get stuck on the income field → mark it and go on".
• In Sioul: next: cues from events rather than clocks (tasks.md). The step named when the day closes already takes a cue and an action.
• Sources: https://www.socmot.uni-konstanz.de/publications/implementation-intentions-and-goal-achievement-meta-analysis-effects-and-processes · https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/94825/ · https://www.socmot.uni-konstanz.de/publications/implementation-intentions-facilitate-response-inhibition-adhd-children · https://www.socmot.uni-konstanz.de/sites/default/files/Gawrilow_Gollwitzer_Oettingen_Executive_Function_JSCP_2011.pdf · https://www.socmot.uni-konstanz.de/sites/default/files/Gawrilow_et_al_2012_Mental_contrasting_with_implementation.pdf

Autistic inertia, monotropism and transitions¶

• Autistic inertia: 32 autistic adults (aged 23–64), in focus groups, described difficulty starting, stopping and changing activities, "not within their conscious control" (Buckle, Leadbitter, Poliakoff & Gowen, Front Psychol 2021).
  • What helped: another person ("someone else starting it off", working "side by side", "a stuck buddy that I text"); commitments to others and fixed appointments; routines "so that I don't have to think about it quite so hard"; minimal steps ("All you need to do is sit up… stand up"); cues placed in the way; not breaking continuity.
  • What hurt: stress, pain, heat, fatigue; pressure; perfectionism about "making ideal choices"; too many options ("spending the whole day not quite deciding whether to have the shower first"); interruptions.
• A Reddit corpus of 501 posts and 9,955 comments: inertia at rest (cannot start), in motion (cannot stop: hyperfocus past food and sleep), and costly transitions; a cycle of low energy → inactivity → shame → overexertion → crash; called "the single most disabling part of being Autistic" (Ward, …, Lawson, Pellicano, Communications Psychology 2026).
• Monotropism: attention gathers into a few deep "attention tunnels"; switching out costs much, and interruptions disrupt out of proportion (Murray, Lesser & Lawson, Autism 2005). A 47-item Monotropism Questionnaire written by autistic adults was validated on about 1,100 people (Garau et al. 2023). Practitioner advice: "fewer events in a day means fewer transitions to survive".
• Grade: qualitative and theory, consistent across sources, community-led.
• Rule: a transition is a step of its own, with the next first action visible and a warning before a planned switch; stopping is helped as much as starting (a "time to wrap up" cue and a "where I stopped" line, so leaving is not losing); few transitions a day (a case's steps in one window); a "stuck buddy" button; never a tied list to choose from.
• In Sioul: built: the heads-up before a session ends, "Stop here, it counts" with its line, Now showing the step after this one, ties picked, and routines played one step at a time (Tasks ▸ Routines, tasks.md). Next: grouping a case's steps into one window, and the "stuck" button that sends a helper a fixed message (with company).
• Sources: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8314008/ · https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12873400/ · https://www.autism.org.uk/learn/knowledge-hub/professional-practice/what-is-monotropism · https://openresearch.lsbu.ac.uk/item/92684

Autistic burnout and energy accounting¶

• Autistic burnout: "chronic exhaustion, loss of skills, and reduced tolerance to stimulus", typically lasting 3 months or more, from chronic stress and a mismatch between expectations and abilities without support; the skills lost include executive functioning and memory. What helps recovery: acceptance and social support, time off and reduced expectations, doing things in an autistic way (Raymaker et al., Autism in Adulthood 2020; interviews and survey, community-partnered). Qualitative, well cited.
• Energy accounting: every activity is a withdrawal or a deposit on a 0–100 scale. Withdrawals include socialising, changes in routine, sensory load, coping with anxiety; deposits include solitude, special interests, nature, music, sleep (Maja Toudal & Tony Attwood, clinical tool, JKP book 2025). Clinical, no trials.
• Rule: a low-capacity day anyone can switch on without a reason: the day shrinks to one small step, the rest is hidden, nothing is rescheduled loudly. Recovery (a walk, music) can be planned and protected.
• In Sioul: built. "How is today?": clear, haze or fog; fog shows only small steps, and one step is a full day (tasks.md, rule 7). What a task takes: light, the usual, heavy, or "it gives back"; a day takes two heavy tasks when clear, one in haze, none in fog; what gives back takes no room and is offered after a heavy step; no gauge, no score, no red.
• Sources: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7313636 · https://blog.jkp.com/2025/03/energy-accounting-extract/ · https://www.attwoodandgarnettevents.com/cdn/shop/files/Energy_Accounting_Handout.pdf

Demand avoidance and the voice of the app¶

• In two adult samples (N = 267 and 549), autistic traits and anxiety were unique and equally important predictors of demand avoidance (White et al., J Autism Dev Disord 2022). In children, intolerance of uncertainty explained demand avoidance beyond autism (Stuart et al. 2020). Study (cross-sectional surveys).
• A demand ("You must reply today") raises anxiety and can lead to avoidance; so does uncertainty. Practitioners' advice for demand avoidance: declarative, non-imperative language, and real choices.
• Rule: the app describes, it does not command ("The form is ready to fill; it takes about 20 minutes", not "Complete the form now"). Every proposal has a "not now", honoured without argument. Uncertainty is reduced before the demand appears: what it is, how long it takes, what happens if it waits. No exclamation marks, no urgency words, no countdown on a date more than a week away.
• In Sioul: built as copy rules: plain, literal words, "time left: four weeks", never a red "overdue" (design.md, "Language"); "Not now" sets the step's whole stream aside until tomorrow without argument (tasks.md, rule 3).
• Sources: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9015283 · https://www.pdasociety.org.uk/resources/the-role-of-intolerance-of-uncertainty-and-anxiety-in-extreme-demand-avoidance/

Time blindness and the point of performance¶

• Externalise information, time and motivation where the work happens (Russell Barkley's fact sheet on ADHD, executive functioning and self-regulation; clinical theory, widely cited):
  • "covert or private information is weak as a source of stimulus control": make it "overt and public";
  • executive-function deficits "are to time what nearsightedness is to spatial vision", a "temporal myopia" ruled by "the temporal now"; help comes by "making time itself more externally represented, by reducing or eliminating gaps in time" between event, action and outcome: "Rather than tell them that a project must be done over the next month, assist them with doing a step a day toward that eventual goal… in small daily work periods with immediate feedback";
  • artificial, immediate rewards act as "motivational prostheses";
  • "once per week counseling without efforts to insert accommodations at key points of performance… is unlikely to succeed".
• The fact sheet also leans on the "willpower resource pool" (ego depletion), which has had replication problems since Hagger et al. 2016: its advice on breaks and glucose is treated as weak.
• Rule: turn a distant date into a near step; say the future in words, not dates ("3 windows left before the date asked" rather than "30/10"); close the loop fast: a finished step says at once what it changed.
• In Sioul: built. A step's reason says its date as time left ("its date is 30 October: three weeks left"), and finishing says what it freed ("Done. This frees: Send the registered letter.") (tasks.md, rules 1 and 8).
• Sources: http://www.russellbarkley.org/factsheets/ADHD_EF_and_SR.pdf · https://www.simplypsychology.org/adhd-time-blindness.html

Visual timers¶

• The evidence is mostly in children, mostly single-case designs:
  • one child with developmental disabilities went from 150 to 600 s of waiting with a Time Timer (Grey, Healy, Leader & Hayes, Res Dev Disabil 2009; changing-criterion design);
  • visual supports cut transition time for autistic pupils (Dettmer, Simpson, Myles & Ganz 2000, n = 2);
  • RCT, 38 children with ADHD aged 9–15: psychoeducation, time-assistive devices (visual timers, electronic day schedules, synced calendars) and training improved time-processing ability (d = 0.38) and parent-rated daily time management (d = 1.0); the children's own ratings did not differ (Wennberg, Janeslätt et al., Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2018);
  • higher-order time perception is the most consistently atypical timing ability in autism (Casassus et al., Autism Research 2019, systematic review of 45 papers);
  • a 2026 scoping review of assistive technology for adults with ADHD (46 papers) finds the field dominated by a therapeutic framing taken from children (Tan et al., arXiv 2026). Adult evidence is thin; Barkley's principle is the stronger argument.
• Caveat: a countdown can itself raise anxiety. For some, "a ticking timer triggers time anxiety rather than time awareness", and a single beep is dismissed during hyperfocus (Super Productivity's blog).
• Discrete units can be easier to read than a bar: Abilia's MEMOplanner shows one dot per 15 minutes, going out one by one (below).
• Rule: a disc or bar that drains in a soft, neutral colour (no red), with a choice per task: a countdown, time spent (no end), or no numbers. No ticking; a soft heads-up a few minutes before the end rather than an alarm at zero.
• In Sioul: built. The focus window stays on top while you work elsewhere; its disc drains in a neutral colour, without ticking or sound; a session is two minutes, a length, or "Without an end"; two minutes before the end it says it is time to find a stopping point (tasks.md, rule 6). Quarter-hour dots: not built.
• Sources: https://www.timetimer.com/pages/research-in-special-needs · https://timetimer.com/pages/time-timer-in-special-needs · https://super-productivity.com/blog/adhd-time-blindness-strategies/ · https://research.uaeu.ac.ae/en/publications/using-a-time-timer-to-increase-appropriate-waiting-behavior-in-a- · https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5852175/ · https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6852160/ · https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.21791v1

Time estimates and unpacking¶

• Unpacking a task into its steps gives longer, more accurate estimates, more so for complex tasks (Kruger & Evans, JESP 2004, five experiments: getting ready for a date, holiday shopping, formatting a document, cooking). Later studies are mixed: unpacking helps less with few steps, with steps that look easy, or with a task far in the future. Study.
• So the split that makes a task startable also corrects its estimate. Goblin Tools' Estimator adds the person's difficulty to the estimate ("How hard is it for you to focus on the activity?"); Llama Life's report of planned against actual time shows the gap without judging.
• Rule: estimates from the sum of the steps and from the person's own past durations, shown as a range ("usually 20–40 min for you"), never as a score; a correction learned quietly and used by the plan, never shown as a verdict.
• In Sioul: next. Steps are added by hand; time spent is recorded, not yet used for estimates (tasks.md).
• Sources: https://ourapps.deptcpanel.princeton.edu/uploads/190805145602-A-7320.pdf · https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/handle/10012/6863 · https://goblin.tools/Estimator

Breaks¶

• 87 students, fixed breaks (24/6 "Pomodoro" or 12/3) against breaks they chose: chosen breaks led to longer sessions with more fatigue and lower concentration and motivation, for the same completion; fixed breaks had mood and efficiency benefits (Biwer, Wiradhany, oude Egbrink & de Bruin, Br J Educ Psychol 2023). RCT (small, students).
• 94 students, a 2-hour session, Pomodoro against Flowtime (work as long as you like; a break of 5, 8 or 10 min after up to 25, 25–50 or over 50 min) against self-regulated breaks: no difference in completion (70 / 69 / 67 %) or flow; Pomodoro and Flowtime showed faster rises in fatigue or falls in motivation during the session, with no difference at the end (Smits, Wenzel & de Bruin, Behavioral Sciences 2025). RCT (small).
• Neither study is about ADHD or autism. Together: no break scheme is clearly best, and people left alone tend to skip breaks and tire, which matters for hyperfocus.
• Rule: no compulsory Pomodoro. A choice per task: fixed blocks, Flowtime (time spent, a proportional break offered), or none; one gentle cue after a long stretch ("75 minutes on this"), adjustable or off.
• In Sioul: partly built. A session's length is chosen (two minutes, a length, or without an end), and a pause to move comes every 45 minutes of a session, set on the Health page (health.md, "Moving"). Flowtime's proportional break: not built.
• Sources: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36859717/ · https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12292963/

Fresh starts, head starts and visible progress¶

• Fresh start effect: goal-directed behaviour (searches for "diet", gym visits, commitments on a goal site) rises after temporal landmarks: a new week, month, semester, a birthday (Dai, Milkman & Riis, Management Science 2014). Study (large archival field data).
• Endowed progress: a 10-stamp car-wash card with 2 stamps already given was completed more often (34 %) than an 8-stamp card with none (19 %), for the same effort (Nunes & Drèze, J Consumer Research 2006). Goal gradient: people speed up as a goal nears (Kivetz, Urminsky & Zheng, J Marketing Research 2006). Field experiments.
• Already in research.md: the progress principle (Amabile & Kramer 2011).
• Rule: a weekly clean slate (old plan dates wiped, never shown as missed); the work the app or the AI already did counts as progress, so a task never starts at zero; the rest of a chain is said as short ("2 steps left").
• In Sioul: "Done this week" is built (tasks.md, rule 9), and the plan always starts from today, so past plan dates never show. A weekly fresh start and head starts: next.
• Sources: https://faculty.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Dai_Fresh_Start_2014_Mgmt_Sci.pdf · https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/minds-business/why-monday-is-the-best-day-for-setting-new-goals.html

Rewards without gamification¶

• Across 128 experiments, tangible, expected rewards undermined intrinsic motivation (whether contingent on engagement, completion or performance), while positive informational feedback enhanced it (Deci, Koestner & Ryan, Psychological Bulletin 1999). Meta.
• Barkley argues the opposite need for ADHD: artificial, immediate rewards as "motivational prostheses". The two meet at acknowledgement that is immediate, informational and not contingent: say right away what the action changed, without points.
• Positive reinforcement had no effect on habit automaticity (Stawarz, Cox & Blandford 2015, below).
• Rule: on completion, one plain line of consequence and a soft tick; the task goes to a visible "done" list. No points, levels, confetti, streaks or counts of misses.
• In Sioul: built: "Done. This frees: …", once, in the status line, and "Done this week" (tasks.md, rules 8 and 9). Points, streaks and confetti: refused.
• Sources: https://home.ubalt.edu/ntygmitc/642/Articles%20syllabus/Deci%20Koestner%20Ryan%20meta%20IM%20psy%20bull%2099.pdf · http://www.russellbarkley.org/factsheets/ADHD_EF_and_SR.pdf

Interest-based motivation and the dopamine menu¶

• Interest-based nervous system (William Dodson, psychiatrist; clinical concept, not tested as such): ADHD motivation runs on interest, novelty, challenge, urgency and passion, not on importance alone. It explains the "deadline addiction" of the CSCW 2026 interviews (below).
• Dopamine menu (Eric Tivers with Jessica McCabe, How to ADHD, 2020): a list made in advance, so planning is separated from choosing: "appetizers" (quick lifts that do not suck you in), "entrées", "sides" (what makes a dull task better: music, a podcast, a nice drink), "desserts" (pleasant traps, used sparingly). Clinical.
• Conflict: novelty helps in ADHD, while autistic people need sameness and predictability, and many people are both. Novelty belongs in content and pairings the person chose, never in layout changes.
• Rule: a personal list of "sides", offered when a dreaded step starts; urgency without stress, as an earlier date the person set, with company booked; an opt-in race against the estimate, for boring steps only.
• In Sioul: "sides": next (tasks.md). Changing the layout for novelty: refused; the layout never moves (design.md).
• Sources: https://neurodivergentinsights.com/interest-based-nervous-system/ · https://www.additudemag.com/dopamenu-dopamine-menu-adhd-brain/

Body doubling and company¶

• The evidence is thin ("Research on body doubling is lacking… most being limited to master's theses", Wikipedia). In a survey of 220 people (193 neurodivergent), most had found body doubling by themselves and learned the name later; they used it to start, stay with and finish tasks, for company, accountability, staying on task and less anxiety (Eagle & Ringland, ACM TACCESS 2024; the paper's title: "It was something I naturally found worked and heard about later").
• A recall survey of 117 users of FLOWN's silent group sessions, commissioned by the vendor, reports 69 % found focusing "much easier" (vendor, weak). In virtual reality, 12 adults with ADHD finished faster and reported better attention with a human or an AI companion than alone; the paper notes that earlier work "found no conclusive effectiveness", and neurodivergent discomfort with social presence (Ara et al., arXiv 2025). Lo-fi "study with me" streams work as body doubles: presence without interaction, "being perceived" (Baltaxe-Admony & Eagle, BPS news).
• Focusmate's own rationale (a booked slot, a stated goal, social presence, accountability) quotes effect sizes from studies outside ADHD: vendor. Camera-on norms exclude people with social anxiety.
• Rule: three levels of presence, the person's choice: a quiet companion with no interaction; an AI that speaks only at the start ("what's the first step?") and at the end ("how did it go?"); a person. A session starts with the goal typed and ends with one line of check-out.
• In Sioul: next ("company", tasks.md; the AI companion in ai.md).
• Sources: https://www.focusmate.com/how-it-works/ · https://www.focusmate.com/science/ · https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_doubling · https://neurodiversity.org/?p=11449 · https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.12153 · https://bps.org.uk/news/side-side-success-lo-fi-body-doubling-technique · https://www.applevis.com/forum/other-apple-chat/body-doubling-alternative-apps-or-some-ideas

Studies of neurodivergent people's task tools¶

• "Not Just Me and My To-Do List" (Chen, Meng & Nie, CSCW 2026): 22 interviews, then 13 AI concepts shown to 20 more adults with ADHD. Study (qualitative, design probes).
  • Challenges: initiation paralysis ("I obviously want to brush my teeth… but I stay in bed"); plans built on rare hyperfocus days; "deadline addiction"; aversion to low-meaning tasks; self-blame after small slips; planning anxiety ("Every time I write a plan, I get anxious because I know I won't follow it"); tool fiddling ("I sometimes spend more time organizing the to-do app than doing the task").
  • Liked: "ideal / baseline" dual goals, which stopped people "hating themselves for not completing everything"; a "brain weather" view ("light fog", "clear skies"), with "mild haze" felt as kinder than red overdue tasks; pause days framed as care; an AI social presence that "understands and supports and doesn't judge"; an undo for plans.
  • Rejected or mixed: emotional check-ins before planning (friction); nudges based on patterns ("it's watching me"); ambient transition cues too subtle to notice; planning shared with a trusted person (intrusive for some, helpful for others); debriefs after a collapse.
• Carik et al. 2025 (55,114 Reddit items from 61 neurodivergent communities): language models used to break tasks down ("breaking them down into smaller steps was a game changer"), summarise long documents, organise scattered thoughts. Worries: skill atrophy, reinforced masking, replacing people, false information (75–80 % of ADHD and dyslexic users worried about accuracy), stigma. Their default prose is "dense in paragraphs, indirect, and inferential". Study (large qualitative corpus).
• Reminders against cues: in a 4-week study, reminders supported repetition but hindered habit development, while event-based cues increased automaticity; positive reinforcement had no effect; of 115 habit apps reviewed, almost none supported event-based cues (Stawarz, Cox & Blandford, CHI 2015). Study.
• Abandonment: tools are dropped when they need heavy manual input, upkeep or switching between apps; ADHD tools often assume stable planning, routines, low setup and good reactions to reminders and tracking (a recurring point in the 2025–26 papers met in this search; not traced to one study).
• Rules:
  • two levels per day: "enough" (one step) and "if it goes well"; meeting the first is a complete day;
  • a weather word for capacity, chosen in one click, never inferred from behaviour;
  • cues tied to events, not clocks, wherever possible;
  • transition cues noticeable but soft: a visible change, an optional sound, not a faint ambient shift;
  • near-zero upkeep: tasks arrive from mail, nothing is mandatory, no reorganising rituals;
  • AI output structured by default: short steps, plain words, no paragraphs.
• In Sioul: built: the day's weather, chosen, never inferred, with one step a full day in fog (tasks.md, rule 7); the heads-up is a visible change in the focus window, without sound; tasks are made from mail in one click. Next: cues from events, splitting by the AI (ai.md).
• Sources: https://arxiv.org/html/2603.17258 · https://arxiv.org/html/2410.06336v1 · https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1468224/ · https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.21791v1 · https://researchportal.northumbria.ac.uk/en/publications/adhd-and-knowledge-work-exploring-strategies-challenges-and-oppor/

Apps: what each does well, and what Sioul took¶

Tiimo (visual planner)¶

• A ring around the task drains as time passes; the focus timer shows the countdown and the task's checklist on one screen. A scheduled task's timer starts by itself; a flexible one starts with one tap. Pause, +1 minute (repeatable), and dragging the timer to the end checks the task off. Vendor and user reports.
• "Anytime" tasks, without a clock time, "if setting a fixed time feels like too much"; the to-do tab as "your external hard drive"; a morning overview, and a once-a-day "Review Today".
• Reviewers praise the "heads up notifications that a specific routine or activity is about to end": a transition warning, not a deadline alarm. An autistic reviewer: "often at least ⅓ of those to-dos will get missed if it isn't in a checklist".
• Complaints (App Store reviews): the visual timer is "pointless if screen goes dark", and silent; changing a routine's order means retyping every later time; streaks and trophies.
• Sioul: a timer that stays in view on the desktop, and a heads-up before the end: built. A task's steps as its checklist: built. Starting by itself only where the person said so: routines move on by themselves only if the routine says so. Streaks and trophies: refused.
• Sources: https://www.tiimoapp.com/product · https://www.tiimoapp.com/faq/focus-timer · https://tiimoapp.com/resource-hub/how-to-start-planning · https://accessible.substack.com/p/tiimo-the-seed-stage-startup-modernizing · https://justuseapp.com/en/app/1480220328/tiimo-visual-daily-planner/reviews · https://healthify.nz/apps/t/tiimo-app

Goblin Tools¶

• "Small, simple, single-task tools, mostly designed to help neurodivergent people with tasks they find overwhelming or difficult"; no output "should be taken as a statement of truth". User reports, no studies.
• Magic ToDo breaks a task into ordered steps, and any step again, at a granularity set by a slider of one to five peppers. Estimator asks "How hard is it for you to focus on the activity?". Taskmaster walks the list one item at a time, with a timer from each estimate and a "what next" suggestion: the closest existing design to one next step. Compiler turns a brain dump into tasks; Judge reads the tone of a message; Formalizer rewrites in a chosen tone; Consultant lists pros and cons, then makes one suggestion.
• Gaps: a web toy without a data model; each list is an island.
• Sioul: one next step at a time: built. "Split" at a chosen granularity, by the AI, its lines kept as ordinary steps: next. Help with tone when writing to an office: not built.
• Sources: https://goblin.tools/About · https://goblin.tools/Taskmaster · https://goblin.tools/Estimator · https://goblin.tools/Judge · https://goblin.tools/Consultant · https://www.gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20250326-magic-todo/ · https://ai-made.beehiiv.com/p/goblin-tools-the-free-ai-that-helps-you-get-unstuck · https://muddlemend.substack.com/p/digital-decision-making-for-adhd

Llama Life (a countdown per task)¶

• Every task in the list has a countdown, and the list shows its total and the projected finishing time. Tasks run in order, not at clock times; a reviewer: "don't want to start vacuuming at 10:00? Then I feel like a failure!". At zero, "a gentle chime that draws me back to the outer world again" (an AuDHD reviewer). A "Not-Now" list; a report of planned against actual time, without a score. Vendor and user reports.
• Sioul: an order, never clock slots: built (the plan gives steps days, not hours; Tasks ▸ The day lays them in the day's gaps without writing them). A time budget before a date asked: built. Planned against actual: next.
• Sources: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/adhd-organizer-llama-life/id6454469750 · https://www.focusbear.io/blog-post/review-of-llama-life-by-an-audhder

Structured (Energy Monitor, Replan)¶

• Energy Monitor, built with the Dutch institute Breinstraat (researchers and clinicians): each task gets one of six levels, from relaxing (recharges) through neutral to three levels of consuming; points are about level × half-hours; the daily limit is 20 by default; their advice: 36–42 for an average person, 18–22 for people with limited energy; a gauge goes from green to orange to red. Users plan by "energy constraints, rather than kicking myself for being lazy". Clinician co-design, no published trial.
• Replan walks through unfinished past tasks one at a time, with four actions: reschedule, back to the inbox, done, delete. Complaints: the prompt "doesn't pop up when it has to"; one by one is tedious for a full week.
• Sioul: what a task takes, without points, gauge or red: built. A calm "still relevant?" pass, one card at a time with "the same for the rest": next.
• Sources: https://help.structured.app/en/articles/998530 · https://structured.app/blog/replan · https://help.structured.app/en/articles/4526850 · https://feedback.structured.app/p/replan-needs-to-be-reconfigured · https://apps.apple.com/app/structured-daily-planner/id1499198946

Routinery (routines played step by step)¶

• A routine is a sequence of timed steps played one at a time; a voice says what comes next, so people "focus on simply doing". Caveats: it "starts at step one — it doesn't get you out of bed"; streak counts; moving on by itself helps some and pressures others. Vendor.
• Sioul: built: Tasks ▸ Routines, one step a line with its minutes, played in a small window with "Then: …"; it moves on by itself only if the routine says so; skipping counts nothing; the admin window has its routine (tasks.md).
• Sources: https://routinery.app/ · https://nesslabs.com/?p=16263 · https://www.getinflow.io/post/best-alternatives-routinery-adhd

Amazing Marvin (opt-in "strategies")¶

• Every feature is an optional "strategy". A review: "People who stick with Amazing Marvin tend to love it in a slightly obsessive way. People who bounce off it tend to bounce hard, usually in the first week." Lesson: a few defaults; more only when asked.
• The funnel, "from hundreds of tasks down to just one"; a truncated list ("See only 2–3 items at a time"); start dates that hide a task until it matters; the Task Jar, which draws one task at random when all are equal (user reports); the Procrastination Wizard, which tells anxiety from low motivation and proposes a matching strategy; the "smallest step"; estimates as reassurance ("Knowing a task only takes 15 minutes makes it less scary"); a warning when the day holds more than fits; a "Weighing on me" mark for dread.
• A procrastination count (one "!" per day a task is put off), sold as "a mirror: not to shame you": risky for people sensitive to rejection.
• Sioul: a pick among equals and one help matched to what makes a step hard: built. Postponement counts: refused. Three presets instead of many settings: next.
• Sources: https://amazingmarvin.com/for/adhd/ · https://amazingmarvin.com/for/procrastinators/ · https://amazingmarvin.com/features/all · https://help.amazingmarvin.com/en/articles/1950196-the-task-jar · https://help.amazingmarvin.com/en/articles/3433156-the-reschedule-dialog · https://www.saner.ai/blogs/amazing-marvin-review · https://zapier.com/blog/adhd-to-do-list/

Sunsama (guided daily planning)¶

• A five-step morning ritual; a workload threshold that warns when planned time passes it ("aim significantly lower than your total available work hours… around 5.5 hours" for a 9–5 day); a shutdown ritual; unfinished tasks roll over and, after a number of rollovers the user sets, move to an archive by themselves. A rollover count shows on each card.
• Sioul: the plan never fills a day above its room, and "Done for today" closes the day (done-for-the-day.md): built. Archiving tasks left untouched for long: next ("still relevant?"). The rollover count: refused.
• Sources: https://help.sunsama.com/docs/daily-planning · https://help.sunsama.com/docs/task-rollover-and-recurring-tasks-the-basics · https://help.sunsama.com/docs/archive · https://www.asianefficiency.com/schedule-management/sunsama-review/

Lunatask ("forgiving" workflows)¶

• "Now" instead of "Today": "no feeling of failure when you don't finish everything in 'Today' for a given day". Tasks sorted by priority, then age; a limit of 3 started tasks, shown as a message, not a block; a "Waiting" column for what is blocked on others; a task with a future date hidden until then.
• Sioul: built: the Board's "Waiting", each card saying what it waits for; past three started, one line, "Finish or park one?" (tasks.md, "Places"); a task that can start only from a day is not proposed before it.
• Sources: https://lunatask.app/docs/features/tasks/workflows · https://lunatask.app/docs/features/tasks/work-in-progress-limit · https://lunatask.app/docs/features/tasks/scheduling/date-based-scheduling · https://www.lunatask.app/adhd

Inflow (a CBT programme for adult ADHD)¶

• An open feasibility study without a control group: 240 recruited, 93 completed 7 weeks; self-reported symptoms d = −0.71 (inattentive d = −1.0), impairment d = −0.46; 46 % dropout; mostly white, educated and female participants; median use 27 opens and 1 module finished in 7 weeks (Knouse, Hu, Sachs & Isaacs, PLOS Digital Health 2022). Study, weak.
• Lesson: people do not finish courses. Teach in context, one sentence where it is needed, never as a curriculum.
• Sioul: courses and tips feeds: refused. One-line explanations where they are needed: not built.
• Sources: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9931323/ · https://nesslabs.com/inflow-featured-tool · https://www.getinflow.io/post/best-alternatives-routinery-adhd

Forest (a tree grows while you focus)¶

• Leave the app and the tree withers; dead trees stay in your forest "as an honest record"; in "Plant Together", one person giving up kills everyone's tree. An r/ADHD user: "somehow the guilt of killing a digital tree keeps me off my phone". It runs on guilt, and keeps a record of failures.
• Sioul: refused: nothing dies, nothing is counted against anyone. A calm image that grows while you work and keeps what it grew: not built.
• Sources: https://www.forestapp.cc/ · https://reddit.sentinel-team.org/posts/1t6mffw/snapshots/2026-05-08T06%3A07%3A13.74515Z · https://adhdme.substack.com/p/app-solutely-freedom-vs-flora-which · https://www.bustle.com/wellness/forest-focus-screen-time-app-review

Akiflow and Motion¶

• Akiflow: one inbox for tasks from many tools, and a system-wide command bar, so capture costs one shortcut; reviewers single it out for ADHD.
• Motion re-runs a scheduler whenever anything changes and moves tasks into free slots. Complaints: long setup, "sometimes the auto-scheduling can feel rigid", "every day felt overscheduled somehow". Morgen's ADHD guide: "If losing control triggers anxiety, avoid fully automated systems."
• Sioul: capture in one line from any place of the window: built; a system-wide shortcut: later. The plan proposes and never writes into the tasks; a date that cannot fit is said once, calmly, with what would help: built. Scheduling that moves things silently: refused.
• Sources: https://www.morgen.so/blog-posts/akiflow-review · https://dhruvirzala.com/akiflow-review/ · https://www.choosingtherapy.com/motion-app-review/ · https://www.capterra.com/p/214264/Motion/reviews/?rating=2 · https://www.morgen.so/blog-posts/adhd-productivity-apps

Saner.ai¶

• Notes, mail and tasks in one place; related notes shown without being asked. Vendor and review-site ratings only.
• Sioul: what a task is tied to (its mail, contacts, notes, drafts, budget lines) shown in its panel, both ways: built.
• Sources: https://www.saner.ai/ · https://tooliverse.ai/tools/saner-ai

Todoist¶

• Natural-language capture in one line; a reviewer: "if capture takes more than five seconds, the thought is gone". "Date" (when you plan to work on it) and "Deadline" (when it must be done) are separate fields since January 2025. What goes wrong: "Seeing a long list of overdue tasks can be paralysing"; the Karma score "gamifies consistency, which can trigger shame when the score drops".
• Sioul: one line parsed into chips before Enter, in French and English; the day to start kept apart from the date asked: built.
• Sources: https://get.todoist.help/hc/en-us/articles/17144873893276-Introduction-to-deadlines-in-Todoist · https://alternativeto.net/news/2025/1/todoist-introduces-long-awaited-feature-deadlines · https://developers.fabric.so/comparison/best-adhd-task-management-app · https://www.additudemag.com/todoist-online-to-do-lists-manager/

Things 3 and Super Productivity¶

• Things 3: every to-do has a "When" (when I intend to look at it) and an optional "Deadline"; "'When' dates cannot ever be overdue since it's a scheduling mechanism". The cleanest existing "no overdue pile".
• Super Productivity (open source, offline, account-free): a choice of "Pomodoro, a countdown, Flowtime, ordinary time tracking, or no timer"; idle and break prompts "when they help you return"; completed work kept visible "without turning it into a streak". Its blog recommends checkpoint cues (at 25, 50, 75 min, say) over a single beep at zero.
• Sioul: built: in the task, DTSTART is the day to start and DUE the date asked; only DUE is ever said as a date (tasks.md, "In the standards"). Idle prompts: not built.
• Sources: https://culturedcode.com/things/support/articles/2803579/ · https://talk.macpowerusers.com/t/q-for-things-3-users-the-when-start-date/19654 · https://super-productivity.com/use-cases/adhd-focus/ · https://super-productivity.com/blog/adhd-time-blindness-strategies/ · https://github.com/johannesjo/super-productivity

Finch and Habitica¶

• Finch: "You can disappear for two weeks and come back without any visual record of absence or a reset to mourn." Its limit: "Task initiation, time blindness, procrastination, shame cycles — none of these are addressed".
• Habitica: missed dailies cost health points, and in a party your misses damage everyone; users spiral into more damage than they can heal. Punishment and social blame for executive dysfunction.
• Habit formation took a median of 66 days, with large variance, and one missed day did not derail automaticity (Lally et al. 2010, 96 volunteers, observational).
• Sioul: return without penalty: built (the plan always starts from today; the next working day opens on its first step, never on what did not happen). Damage, parties, streaks: refused.
• Sources: https://www.getinflow.io/post/best-alternatives-finch-adhd · https://www.autonomous.ai/en-GB/ourblog/finch-self-care-app-review-full-breakdown · https://metafilter.com/207203/Habit-forming-for-good-with-Finch · https://habitica.fandom.com/wiki/Rest_in_the_Inn · https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitica · https://habitdoom.com/blog/streak-anxiety-habit-trackers

Now/Next boards, visual schedules, time aids for adults¶

• Now/Next boards show two panels, the current activity and the next, nothing else: predictability of the next transition is what lowers anxiety. Brili shows the current activity inside the whole routine, with its timer. Choiceworks adds a waiting board: what I am waiting for, what I can do meanwhile.
• Abilia MEMOplanner and Quarter Hour (adults with dementia, brain injury, autism, ADHD, intellectual disability): one dot per 15 minutes, going out one by one; Abilia cites 17 studies, 715 participants, mostly Scandinavian and qualitative; for dementia the aids were "highly useful for people who were confused about day and time". Study, weak but about adults.
• Sioul: Now shows the step and the one after it; the Waiting column says what each task waits for; Tasks ▸ The day lays out today, a layout to look at, never a schedule: built (tasks.md). Quarter-hour dots: not built.
• Sources: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/brili-routines-visual-time-r/id952895165 · https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id355527801 · https://autisable.com/blog/vizyplan-vs-goally-choiceworks-and-tiimo-comparing-visual-schedule-apps-for-autism/ · https://www.structural-learning.com/post/now-next-boards-complete-visual-support · https://www.abilia.com/en/users/research-and-evidence/daily-time-management · https://www.tsa-voice.org.uk/downloads/events_2020/innovation_event_6th_august/2._abilia_uk.pdf

Views against overwhelm¶

• List: a few items visible by default (Marvin's 2–3, Todoist filters under five, Super Productivity's "one task that matters now"); long lists behind a key, never the default.
• Board: In progress, Next, Waiting, Later (Lunatask), with a limit on started tasks shown as a message, not a block. A Waiting column makes "who am I waiting on" visible.
• Gantt chart: on demand only (visual supports are offered, never compulsory); chains and slack, a today line.
• Now / Next as the home view.
• Across views: the same task looks the same everywhere, and a view never reorders itself while open.
• In Sioul: Now, List, Board and Timeline are built (tasks.md, "Places").

Anti-patterns users complain about¶

Sources: as in the sections above, and https://www.additudemag.com/reviews/post/parenting-adhd-calendar-reminders/ · https://www.dueapp.com/blog/most-annoying-app.html · https://declutterthemind.com/blog/best-apps-for-adhd

Notes, links and time tracking¶

• The notes-vault trap: on the Obsidian forum, ADHD users call heavy customisation "excessively fiddly" and fragile, and organising up front a maintenance burden. What works for them: search over structure ("fuzzy search, keywords and aliases"), short single-topic notes, few folders and tags, "It's fine to use it imperfectly initially". What fails: complex dashboards, plugin dependency, taxonomies set up front. User reports.
  • In Sioul: built: no plugin system, no dashboard builder; notes read as a vault, search first; links made when things meet (a mail turned into a task links both) (tasks.md, "Notes").
• Links where the work is (Saner's related notes, Barkley's externalised information): the open task shows its mail, contacts, notes and budget lines. In Sioul: built, both ways, on every object.
• Time tracking without work: self-tracking makes "interpretive and emotional demands" (Rudberg Selin et al., CHI 2026; finding 11 of research.md). Passive durations from ActivityWatch (open source, local only), a gentle question on return after idle time ("you were away 25 min, keep or drop?"), and planned against actual as a range: not built. Time is recorded from the focus window and by hand (projects.md).
• A daily note as a log of breadcrumbs and check-outs: not built.
• Sources: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/a-maintainable-second-braind-for-someone-with-adhd/36106 · https://forum.obsidian.md/t/adhd-and-obsidian/89491 · https://www.dsebastien.net/stop-tweaking-your-tools-and-start-actually-using-them · https://docs.activitywatch.net/en/latest/faq.html · https://activitywatch.net/blog/activitywatch-vs-rescuetime/

Ranked ideas, and where they stand¶

Ranked by expected effect on starting a task and on overwhelm, for autistic and ADHD people in burnout first; evidence quality breaks ties.

Conflicts, and how they are settled¶

• Novelty in ADHD against sameness in autism: novelty only in what the person picks (sounds, "sides"), never in the layout.
• Starting by itself against pressure: a routine moves on by itself only when it says so; a focus session never starts by itself.
• Insistent reminders against calm: insistence only per item, for a few critical things, never by default. Sioul has none: each reminder is said once (reminders.md).
• AI help against skill atrophy and masking (Carik et al. 2025): the AI proposes, the person edits, drafts keep the person's voice, and it never sends (ai.md).
• Inference against surveillance: anything learned is visible, explained and can be switched off; capacity is chosen, never inferred.