Pomodoro for ADHD
If you've ever set a Pomodoro, burned the whole block staring at the wall, felt worse at minute 25 than minute zero, and concluded "productivity apps don't work for me," this page is about why it wasn't your fault, and what to change.
The Pomodoro technique was invented in the late 1980s by Francesco Cirillo, who timed his study sessions with a tomato-shaped kitchen timer (pomodoro is Italian for tomato). The original rule is 25 minutes on, five off, in strict blocks. It works well for neurotypical brains on a stable-energy day.
ADHD does not have a stable-energy day. Working memory fluctuates, novelty matters more than willpower, interest-based attention beats time-based attention, and any rigid externally-imposed structure feels like a fight on the days you don't want one. The 25-minute block is treated like a law you break when you're "bad at focus," when actually you're just in the wrong mood for it.
Research on Pomodoro with ADHD converges on a few principles: flexible intervals that match energy state, interest-based framing that makes the content feel voluntary, immediate rewards at the end of each block, and permission to abandon a session without shame if the mood was wrong. Put together, the new rule is less "focus for 25 minutes" and more "focus for however long feels right, and end the session with something you're glad you got."
Four design choices sit directly on the research.
Two separate modes with their own default durations, UI, and coin math. Deep for writing, coding, studying. Shallow for inbox, errands, admin. You pick based on what you can actually do today, not what you wish you could do.
25 minutes is the default because it's the recognizable Pomodoro length. A stepper lets you dial anywhere from 25 to 120 minutes in 5-minute steps, with one-tap presets at 25, 45, 60, and 90. Shallow Focus drops the floor to 10. Every completed Deep Focus session catches one apparition, regardless of length. The timer bends to you.
Finish a session and the next chapter of someone's life opens. Coins added. Streak extended. Forest grows a tree that dies; we open a story that stays.
Categories
Interest is not a nice-to-have for an ADHD brain. It is most of the fuel. So before a session the app asks who you are catching, and you can bias the answer: Philosophy on a thinking day, Music when you need the company, Science when the work itself is technical. Leave it on Lucky and anyone in the library can walk out of the pixels.
The other half of that picker is Pick a ghost. Choose someone whose story you are already partway through and spend the session on their next chapter. A half-finished life is a much stronger reason to start than an empty timer.
Body doubling is one of the few ADHD strategies that works without asking anything of your executive function: another person is simply present while you work, and the task gets easier. Focus Together is that, built into the timer. Someone starts a room, up to eight people join with a code, a link, or a QR scan, and every timer starts on the same second.
Finish while at least one other person finishes and you both earn double coins and double XP. If your friend steps away, nothing is taken from you, and the room does not label them. The roster just says Done for now.
The depth model
The app has two focus modes because focus itself has depths. A day on the beach with a drink is not the same as swimming laps, and neither is the same as diving for a shark with a spear gun. Shallow Focus is the surface swim: inbox, errands, the kind of work you can do while the waves roll through. Deep Focus is the dive: the long, quiet, fully-submerged block where the hard stuff gets done.
ADHD brains don't live at one depth. Some mornings you're on the island. Some afternoons you're at the reef. The right Pomodoro meets you where the water is, rather than insisting you swim the same stretch every time.
Catch the Ghost has a streak system, because loss aversion is real and a gentle stake helps. But streaks are a hook, not the pitch. Lose one, and the worst that happens is a number resets. Nothing dies. No "you failed today" modal. The app assumes you had a reason.
And a lost streak is repairable. 5,000 coins buys it back, which is a deliberate design position: one missed day is a lapse, not the end of a habit, and an app that treats it as the end is lying to you about how habits work.
Your first three sessions
Most focus apps teach you their loss rules by making you lose something. Catch the Ghost does not. Until you have caught three apparitions, the only way to lose one is to deliberately stop the timer yourself. Wander out of the app and stay out, and it is noticed but not charged.
After the session, a short report tells you plainly what would normally have happened and how the grace windows work, and after the third catch it hands the rules over: practice is done, from here leaving for too long really does cost the apparition, and you are ready.
Common questions
Yes, when the timer is flexible. Traditional 25-minute-only Pomodoro ignores the reality of ADHD: working memory fluctuates, energy state shifts within a single hour, and interest matters more than willpower. A timer that lets you pick the interval, and lets you steer the reward toward a subject you actually care about, performs far better than one that enforces the same block for every task.
Whatever length keeps you in the chair. For low-energy or admin work, stay near 25 minutes. For heavy cognitive work on a good day, push toward 60 to 90, or dial up to 120. The research supports flexible intervals over the rigid 25-minute rule for ADHD brains. Catch the Ghost's duration stepper spans 25 to 120 minutes in 5-minute steps, so the same app handles a low-energy Monday and a deep-work Thursday.
The feature set was designed with flexible-timer research in mind, not the original 25-minute Cirillo rule. Deep Focus and Shallow Focus modes, variable session lengths from 10 to 120 minutes, a category picker so the reward lands on a subject you care about, shared Focus Together rooms for people who work better with someone else in the room, and a reward-first loop that uses neutral language on exit (no dying tree, no "you failed") all map to what works for ADHD. It is not a medical device and is not a substitute for professional treatment.
Streaks are present but optional. If they help you, they help. If they stress you out, you can ignore them without losing anything else about the product. The core loop is focus session catches apparition, and that works with or without a streak. If you do lose a long streak to a bad week, it is repairable: 5,000 coins restores it rather than sending you back to day one.
The apparition escapes, and that is the whole automatic cost: the coins you have earned stay yours. For your first three apparitions the app will not even do that, since leaving the app is tracked but not charged while you are learning the loop. If you want the session to carry more weight, Deep Focus and the Sleep Timer let you stake up to 500 coins on finishing it; complete the session and the stake returns with a bonus (10% on Deep Focus, 20% on the Sleep Timer), quit and you forfeit only what you put down. Deep Focus also gives you three one-minute grace windows per session, shown as a live countdown on the lock screen, so stepping away for a moment does not end the run. What does not happen is the shame cycle: no pet dies, no plant wilts, no screen calls you a failure. Start the next session whenever you are ready. ADHD brains do not need another app telling them they failed.
Free to download. Free to use. The core loop works on the Free tier; Pro adds content and overnight multipliers.
