tangent gathers every idea, task, and impulse the moment it surfaces — then threads them back when they matter most. Built for the ADHD brain.
No spam. Launch pricing + founding-member discount for waitlist only.
The thesis
The ADHD brain isn't broken.
It's a different kind of brilliant —
one that needs the right net to catch what it creates.
How it works
tangent follows it from the moment it appears to the moment it becomes something real.
Scatter
Tap once, speak, or type. The moment it's out of your head, tangent categorises it automatically — task, idea, errand, or feeling — and parks it.
Thread
The Connection Engine runs in the background, finding links between what you just captured and what you thought three weeks ago. No search required.
"could noise design be neurodivergent-friendly?"
↗ connects to your idea todayKnow
Over time, Pattern Mirror builds a picture of how your brain actually works — your peak window, your real time estimate, your recurring thoughts.
2:00–3:45pm is when you do your best deep work
Tasks take ×2.3 longer than you estimate. Plan accordingly.
What it does
Brain dump
Text or voice. The moment a thought surfaces, park it. tangent categorises it — task, idea, errand, feeling — so your head stays clear.
Connection Engine
tangent surfaces the connection from three weeks ago — the thought that links to what you're working on now. The insight you didn't know you needed.
Focus
Set an intention. Let the timer ring. When a tangent interrupts, park it in one tap and come back. The "I'm Stuck" hub handles the rest.
Pattern Mirror
Your peak window. Your time multiplier. The thought that keeps coming back. tangent builds self-knowledge over time — automatically.
The I'm Stuck hub
ADHD paralysis is real. Instead of pushing through it alone, tangent gives you five specific interventions — each targeting a different kind of stuck.
Give it a task. Get 6 concrete steps, each under 15 minutes. Broken down by tangent — ADHD-friendly, no vague "just start" advice.
Task ShrinkerCan't start because it's boring? Pick a reframe: novelty, urgency, competition, or puzzle. Tricks your dopamine system instead of fighting it.
Dopamine-awareRejection Sensitive Dysphoria in full swing? Write it out. tangent holds it with you, then gently reframes before it spirals.
Emotionally safeOften the block is physical. Log your energy, hunger, tension, and hydration. Over time, Pattern Mirror learns your body-brain correlations.
Body-brain linkSet your intention and work alongside other tangent users in real time. No talking required. Presence is enough for most ADHD brains.
Live presenceA day in the life
8:21am · Morning brain dump
Seven things land in your inbox — two tasks, three ideas, one errand, one feeling. Categorised automatically. Head clear before the first coffee is done.
10:05am · Focus session
You set "finish the proposal draft" as your intention. Four tangents interrupt — each caught in one tap. You never lose the thread of what you were doing.
2:30pm · The freeze
The afternoon slide hits. You open the I'm Stuck hub. Task Shrinker breaks the next step into six tiny pieces. Interest Hack frames it as a puzzle. You're moving again in eight minutes.
9:45pm · End of day
End of Day shows you what your brain created today — 14 thoughts captured, 72 minutes of focus, one recurring idea that's surfaced five times this month. Pattern Mirror notices it might be worth promoting to a project.
How the app speaks to you
"need to reply to Sam about the project but also the kitchen is a mess and I forgot to call mum and—"
Caught. 4 things parked. Back to what you were doing.Past-you wrote this 3 weeks ago: "urban planning article — how cities could be designed for neurodivergent sensory needs." It might connect to what you're building now.
Time's up. You planned 45 minutes. 3 tangents parked along the way. Good work staying in it.
Your focus peak is 2:00–3:45pm. Tasks take about ×2.3 longer than you estimate. That's not a flaw — it's data.
No streaks. No gamification. No hustle. Just your brain, working with you.
Early access
"The Connection Engine alone is worth it. I wrote a half-baked idea in January and tangent surfaced it three months later when it was suddenly exactly what I needed."
"I've tried every productivity app. They all assumed I work in a straight line. tangent gets that I don't — and actually works with that."
"The Body Double feature is something I didn't know I needed until I used it. Knowing someone else is also working right now gets me started every single time."
"The time multiplier showing ×2.4 finally stopped me from overbooking myself. I print that number and stick it on my monitor. Real data changes behaviour."
"Task Shrinker is the only thing that reliably gets me past task paralysis. Six steps under 15 minutes each. It sounds simple but nothing else has worked like this."
"No streaks, no guilt trips, no '3-day streak broken!' notifications. Just a quiet tool that helps. I didn't know how much I needed that until I had it."
"The Connection Engine alone is worth it. I wrote a half-baked idea in January and tangent surfaced it three months later when it was suddenly exactly what I needed."
"I've tried every productivity app. They all assumed I work in a straight line. tangent gets that I don't — and actually works with that."
"The Body Double feature is something I didn't know I needed until I used it. Knowing someone else is also working right now gets me started every single time."
"The time multiplier showing ×2.4 finally stopped me from overbooking myself. I print that number and stick it on my monitor. Real data changes behaviour."
"Task Shrinker is the only thing that reliably gets me past task paralysis. Six steps under 15 minutes each. It sounds simple but nothing else has worked like this."
"No streaks, no guilt trips, no '3-day streak broken!' notifications. Just a quiet tool that helps. I didn't know how much I needed that until I had it."
Built differently
Every design decision is a commitment to the people using it.
Shame isn't a feature. The ADHD brain doesn't need another thing to feel bad about missing. No counters, no XP, no leaderboards.
The Tangent List isn't a todo list. It's a brain inbox. Things pass through — park, did, release — and that's enough.
One subscription unlocks the full app — capture, connections, patterns, and every tool we ship. No "Pro" tier, no nickel-and-diming on features.
Membership
Every capture, connection, and reframe runs on tangent's engine — not a static notes app with features bolted on later.
Why subscribe? tangent isn't a static notebook. When you brain-dump, tangent categorises and remembers your thought. The Connection Engine compares meaning across your history. RSD Shield, Pattern Mirror, and Task Shrinker run in the cloud so they stay sharp as your library grows. Those costs are ongoing — a single membership covers them so we never sell your data or clutter the app with ads.
What you won't get: usage meters on every tap, locked "premium" features, or streak guilt. Pay for membership, use the whole product.
Monthly
$11.99 / month
Cancel anytime. Full app included.
Annual
$89.99 / year
About $7.50/mo — same full access, less decision fatigue.
Prices are targets while we're in beta — final numbers may shift slightly with real usage data, but the approach won't: one membership, full access. Demo mode in development builds stays free for testing without Supabase.
Questions
Notes apps are retrieval systems — you file things, then search for them later. tangent is a living system. It categorises thoughts automatically, surfaces connections unprompted, and builds a self-model of how your brain works over time.
You never organise anything. You never file anything. Things just flow in, get threaded, and resurface when relevant.
The app is built by someone with ADHD, for people with ADHD. Every design decision — from the one-tap capture to the shame-free tone to the I'm Stuck hub — comes from lived experience, not research papers.
That said, we make no medical claims. tangent is a tool, not a treatment. It works best as a complement to whatever else you use to manage your brain.
Every tangent you capture is remembered in a way tangent can search by meaning — not just keywords. When you capture something new, the Connection Engine compares it against your full history to find related past thoughts, even if they use completely different words.
It's the difference between a keyword search (which misses everything) and a meaning search (which finds the connection you didn't know you were making).
Your tangents are stored in a private, encrypted database (Supabase/PostgreSQL). tangent processes your content to categorise and connect it, but your data is never used to train outside systems and is never shared with third parties.
You can export or delete your data at any time. You own everything you put in.
tangent is subscription-based because the full product runs in the cloud — categorising captures, powering the Connection Engine, generating RSD readings, detecting patterns, and more. We're planning about $11.99/month or $89.99/year for full access (see pricing).
There is no free tier with crippled features and no "Pro" upsell. One membership unlocks the app. Waitlist members get a founding discount at launch; we're also planning a short trial when we ship on the stores.
During development you can try demo mode without an account — local categorisation, nothing synced to the cloud. In production, the features that make tangent different (connections, RSD reframe, pattern detection, meaning-based search) need an active membership and tangent's backend.
We're not building ad-supported or data-sale models. Membership is how we keep the product aligned with ADHD users, not advertisers.
We're in active development and working toward an iOS beta in 2026, followed by Android and a full public launch. The waitlist is the best way to stay updated — and waitlist members get access before the general public.
Join the waitlist — founding-member pricing when we launch, one email only.
No spam. One email when we launch.