xTiles – An ADHD-Friendly Productivity Tool You’re Going to LOVE

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Thank you to xTiles for sponsoring today’s post! All my thoughts and opinions are my own.

As someone with ADHD, finding the perfect planning tool can feel like searching for a unicorn. We need something flexible, visually appealing, and capable of handling our ever-changing needs and interests. Enter xTiles, a fantastic new planning tool that’s been a game-changer for my ADHD brain. In this review, I’ll walk you through why xTiles might just be the planning solution you’ve been dreaming of.

What is xTiles?

xTiles is a digital planning and organization tool that uses simple blocks (or “tiles”) to help you manage your tasks, projects, and ideas. Think of it as a digital bullet journal on steroids, with the added flexibility of being able to move, resize, and customize your “tiles” to fit your exact needs.

Why xTiles is Perfect for ADHD Brains

1. Visual Organization that Makes Sense

One of the things I love most about xTiles is how it caters to visual thinkers. As someone with ADHD, I often struggle with traditional linear planning methods. xTiles allows me to see all my information at once, organized in a way that makes sense to my brain.

ADHD-Friendly Call Out: The tile-based system lets you create visual contexts for different areas of your life, making it easier to focus on what’s important at any given moment.

2. Flexibility to Match Your Changing Needs

Let’s face it, we ADHD folks can get bored with our planning systems pretty quickly. What works one week might feel stale the next. xTiles solves this problem by being incredibly malleable.

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ADHD-Friendly Call Out: You can easily move tiles around, change their size, color, or content without losing any information. This allows you to “zhuzh up” your planner whenever you need a change, keeping things fresh and engaging.

3. Templates to Get You Started

While the blank canvas of possibility can be exciting, it can also be overwhelming for ADHD brains. xTiles offers a variety of templates to help you get started quickly.

ADHD-Friendly Call Out: Use pre-made templates as a jumping-off point, then customize them to fit your specific needs. This balance of structure and flexibility is perfect for ADHD minds.

4. Contextual Task Management

One of the biggest challenges for ADHD individuals is keeping track of tasks across different contexts. xTiles excels at this by allowing you to create separate tiles for different projects or areas of your life.

ADHD-Friendly Call Out: You can view all your tasks in one place or filter them by context, helping you focus on what’s relevant without getting overwhelmed.

My Experience with xTiles: A Real-World Example

To give you a better idea of how xTiles works in practice, let me walk you through how I used it to plan a big trip to Spain and Portugal.

1. Starting with a Template: I began with a basic travel planner template from xTiles’ gallery. While it was a good start, I quickly realized I needed more context for each city we’d be visiting.
2. Customizing for My Needs: I created separate tiles for each city on our itinerary. Within each city tile, I included:
   • Dates we’d be there
   • Airbnb address
   • Tasks to do before leaving
   • Things to do in the city
   • Exit tasks for moving to the next city
3. Adding Important Details: I embedded our train tickets as a note within the relevant city tiles, making them easily accessible when needed.
4. Creating Flexible Checklists: For each city, I added checklists for sights to see and restaurants to try. These aren’t tasks with due dates, but they’re important information I want to have in the city’s context.

ADHD-Friendly Call Out: By organizing my trip this way, I can focus on one city at a time without getting overwhelmed by the entire trip. As we move from city to city, I can archive or delete the tiles we’ve completed, keeping my focus on what’s currently relevant.

Key Features That Make xTiles Stand Out

1. Task and Calendar Integration

xTiles brings together your tasks and schedule in one place, which is crucial for ADHD brains that struggle with time management.

ADHD-Friendly Call Out: You can see your tasks alongside your calendar events, giving you a complete picture of your day or week at a glance.

2. Google Calendar Integration

Unlike some other planning tools (looking at you, Notion), xTiles integrates seamlessly with Google Calendar.

ADHD-Friendly Call Out: This integration means you can see all your appointments and schedules in one place, reducing the mental load of switching between different apps.

3. Mobile-Friendly Interface

The mobile experience of xTiles is far superior to many of its competitors, making it easier to manage tasks on the go.

ADHD-Friendly Call Out: The mobile app includes a quick capture inbox, allowing you to jot down ideas, take pictures, or record voice notes whenever inspiration strikes. These can then be processed and organized when you’re back at your desktop.

4. Chrome Web Clipper

xTiles offers a Chrome extension for quick web clipping, making it easy to save interesting articles, images, or ideas you come across while browsing.

ADHD-Friendly Call Out: This feature helps prevent the “out of sight, out of mind” problem that many ADHD individuals struggle with when it comes to digital information.

Using xTiles for Weekly and Monthly Planning

As you know, I’m a HUGE advocate of planning. So I experimented with xTiles as a tool for both big-picture planning and day-to-day task management. Here’s a glimpse into what I created:

1. Monthly Overview: At the start of the month, I create a new tile with:
   • A review of the previous month
   • My focus for the current month
   • A calendar widget for easy reference
   • A “What would be amazing this month?” section for goal-setting
   • Any recurring tasks or important dates

1. Weekly Planning: I break down each week into daily tiles, including:
   • Tasks for the day
   • Appointments and events
   • Meal plans (I found I prefer seeing these in the context of my day rather than in a separate meal planner)

ADHD-Friendly Takeaway: This system allows me to zoom in and out as needed. I can focus on just one day if I’m feeling overwhelmed, or I can look at the entire month for big-picture planning.

The Joy of Starting from Scratch

While templates are great, sometimes you just want to start with a blank canvas. xTiles makes this process fun and intuitive:

1. Start with a blank project
2. Add tiles as needed
3. Customize each tile with tasks, notes, images, or any other content you need
4. Arrange and resize tiles to create a layout that makes sense to your brain

ADHD-Friendly Call Out: This flexibility allows you to create a planning system that’s truly tailored to your unique way of thinking and working.

Why xTiles is Perfect for Your ADHD Brain?

While there are many digital planning tools out there, xTiles stands out as a particularly good fit for ADHD brains for several reasons:

1. Visual Appeal: The tile-based system is more engaging and easier to navigate than traditional list-based planners.
2. Flexibility: You can easily change the layout and content of your planner without losing information.
3. Affordability: xTiles is significantly less expensive than some of its competitors, especially for the premium version.
4. Ease of Use: Unlike Notion, xTiles is pretty simple to figure out, so no learning curve.

Ready to Give xTiles a Try?

If you’re intrigued by xTiles and want to see if it’s the right fit for your ADHD brain, click here to give it a try. If you decide to upgrade to the premium version, you can use code Caren_adhd to get 25% off.

But don’t worry if you’re not ready to commit to a paid version just yet. xTiles also offers a free version that you can use to get a feel for the system.

Let me know if you try it, and what you think of it!!