Support — Plain and Simple Focus
The app is a list, a day made out of blocks, six short things worth knowing, and a record of how it is going. Most questions are about the last two.
Getting started
Open it. Three cards, then it asks for one thing on your mind and puts it on your list — so you are not looking at an empty app. You can skip that; the list is there whenever something turns up.
Put anything at all on the list. One field, one return key. If capturing something costs more than that, it stops happening, which is why there is nothing else to fill in.
To get a day, open Learn → Making time visible and tap the button at the end. The app takes what you have captured and lays it out as blocks, starting from the next whole hour. You can also run a routine from the button at the top of the List.
Why there is no streak
There isn't one, and there is not going to be one.
A broken streak is a permanent, visible record of failure, and handing one to somebody with ADHD is one of the documented reasons apps like this get deleted. The same goes for a pile of overdue tasks: in this app a task that did not happen is still just a task, with no mark on it and no counter anywhere.
If you are looking for the screen that tells you how you did, it does not exist. The nearest thing is the screener line under You, which shows which way things have gone over weeks rather than whether you won today.
The blocks
Tap a block on Today to start it. It shrinks while you work.
- Something pulled at you? Tap Something pulled at me, type it, and it goes on the list without the block stopping. The list is what makes letting go of it safe.
- Twenty-five minutes too long today? Make it 10. It sits beside Give it 5 more on purpose — a shorter block is a real answer, not a lesser one.
- Stopping early is just stopping. Nothing is recorded, nothing counts against you.
The screener
Under You → Take the ADHD screener. It is the World Health Organization's six-question adult screener, word for word.
It cannot tell you whether you have ADHD. Nothing can, from six questions. What it is good for is the line underneath: the same six questions answered again in a few weeks, plotted against what you were actually logging at the time. That is worth something a single score is not.
If it raises anything, talk to a doctor. The app does not diagnose and never will.
Where your data is, and getting it out
Your list and routines sync through your own iCloud, so a new phone has them.
Your focus check-ins, medication log and screener scores stay on this phone. Not in iCloud, not with me. Apple does not permit health information in iCloud, and this app has no server to put it in instead.
So a new phone will not bring your health record unless you take a copy first. Under You → Take it with you:
- Save a copy writes your whole health record to a file — plain JSON you can open in any text editor. Put it wherever you like; it never comes to me.
- On the new phone, Bring one back reads that file in. It adds what is missing and skips what you already have, so doing it twice is safe and an old copy will not overwrite anything newer.
Common questions
Is any of this free? All of it. There is nothing to buy, no subscription, and no paid tier that unlocks anything.
Do I need an account? No. There is nothing to sign in to.
Does it work without a signal? Entirely. The only thing the internet does here is sync your list between your own devices.
Does it read Apple Health? No. It keeps its own record and never touches Health.
Will it remind me? No. The app sends no notifications. A notification arriving to tell you that you missed something is a pile of overdue tasks with a different delivery mechanism, and that is the thing this app is built to avoid.
Still stuck
help@plainandsimple.app. Tell me what you tapped and what happened.