By: Niveja Assalaarachchi, News Writer

In early May, the productivity app Flint was released exclusively on the Apple App Store to iPhone users worldwide. Sold for a one-time fee, the app was developed by North Vancouver local James Smith to work for people with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD affects many individuals commonly starting in childhood. People with ADHD may experience challenges with organization, prolonged attention, or have trouble sitting still. Additionally, people with ADHD may often hyperfixate on certain tasks until completion, or until a goal is reached. This disorder affects roughly 1.8 million Canadians.  

Using AI, the app helps users intuitively organize daily tasks and activities of “low, medium, or high focus” into a schedule. The app also includes features such as colour coding tasks into projects, voice capture to note down activities, and an hourly tailored schedule, among other functions.

The Peak reached out to Smith to further understand the process that went into creating the app. Smith shared that developing the app came out of his own experience with productivity apps and hearing from people with ADHD in online circles. “I’d tried a lot of productivity tools over the years and kept running into the same gaps. Nothing quite fit how my brain works.” 

Smith added, “I spent time in the r/productivityapps and r/adhd subreddits reading through wish lists, complaints, feature requests. That shaped a lot of what Flint became. It wasn’t built from assumptions. It was built from what people said they needed and weren’t getting.” He highlighted features such as “single task mode” to minimize distractions, “easy rescheduling” to lighten the load of catch-up, and “calendar integration” for coordination between different platforms, which were added at the request of people on these subreddits. 

Smith underlined that what makes his app unique is that its features combine the “most useful pieces together in one place without overwhelming you.” He highlighted that a major feature of the app is the ability for users to report their own capacity, whether it be complete, depleted, or in the center. He argued this helps the app adjust to the user’s current state.

“The whole thing is built around one idea: your capacity changes day to day, and your planner should respond to that instead of ignoring it.”

— James Smith, developer of Flint

Smith said while he did not develop Flint with university students in mind, he recognized the difficulties of the environment. “University is one of the hardest environments for someone with ADHD. The structure that got you through school is suddenly gone, deadlines pile up, and nobody is chasing you.” Beyond the app’s “note-taking and project features,” Smith noted that Flint’s ability to track mood data over time could be very important for students pursuing tertiary education. “Being able to see patterns in your own energy and focus, when you’re most productive, when you consistently crash, gives you something concrete to work with. For a student managing their own well-being, that’s a genuinely useful self-monitoring tool.”

In terms of the app’s widespread accessibility, Smith said that bringing Flint to Android devices was “on the list.” Additionally, he shared that the cost of the app was something he mulled over. “The alternative most apps go with is a subscription, and subscriptions are actually a real problem for people with ADHD,” sharing that a subscription system can be easily forgotten and neglected. “A single payment of $5.99, roughly the cost of a coffee, felt more honest.”