This week we’re talking with co-founder of the productivity app Tiimo, Helene Nørlem. In our conversation today we discuss what Tiimo is and how it can help with planning, especially for the neurodivergent community.
The discussion also explores the broader aspirations of Tiimo to advocate for neurodiversity, the potential of integrating AI to enhance user experience, and the importance of creating awareness and resources for the neurodivergent community.
Be sure to check out the Tiimo App
William Curb: So great to have you here. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. And so can you give me a little bit of an introduction and tell me a little bit about the app you're here to talk about?
Helene Nørlem: Sure. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Helene, and I am co-founder and co-CEO of a company and an app called Tiimo. And we are based in Copenhagen, and we are a small team working very hard on this app that is actually built to support neurodivergent brains. That's also what we're here to talk about today.
William Curb: Yeah, I've gotten a little bit of a chance to play around with Tiimo. And it's been fun and very clearly designed with ADHD in mind, like a number of the features. I'm like, oh, yes, that is something I need in there.
Helene Nørlem: So happy to hear that. We had a strong, in the early days, a strong focus on developing for the end users. So making sure to involve the end users in the design process very early on to make sure that we actually did some features that were actually usable and for the neurodivergent brain.
So not just reading about it and talking to experts within the field, but also asking the end user. And then maybe a little side story is that my co-founder Melissa realized alongside this journey that she actually was both dyslexic and had ADHD because we worked with Tiimo and she suddenly realized, OK, I'm actually building an app and a product for myself as well. So she's late diagnosed.
William Curb: Awesome. Yeah. So what was the impetus to start with this app? What was the initial thought of why this was needed?
Helene Nørlem: Yeah, it was actually we started seven years back, or maybe even eight. And in Denmark at that time, we were writing our math thesis at the IT University in Copenhagen. And there was a strong focus on at that time, they changed the school system in Denmark. So basically children with special needs were supposed to be included in the normal school and especially children with ADHD was kind of like falling a little bit in between here because they were too good to go to the special needs school.
But still they need some extra support to thrive in a class with 28 people and one teacher and where the setup is not designed for a neurodivergent brain. So we found it super relevant and interesting to understand if we could somehow use technology to then support these children
that would end up in the normal school and then what could we then do to try and support them? So we really tried to understand the user needs and that in a very holistic way to try and see could we design something that could help?
And that's where we became aware of the executive functioning skills and that neurodivergent or children with ADHD could often have challenges with these. And then that's where we began to design Tiimo because we found that at that point at least there was a lot of analog tools, a lot
of board makers to put on the wall and a lot of clock and alarms and all that worked. But it was not very mobile. We started to see that of course everybody uses apps. So why couldn't we also design a beautiful product to support neurodivergent brains instead of we heard the feedback from many of these children was that it was very stigmatizing and they didn't want to have friends over because they had this big board on the wall and they felt embarrassed in a way. So we thought we really want to approach this in a more non-stigmatizing way.
And that was the foundation for Tiimo actually. And then today we have actually pivoted a little bit away because we're not so focused on children anymore because we started to realize that was an even bigger group that was actually young adults and adults where that was an even more underserved group of people actually because there were so many people and as you probably know so many people are getting a late diagnosis. That's actually when we really started to see that somebody really started to use our product.
William Curb: Yeah. Could you give a little description of what the app actually is? Because I feel like we've danced around it a little bit where it's like it's a App for ADHD but that's not because it's not just a to-do app or anything like that either.
Helene Nørlem: Sure. Good question and an important point for listeners to also understand what we're talking about. But it is designed to support executive functioning such as short-term memory focus organizing and really make sure that our users is ahead of what is coming in a very visual way. So we also call ourselves a visual daily planner which is them designed around breaking down task in an easy way. We have recently launched an AI function where you can actually just write in a title of a task that you need to do, a really broad title and then you can ask the app to break it down with AI so it will suggest a lot of sub tasks that you then need to do if you find yourself in a situation where you actually don't know how to start and how to actually go about a task and it can become really overwhelming, then the app can actually help you break it down and put it into your daily schedule when you need to do it.
Then you can go like a no from a checklist, you can go and check it up. But I would say it's a combination of a calendar to-do list and what we call a focus timer that makes sure you can also focus on what you're doing right now. We have this page that we call the focus page where you can see a picture of what you're doing, you can see a visual countdown and you can see your checklist items if you have that and then you can go check it off.
If you go into hyper-focus, the app makes sure to remind you to move to the next task or if you struggle to actually focus, you can also use that side of the page of the app to actually understand, okay, this is what I'm doing now and this is what I should be focusing on instead of using your mental energy on what should I actually be doing now. So that is the most used page in the app, I would say, the focus timer. And then we also have launched a lot of nice, I would say widgets that also make sure to not forget about the app because that's also what we hear a lot. It's good that we have this app, but then if I have ADHD, I might forget that I even downloaded that app and that I put something in it that I needed to do. So that's why we have also put a lot of effort into designing really helpful widgets and lock screen widgets that you
can... put on your home screen and your lock screen and make sure that you will be reminded even if you don't have the app open, you can just look at your phone and then see actually what you're doing and what will come next.
William Curb: Yeah, I like the ability to kind of like have my day at a glance and that was a great feature to have in the widget. I can just pick, okay, this is what's coming up today and I don't have to actually go into the app to find all that information out.
Helene Nørlem: Exactly, because that can also be sometimes you can end up on a detour if you're looking for one app and then you open your phone and then suddenly you're looking at something else. I think we all know that.
William Curb: That is definitely a danger of the phone is like, well, I'm going to open this one looks really just get open this for a second. We'll see how that is.
Helene Nørlem: Exactly. And then five, 10 minutes or even hours later, then yeah, you get back to what you were actually looking for. So that's the strong thing about the widgets. I think in general, I loved them, but especially if you're also a neurodivergent, I would say it's super helpful that you can actually have that so present on your lock screen or your home screen.
William Curb: One of the things I really also appreciate about the app is that when I was looking at adding things to do for my day, there's like suggestions of things to do. And there are a lot of things that I normally wouldn't put on my calendar or my to do list, but are incredibly important for me to be doing like there's stuff for like making sure I eat. So there's like a category of human needs. And I'm like, yes, I have things I need to do. I need to eat and drink water and have time to go to the bathroom and all these things. And I normally wouldn't plan those things. And sometimes they fall by the wayside because I'm not.
Helene Nørlem: Yeah, exactly. We really also try to inspire to how to actually go about planning, because we know that's a thing also if you're not used to planning and you're not used to putting all of these things into your daily schedule, you can, we know you can easily forget. We have a lot of in-app pre-made content that can inspire for how to actually plan a day in a good way. We also have sort of like the Pomodoro technique, different types of routines that can be useful for some of our users.
And especially what you're talking about, about like remembering to eat, remember to take a break, remember to put in those pulses also during the day so you don't end up feeling burned out at the end of the day. That's really what we try to do. And we work a lot. And if we just launched a new, maybe you tried the app with this feature, but we just launched it a few weeks back with that we call Explore, which is exactly where you can go and search and be inspired from what routines and activities do you often use yourself, but also what our users are similar to you actually using. And maybe you can actually work out an even greater schedule and to-do-list because you suddenly get inspired from other similar uses. So that's something we're
also building on improving. So the app will be more clever, you can say, and actually suggest relevant content to you.
William Curb: I love also the use of creating a to-do list with my calendar in mind because given my own devices, I will make a to-do list that is two miles long and be like, this is what I'm doing today. But this is asking me to like put things into my calendar as I'm adding them to my to-do list and giving them to me like, OK, how long do I think it's going to take? Something that always I'm like, this is going to take way less time than I think it is, but it's a good habit to form of being like, how long do I think things are going to take because of ADHD, time blindness. And so I do love keeping those features in mind while creating a to-do list and figuring out what my day is going to look like.
Helene Nørlem: Yeah, exactly. And I think that's also what we're trying to support still working on how to actually do that in the best way. But we also try to support creating good habits so that you as a user actually become more aware about how much time do I use on things so you don't end up planning too much every day and feel like you never succeed with anything. We all know the feeling, I think, of having this long to do and then we only crossed out one or even nothing on that list. And I think that's also what we're really trying to support with the product to actually become more realistic, maybe in our way in terms of what can I actually get done and when do I want to do it? So you actually get through the day in a more meaningful way, I would say. So I feel we are trying, we really want to be so much more than just a calendar and just a visual calendar. We also want to support those deeper layers of how to actually create good schedules and how to support, as I said, the neurodivergent brains, especially we have a lot of users that also consider themselves as visual thinkers and are not necessarily neurodivergent. But that is still where we focus a lot.
William Curb: Yeah, one of the funny features that I fell into playing with just right away is the other customizations of how the app will look on my phone. I'm just like, oh, I can change this. And I'm like, it just felt so ADHD to be like, oh, I'm going to play with how this looks first, even before anything else.
Helene Nørlem: Exactly. And that's also the final balance in terms of making it customizable and fun at the same time, but of course, also making it not to something that ends up taking all of your time on something that you were not supposed to use of your time on. But I still think there's something we also want to have apps today that are customized and that we feel is ours and that we can actually adjust to the type of color and stimuli that we like, because it's so different. And even though folks are neurodivergent, it's still individual human beings and everybody is different. So that's the fine balance in terms of also making it customizable, I would say.
William Curb: Yeah, it's nice to always have this ability to make things your own because I know with my ADHD, I often just having little changes can make things feel refreshed and we want to use them again.
Helene Nørlem: Exactly. I'm glad you say that because that's also our reason for adding some of these features because it is also another thing. One thing is to create a product that is really good and helpful. And then another thing is still to keep remembered to actually use it and make it into a habit. There's so many different things that you can play with, but also still something we're working a lot on to actually support our users in remembering. So also using the product and make it into a habit. And we do see that all of our users that get into this and get it off to a good start, they really feel the value. But then we also of course see that we have some people down loading the nav and never really get started. And then of course they would never feel the value of the product. So, so it's also a fine balance in terms of how to actually support that habit change in a way and how to make sure that it keeps being interesting enough and valuable enough to keep using because that is really what we want to do. Also, of course, help our users feel the value.
William Curb: And then there's also like the great things just with like the calendar integration. So I don't have to like swap things over from my Google calendar. It's like, oh, this just, I can just link these things. It's going to pop up in my to-do list. So like, even though that we set this meeting up with another app, it popped into my Google calendar and then that popped into my Tiimo like time stream of like when things are going to happen. I'm like, all happened on its own. I don't have to do a bunch of extra steps to make sure that I'm not double booking myself and all that stuff.
Helene Nørlem: It has to be really seamless, I think. And still we are, of course, working on how to make it even more. But I'm really happy to hear that feedback and that is your, your first experience at least.
William Curb: Yeah. And with like any app, it's always, it's hard to integrate new things into your life, especially when it's not that exciting like planning.
Helene Nørlem: Yes exactly that’s the thing.
William Curb: Like I enjoy planning, but I enjoy having planned more than actually planning.
Helene Nørlem: Exactly. And I think that's the difficult thing because you do absolutely feel the value. If you have planned and you have prepared and you have put that effort into doing that, there's no doubt that you would feel the value, I'm sure, but it's still about getting there sometimes, even though it's a little bit like also going to the gym, right? You know, it's going to feel nice afterwards, but it's sometimes so difficult to actually get there even though, you know, you will have a good feeling afterwards.
William Curb: Yeah. I've seen some of that in the explore tab is like, yeah, making this preparation stuff and getting to this planning things. Is there particularly things that you see that make people more successful in using the app than others?
Helene Nørlem: Yeah. Good question. I would say we really try to be very data driven in that way. And what we do see is, as I mentioned, the widget, we see like it's really clear to us that if you add a widget, you are also more likely to become an engaged and active user. So that's definitely step one. Then there's also using the AI feature to help breaking down those bigger tasks into smaller tasks is also what we see. I think it's because it's the breakdown with AI and the import calendar. It's stuff that helps you get going in the planning part that is not necessarily so fun.
And then the widget part is because you remember that you actually have that app and that you can look at it and you can see your day and you can see what am I doing right now and you can check it off without opening the product, without going into your phone. So you can actually have these more like micro interactions where you just look at your phone and then you understand, okay, I'm doing this now and this is what comes next. So you can be prepared in a very quick way in terms of your day and your schedule.
William Curb: Yeah. Because I find like all my tools and stuff I use for ADHD, there's really great ones. But if I don't use it, it doesn't matter.
Helene Nørlem: No, exactly. And I also think what we're trying a lot to also without making it too overwhelming, but also to think about how can we, that's something we will work with as part of our next development phase, I can call it. But like how to integrate some more social features is not that we're going to make a chat form or something in the app, but how can we make it somehow a little bit more social? So do actually feel you're doing this together with somebody like you. So you get inspired, but you also feel, okay, I know these five other people are doing it. So why I'm also going to do it this week. So you kind of that feeling of doing things together. We really wanted to try and build that into the product as well. So that's something we're looking at.
William Curb: Well, I like the idea of having the built in accountability there because Helene Nørlem: Exactly
William Curb: As much as I like to think that I can just do things. I find that having that accountability really does help.
Helene Nørlem: Exactly. So, so now our skilled designers are working on how to do that in a, in a meaningful way that is relatable to the other features in the product. So hopefully we can do something really good and helpful there as well.
William Curb: Yeah. You don't want to end up where a place where I'm like, I'm dreading opening the app because I have to say I haven't done anything.
Helene Nørlem: Exactly. It's such a fine balance with everything, I think. And yeah, that's why it's also a skill to be a designer because you don't want to overdo it, but you also need to find
the exact right balance to actually engage people and make them want to use the product and then start to feel that value it can give.
William Curb: So since you guys have been doing this for quite a while now, have there been features that have been like removed because you found they haven't really helped?
Helene Nørlem: I don't think we have exactly removed features, but we have really improved a lot. I would say in the early days, we were more focused, as I mentioned, on children. So we have streamlined to design a lot. And then we have continuously user tested and gotten feedback from users. So I would say that it has been an ongoing development with user feedback. So we haven't necessarily removed anything because it wasn't used. I think we're also a little bit afraid of because if still some of our users were happy to use it, we would also not remove it.
We did change our app logo at one point and we also did some visual changes and really made sure to every time we did some bigger changes to communicate about it on our social platforms and in emails to all of our users to make them aware and ready for that change, because we also know that a lot of neurodivergent folks can actually be pretty annoyed of such changes if they're not prepared. So we really tried to also make sure that we tell if we do bigger changes. And I would say that's also what we're trying to also do more as a company. Like, of course, we are building this app and this product, but we are also trying to focus a lot about leveling the playing field for neurodivergent people in general, in terms of also taking part in making, creating more awareness around that a lot of people in the world are actually neurodivergent and that the society is not really built around that necessarily and that a lot of people are late diagnosed and suddenly in a situation where they want to go out and find new knowledge and resources for that type of diagnosis that they get.
So we really try to also we just also actually release this. It's not a podcast, it's an interview series because we also have a video, but when we talk with, we call it brainstorm, Changemakers by Tiimo where we talk to change makers within the neurodiversity space to also inspire in other way than creating our products. So we really try to also be more than just an app for the neurodivergent community out there.
William Curb: Awesome. That sounds great. Because yeah, as much as things have moved forward, there's still so much to go.
Helene Nørlem: There's so much way to go, I would say. And a lot of these things are moving. That's really good. And I think we come a long way just in the seven years that I started actually working within this field. So that's really good. But as you also say, there's such a long way to go still. And I really think, of course, the more people and companies can start to do the better and the faster. I think it's a really underserved area also in terms of the research and funding and such. So that's also another thing where we really also aspire to be able to give something back to research, because we will start to also learn more. So if we can somehow support new
research out there, that's also really an area we want to tap into at some point when we are a little bit bigger, maybe.
William Curb: Yeah, that sounds really good. I mean, especially because I don't want to be like, use user data, figure these things out. But you know, you do have the feedback from users about what's working and what isn't. And that kind of stuff is really valuable, because we don't get that a lot of other places.
Helene Nørlem: Exactly. And I think, of course, everything is anonymized. And there's nothing there. But I think you can actually get some insights that can support research. And maybe you can find out completely new things in terms of treatment and exactly what you say what works
and what doesn't and how to actually schedule in a meaningful way. And it can be so much more than that. But I think there's definitely something that can be unlocked or what we can call lit in that area as well.
William Curb: Yeah, because I mean, and a lot of this planning and figuring out your day, those aren't things that we're necessarily taught is kind of stuff we have to figure out for ourselves. And for a long time, I didn't realize how bad I was at doing that kind of stuff. And then having once I had tools like this, where I'm like, Oh, I can figure out, Oh, there's a limit to how much stuff I can jam into my day. And then even going beyond that, it's like, Oh, not only is there a limit, but it's not even the amount of time I have, I have to do other things during my day too. I can't just go from thing to thing to thing to thing and expect my day to go well.
Helene Nørlem: So I think you're right on point with that, because we actually also talked to the CEO of the Danish ADHD Association back in the days seven years back. But there's so many people out there telling you when you have ADHD, you need to plan, you need to plan, you need structure, you need to schedule everything. But there's nobody that can tell you how to actually do it and how you make a good plan and what works for you.
So it's quite spot on what you're saying in terms of how do I actually plan something that works for me? And that's also what we want to really support with Tiimo in terms of getting to know the user better. So the app can actually suggest what works for you when you use the product to improve your schedule and your planning and, and your insights in terms of how to actually go about it in a way that works for you.
William Curb: Yeah. And then you have your mention earlier, the AI thing to break down tasks. I did that with my daughter when it's just like, Okay, how about we put in clean your room? And then, you know, have that breakdown into all these sub tasks of like, Okay, take all the trash off the floor. And, you know, these little steps that we think of as combine things. But doing that, my eight year old was like, Oh, this is way easier, I can do this task, this task, and this task, I know what I'm doing.
I'm not getting stuck. She always gets stuck organizing her bookshelf. She's like, I want to put my books in the right order. I'm like, that's great. But that's not the most important thing for cleaning your room.
Helene Nørlem: But I know the feeling myself, even though I don't have ADHD, but I, I also end up in I found some old photos or something, then I ended up spending hours looking at those instead of actually moving on to getting that room cleaned or whatever it is.
William Curb: But yeah, it's I think that's such a great tool for like being like, Oh, yeah, I don't think about all these sub tasks I'm doing. And once I do, it makes it easier to go, Okay, this is what I need to focus on.
Helene Nørlem: Exactly. And I think also to just get started sometimes to have somebody else tell you like, This is where you need to start. Okay, then you get going. And then the ball starts to roll in a way where sometimes you otherwise find yourself just sitting there and thinking, Okay, I can start with these 10 things. But I really just need somebody to tell me like, what's number one?
William Curb: Yeah, I mean, that's what I've been loving about using AI tools recently is just being like, it keeps me from starting at a blank page, which for some reason is way more intimidating than like, Well, there's 10 things here. But I know I don't need to do those four. So I can just delete those. And then, okay, now I can figure out what I actually need to add.
Helene Nørlem: And I also think this is the first thing we added into the product with AI. And I think we definitely going to use it in a lot of other aspects of the product in terms of suggesting greater, like not greater, but suggesting relevant content and suggesting maybe also how long
would something take if you're unsure what is the timeframe for something, maybe it can suggest something there. So so we definitely also have it in the plans to implement AI and different features in the product as well.
William Curb: Yeah, I think that's such a great way for AI to be used to enhance what we're doing rather than like people are, you know, legitimately, like, I don't want it replacing things. I'm like, Yeah, but if you can use it as a tool to help me, that's great.
Helene Nørlem: Exactly. But I'm definitely sure this is where we will go with that. William Curb: So is there anything you want to leave the listeners with?
Helene Nørlem: Yeah, thanks for listening. And I hope you thought that it was interesting enough to go and try the app and download it in the App Store. And we offer a free version and a paid version. So we can always just use it for free if that's what you feel like.
William Curb: So it's just the app is Tiimo. It's T I I M O. And I think you guys will enjoy it. So thank you so much for coming on the show and telling us a little bit more about it.
Helene Nørlem: Thank you so much for having me and have a good day.