This is an honest comparison of Tiimo and 3ThingsPal, the daily three-things app we make. Tiimo is a genuinely excellent piece of work — Apple named it iPhone App of the Year 2025, it was an Apple Design Awards finalist in 2024, it won Best Assistive Technology at the 2022 Neurodiversity Awards, and it has over 3 million downloads. We're not going to pretend otherwise. But it and 3ThingsPal solve different problems, and picking the wrong one is how people end up abandoning ADHD apps.
The core difference: a planned day vs three things
Tiimo's premise is that a day becomes manageable when you can see it. It gives you a colour-coded visual schedule with drag-and-drop blocks, routines you can build and repeat, timers, a to-do list for brain dumps, and an AI co-planner that helps turn a messy pile of tasks into an actual plan. It's built around executive function and time agnosia — knowing that 40 minutes is 40 minutes.
3ThingsPal's premise is the opposite. It assumes the failure point isn't seeing the day, it's starting — that a full schedule, however beautiful, is one more thing to fall behind on. So the app holds three items. Not three sections, three items, and there's no way to add a fourth. They live on a Lock Screen widget and a Live Activity, so the next step is always one glance away without opening anything.
Put simply: Tiimo helps you plan a day. 3ThingsPal helps you when planning is the thing you can't face.
3ThingsPal vs Tiimo at a glance
| Tiimo | 3ThingsPal | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Time blindness, routines, executive function support | Overwhelm and not starting |
| What you see | A full colour-coded day of timed blocks | Three things. Nothing else. |
| Capacity | Unlimited tasks and routines | Hard cap of three — a backlog can't form |
| Setup effort | Real — you build routines and plan the day | About 20 seconds a morning |
| AI | AI co-planner for prioritising and planning | None — you decide the three |
| On the Lock Screen | Widgets and reminders | Widget + Live Activity as an external brain |
| Price | Free to download, subscription for full features | Free, optional one-off upgrade, no account |
Where Tiimo still wins
If your problem is genuinely time — you know what to do but you have no felt sense of how long it takes, or you can't transition between tasks — Tiimo is the better app, and it isn't close. Visual timers and blocked-out time are the established tools for that, and Tiimo executes them about as well as anyone. Its routines are also strong if your days repeat: build the morning sequence once and follow it instead of re-deciding it every day.
It's also the better choice if you're supporting someone else — a child, a student, a partner — where a shared, visible structure matters more than minimalism. And if you actually enjoy planning, Tiimo rewards that; 3ThingsPal gives you nothing to plan with.
Where 3ThingsPal fits better
3ThingsPal is for the specific moment where you open a planner, see everything you're behind on, and close it. That's not a discipline problem — it's a capacity problem, and the usual advice ("just break it down") makes it worse by generating more items.
The cap is the feature. Because you can only hold three things, there's no backlog waiting for you after a bad week, no schedule you're two hours behind on, no streak to protect. Skip a day and the app looks exactly the same tomorrow: an empty slate asking for three things. That's why it survives on phones where heavier ADHD apps get deleted around week three.
It's also free to start and needs no account, which matters if you've already paid for two planners you stopped opening.
"Tiimo is beautiful and I felt awful every time I opened it and saw how far off-plan I was. Three things a day is the first one I haven't fallen behind on, because there's nothing to fall behind on."
The bottom line
Pick Tiimo if you can name what needs doing but can't feel time or move between tasks — you need structure, and Tiimo is award-winningly good at giving it. Pick 3ThingsPal if the sight of a planned day is itself the wall — you need less, not better. And if you're not sure which one you are, notice what happened to the last planner you tried: if you kept using it but drifted off schedule, that's a time problem. If you stopped opening it, that's overwhelm.
Frequently asked questions
Is Tiimo or 3ThingsPal better for ADHD?
It depends on which part of the day breaks down for you. Tiimo is better if your struggle is time blindness and structure — it lays the whole day out as colour-coded visual blocks with timers and reminders. 3ThingsPal is better if your struggle is overwhelm and starting — it asks you for three things and shows nothing else, so there is no schedule to fall behind on.
Is 3ThingsPal a good Tiimo alternative?
It is a good alternative if Tiimo felt like too much to maintain. Tiimo gives you a full planning system, which is powerful but needs upkeep; 3ThingsPal is deliberately the opposite, with three items a day, a Lock Screen widget and a Live Activity and nothing else to configure. If you liked Tiimo's structure and simply want it cheaper, a plain calendar is a closer swap.
Is Tiimo free?
Tiimo is free to download from the App Store, with its full planning features available through a paid subscription. 3ThingsPal is also free to download with an optional one-off upgrade, and it works without an account.
What if I keep abandoning ADHD planner apps?
That usually means the app asked for more setup than the problem was worth, so falling behind in it became its own source of guilt. The fix is to reduce what the app can hold rather than to try harder. An app with a hard cap of three items a day cannot build a backlog, so there is nothing to fall behind on when you skip a day.
Nothing to fall behind on.
Three things for today, on your Lock Screen. No schedule, no backlog, no account.
Download 3ThingsPal on the App Store →Related: Tiimo vs Todoist and The Wall of Awful. Questions? Email us.