Talk into your phone. KeptMind listens, sorts your thoughts into clear next steps, and nudges you only when it matters.
Goblin Tools is brilliant for one-off breakdowns when you are already at a desk; KeptMind is for thoughts that arrive while walking, driving, or avoiding the laptop. The two tools solve different stages of the ADHD productivity pipeline: Goblin Tools helps you decompose a known task into actionable steps, while KeptMind helps you externalize and preserve thoughts before they disappear. Most ADHD adults lose tasks at the capture stage, not the breakdown stage — which makes the order of operations matter.
KeptMind: speak under ~12 seconds from phone or web. Goblin Tools: paste or type, then run a wizard — fast for text, slow when hands are full. The difference is context-dependent: if you are at a desk with a browser open, Goblin Tools is immediate. If you are walking, cooking, or driving, KeptMind captures without requiring screen interaction.
For ADHD adults who generate most of their task obligations away from a desk — during commutes, conversations, or transitions between activities — voice capture is the only reliable method. Typing requires stopping, unlocking, finding the app, and formulating text. Voice requires holding a button and speaking naturally. The friction difference is small in theory but decisive in practice: a two-second barrier at capture time means the thought is gone forever.
KeptMind keeps sorted tasks in Today with optional SMS/call escalation for critical items. Goblin Tools outputs a list you still need to place somewhere — a clipboard, a notes app, or another task manager. The breakdown is excellent but the follow-through infrastructure is absent.
The ADHD failure pattern with Goblin Tools: you break a task into perfect micro-steps, feel accomplished, then never look at those steps again because they live in a browser tab that gets closed. KeptMind solves this by keeping tasks in an energy-aware Today list with escalating reminders that break through notification blindness. The breakdown is preserved and acted upon rather than lost in browser history.
Capture the task in KeptMind first — voice note or brain dump. When you sit down to work on a complex item, paste it into Goblin Tools to get micro-steps. Work through those steps without leaving your desk. The capture happens throughout the day; the breakdown happens during a focused work session.
KeptMind also has AI task split built in for quick breakdowns inside the app. Goblin Tools Magic ToDo adds deeper granularity for tasks that feel genuinely overwhelming before you can even start. The practical split: use KeptMind AI for 2-4 step breakdowns, Goblin Tools for 8-12 step breakdowns of complex projects.
Goblin Tools does not know your energy level — it breaks tasks down regardless of whether you have the capacity to execute them today. KeptMind matches tasks to your current energy state: on low-energy days, only small tasks surface. On high-energy days, the full list is available. This prevents the overwhelm that comes from seeing twenty broken-down tasks when you can barely handle three right now.
The energy-aware layer is what turns a task list into a usable system for ADHD adults. Without it, even perfectly broken-down tasks create paralysis when the list is too long for your current capacity. Goblin Tools gives you better tasks; KeptMind gives you fewer tasks at the right time.
For ADHD adults who experience significant energy variability — good days versus crash days — the energy filter is more valuable than the task breakdown. A three-item list you can actually start beats a twenty-item list that paralyzes you regardless of how well each item is decomposed.