Latest / ADHDtime On Air / ADHDtime on Air: Can AI Really Help ADHD? The Goblin Tools Story
Transcript
- Daniella Karidi, PhD: Hi, thank you so much for joining me today. Welcome to ADHD Time on Air. I'm joined by the creator of Goblin Tools, and we're going to talk about the collection of AI-powered tools designed specifically for people to break down tasks, estimate time, understand tone, navigate everyday executive function challenge. I use them. And I want to hear about with these amazing technologies and what brought them to life. So please introduce yourself and tell us tell more for the people that haven't had a chance to sh to learn about your tools. What are they for? Bram: so yes, thank you for having me on. I'm Bram. So I created Goblin Tools almost three years ago now. and Goblin Tools is a set of tools specifically for neurodivergent people to help them with you know the daily struggles that they have. I need to start a task but I'm stuck in in paralysis of whatever whatever I I know I have what I have to do, but I kind of don't know what the first step is. It'll help you with that. I need to write an email, but I I don't know how to formulate it exactly because it's for my boss. And I'm not in the right mindset for that, it'll help you with that. So it's a whole set of small tools that are very easy to use to try to help you get over those small hurdles that you're facing day day in, day out. Daniella Karidi, PhD: So what led you to develop these tools? Bram: so I've I've have a lot I've a lot of friends with various forms of neurodiverse for diversity. So ADHD, autism, all the way up to O C D, BBD, you know, a wide variety of them in very various mixes, as nowadays is very common, you know, autism and ADHD in particular c come very common co-occurrence. so after, you know, enough years in that kind of community, they all talk amongst themselves and out loud about what they're struggling with on a day-to-day basis. They're all very vocal about that. You just hear like, I'm I'm today sucks because of this small thing that I'm having to do, you know? and then just around the time, you know, the first real public version of ChatGPT came out, I realized, hey, I can help some some of them with some of that stuff with this new technology. I'm a software developer, so I was like, okay, you know what, I will try that out. you know, I've experience with software development and AI. I can probably help them out with this now that this new technology has gotten better. And I built, you know, the first version of the the magic to do list and asked them and they all immediately went like yes, this is fantastic. We need this. I posted about it on Twitter and hundreds of people went, Can we have this now, please? So within a day this was this had an enormous audience of people going like, Can we have this please? so I I built it, put it online and people have been using it ever since. The formalizer was built the day after, immediately like, that's the second thing I can help with. And it's just been expanding since. Daniella Karidi, PhD: What are the thoughts for the future? Bram: of course Goblin Tools is going to keep running and is going to keep expanding with the occasional new tool. I try not to overexpand too quickly. so it this this will most likely slowly grow, but I want to keep that slow. one of the main things I know was a problem with neurodivergent people and software they use is it changes too often nowadays. And it's whenever there's a change, I noticed this even in my own audience. even if I change the color of a button, people notice and they go like, my thing that I'm relying on is changing and I don't like that. So Goblin Tools is always going to evolve very, very slowly. that's definitely part of the plan. And try to keep it as useful as I can keep it for the people who use it. Daniella Karidi, PhD: I love that. as a neurodivergent per person and as someone that has a lot of clients, I know that change i is problematic, but things still have to evolve. So the idea of evolving slowly as a solution versus freezing is is really good. a lot of these productivity apps that you see out there push motivation and discipline. And I did not see that in your in your tools at all. Bram: Yeah. Exactly. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Those two t components are not there. And so you understood something about that struggle that you put in your design that I really appreciate. So tell me a bit about choosing what what what to focus on. Bram: most of the what I've what I chose to focus on initially was okay, I know some of these struggles I can help with right now. So the these were I don't want to call them low-hanging fruit, because that's not what they are, but they were the ones that I that I figured okay, I can help the most, the quickest, by building these things first. and that became, you know, the magic to do, the formalizer, the judge. And things have expanded since then. But those first ones were ones I know that okay, this is where the technology is right now, that I can help with right now. That wasn't possible before. I'll start with these. And then as technology improves and I my my knowledge improves, and you know, people tell me, hey, it would be great if this also existed. All people will never stop doing that. it expands over time with just okay, this is another tool that I think I can make really simple and accessible that will do something useful. I'll do that next. So that's always where it's going, is is trying to figure out okay, how can I make an an improvement to my to the people's lives? in the simplest possible form imaginable, so that it's also the lowest effort to use it. Daniella Karidi, PhD: As as an engineer and in a non neurodivergent one, what has been surprising you the most about the responses you've been getting? Bram: I mean obviously the scale at which it's now used was a was is was definitely not part of the original plan. this went from, you know, something I built to see can I use this to help my friends and people like them and now I'm serving, you know, nearly two million people a month with with Goblin Tools. So that's definitely taken a huge scale. that's been a surprise. People finding use in it even in categories and places I didn't expect them to. I've had a lot of people, especially early on, that came up to me. Nowadays that's no longer a surprise when they do that. But people c people with autism, for example, coming up to me and going, Hey, your your judge tool was incredibly useful for my RSD, for my rejection sensitive dysphoria, because it allowed me to get a second perspective on what was going on, even though I already knew that, but it's it helped me control my feelings better. Which was an enormous which like was a surprise to me, because that's not why I built it originally, but it was very clear that yes. This is something that people use it for. And I noticed that with all of the tools. People even going, hey, I'm getting the formalizer to rephrase my own words back to me, because that gives me a sep a second perspective. Even though it's the same content, rephrasing it gives me a second perspective. So it became this sort of support tool, even though it was built for communication. I see that with all with all of the tools over time, as they all over time get used by in more and more different ways that I didn't think of originally. Daniella Karidi, PhD: love that. I think that there's some skit I saw on social media where a woman says something and then a man says like you know, something and you see how they each interpret it in the wrong way, even though there was the same five words. and they build a whole interpretation. and and my first response when I saw it was, my god, they should put it in the tool and get and see how How they might both have the wrong interpretation, or how how they might be both judging it in a wrong way. so I I do see a lot of ADHDers being early adopters of technology. I don't know if or no neurondurgent people have been seeing that a lot you you know when I was younger and now even more. do you think there's a reason why ADHDs are Bram: Yeah, exactly. Daniella Karidi, PhD: or nor divergent are more open to adopting these new technologies, but then don't want you to change the technology after they adopt it. Bram: That's a great question. I think part of the part of the the early adoption drive is definitely because, you know, ooh, it's new and shiny. Like we I've never gonna deny that. Like that is definitely part of the drive from someone of ADHD is like, this is something new, it's therefore interesting, so I'm gonna take a look at it. another thing that I think matters a lot is that up until recently, essentially, you know, the last few years, there was very little built with them in mind in the first place. So whenever a new app came up, it's like, this is something actually built for me and my problems which didn't exist before. So it's not so much, this is the next new thing. It's this is actually a new thing that opens an entire category of things that never existed before. So that's why I think that there's definitely that drive to to to adopt things early, simply because you know, there's now something where there was never something before. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Mm. Yep. So I know AI gets criticized a lot for mistakes, and many ADHDs still find it incredibly useful. how do you think we balance this mistake level and the usefulness of of the tools in general, of the AI tools? Bram: Yeah. A lot depends on the type of tool that it is. you know, depends on what you're trying to do with the AI. If you're trying to, you know, diagnose a medical problem, you can't afford to have the D AI be wrong. unless the the person using it is, you know, a highly experted doctor. you don't want the AI to be wrong about a medical thing. But when that's for example, a task breakdown on cleaning my kitchen, it's allowed to be wrong because the person actually already knows what they what they have to do. And having a list that is wrong is a better situation to start from than a blank page. So even if the AI is completely wrong, that is a s you know, it's safe, but it's also for them still a benefit to have something that is already filled in that they can go, no, that's wrong, it should be this. That's a much easier thing to do than start from a blank page. So the the fact that it's wrong is, you know, I'm I try to make it less less wrong over time, of course. But it's not necessarily a blocker for the use case. And that goes for all of these. If you s if you put something in the formalizer and it formalizes and you know you don't quite agree with what it did, you'll say, hey, I don't like this is not how I would have said that. But because you started from something that already existed, it's a much, much lower effort to do than write it from scratch. So yeah, that's where that's where I'm coming from with especially within Goblin tools. The AI is allowed to be wrong, and it most likely will be frequently be wrong, but that's fine. It still does the job even when it's wrong. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Yeah, I I have I appreciate that insight. I I say something similar when I talk about memory to my clients. when I say, you know, if you're not gonna write it down, you have like a hundred percent chance of forgetting the information, if you're not gonna put effort to remember it. but if you write it down and can't find the piece of paper, yeah, there's the always the risk of the strategy not working. But if you don't do anything, there's zero s chance of success. Bram: Exactly. Yep. Absolutely. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Yeah. if if you were given a magic wand now, in the form of this more advanced AI or more advanced technology, you and you can redesign one of our everyday systems that we all lived with, okay? What would you redesign? Bram: That is a very good question. I feel like this kind of goes into something I'm already doing on the side of Goblin Tools. So Goblin Tools is kind of my side project. That's what I what I do when I'm not working on my day job. In my day job I run I run a company in the UK, specifically around building technology to solve problems that people don't necessarily consider problems. it's those like everyday frictions. something that is annoying you, but that you never think is something that can be solved with with technology, those kind of human problems. And the the thing we're noticing there is you know, there are a million of them, but they're all really, really difficult to handle because you need really, really see in detail what is going on before you realise why it's a problem in the first place. So I don't think it would be a single massive problem to fix. You know, I there are all of course the huge amounts of problems that exist in the world, I'm not saying that. If I could solve if I could solve, you know, world hunger with a software problem, I would do it. but you know, these are usually a bit too big to try that with. But Daniella Karidi, PhD: Mm. Bram: A a lot of the small kind of everyday frictions, the things that annoy people, the things that are problems and that even harm people, but because they're built on, you know, policy and folklore and the way humans interact with each other are not necessarily solvable. That's what we're trying to solve. And so I I would probably ch more go towards can I have this magic wand for a million tiny things to solve a million small problems because that makes people's lives better on a day to day basis. Daniella Karidi, PhD: I d I I really appreciate the that that way of thinking and I would like to say that it's the opposite of the way my brain thinks because I always have to look at the big picture and struggle with finding the the details. Again, the neurodivergent brain. And then I then I after I see the big picture, I get stuck on the detail. But I do very much understand that if we could address the small pebbles, we could fill the pool kind of thing. It will allow us to get better in a bigger way. and that's a great insight. so I when I think about technology in general and how it's changing and the the you know, I was born before the internet, right? so I I'm thinking about the world of the future of you know what would the world will be in two years, in five years, in the world where my my kids will have kids, like the that kind of future world. How do you see the combination of technology and newer diversity in that future world, immediate or far or any version of that? Bram: That's just right now that's the most difficult question to answer imaginable because things are shifting so quickly and so massively. the introduction of AI, whatever you think of it on on like a day-to-day basis, the the capabilities it now gives has are going to create such a massive shift in the next few years that it's really hard to predict where it's going to go. this is, you know, people talk about the new industrial revolution. I do genuinely think that is the case. This is go the the world in ten years is going to look very different from what it looks What it looked like last year. So that makes any prediction, you know, guaranteed to be wrong. No matter what I say, it's going to be wrong. What I am excited for is that it gives the ability to create personal assistance to people that is going to be adapted to themselves rather than a generic tool. There's always going to be generic tools like goblin tools around simply because you want something that you can just jump into, do a thing with, and move away from. But over time, that's going to evolve. People or other things as well are going to evolve into hey, I have this personal assistant. on my phone that knows me and knows my situation and knows what I need help with. And that will over time help me do things better. It will it will say, okay, hey, your boss emailed something, you should email with something like this back, and this is how you've put it in a professional tone. So it will not necessarily take all of your brain power away. That's not going to be the goal. But help you out with all of those little bits of tasks that you need to do, little things to remember. all of that will be will be done more automatically and more intuitively because you've will have a system that knows you personally, not just some generic system. I think that's definitely something that we're going to be seeing in the next years. Daniella Karidi, PhD: I I I really think that's an important insight. the personalization of assistance and adoptivity. I spoke with someone in a in a different capacity in the world and we were talking about AI and technology, and one of their points was that if every if everything is going to become more unified in some ways, standardized, because we'll have all these technologies for everyone and they'll be more affordable, and that the neurodiverse brain might have an advantage. because it it will be different. I didn't know if I I kind of I didn't know if I bought that approach. I wasn't sure if I was kind of like buying that that that mindset. What are your thoughts about that? Bram: Honestly, I think it's going I I I think I would also disagree with that. because one of the whole points of AI is that it is a system that can adapt in the moment. It doesn't need a standardized communication pattern to be able to do something. It doesn't need a protocol. It it's it's language, it uses natural language. So you don't need something standardized to be able to use AI. It's the exact opposite. The less standardized things are, the more use you'll have out of it. So the way I see it there is. Neurodivergent people are still going to have a massive advantage because they're going to be able to use these systems more creatively, use them in ways that are less expected. The way a a neurotypical person is going to think, I can use this thing to speed up something I do at work. A neurodivergent people is going to say, Why do I need to do that thing in the first place? I'm gonna get my I my AI to do something completely different. You know, they tend to to to move things in different directions much quicker. And that's going to be the advantage because the AI will allow them to do that much quicker. But I don't think it'll be a standardization. if anything, it'll be more personalization, more flexibility. Daniella Karidi, PhD: And then when when when you're developing these tools, the the the the what are your thoughts specifically for that for the future? Is there any tools you're trying to add? Anything you're thinking about? I know you're doing it slowly, but and then I wrote to ask you, is there one that you use more than others, or is it only that you g let others use them, the goblin tools? Bram: I don't use them that often, but when I do use them, it's usually, you know, the formalizer or the judge are the ones I use most myself, simply because I don't really have that much of an issue with fast breakdown myself, for example. And I don't I'm I'm terrible at keeping to-do lists, weirdly. I'm horrible at keeping to-do lists. Even in my own app, I don't manage to keep them. So I just don't use the magic to do that often. I well of course I break sometimes do, but it's not like an everyday thing. The formalizer and the judge I use more often. the the the chef sometimes when I'm thinking, okay, I've got some stuff in my fridge, what the hell am I going to do with this today? It definitely helps me there too. but it is very much something built for the entire community, not just for myself, because I use it all the time. as for where it goes, I'm I listen to you know, I listen to my users, I listen to the community, I listen I you know, I still have an entire friend group both online and offline that have ADHD autism, all of these. So I listen to them. I see what are they still complaining about? What are they still finding difficult? I don't currently have a tool planters. There's some on my short, like on my list. but for me to be to implement the tool has to be very much okay. I now have this idea of how to do it really, really well. And I wouldn't do it before I have a good idea of how it would work really, really well. It sort of needs that lightning to hit of like, yes, this is what I need to put in there. And until until it does, it'll stay with the current nine that are in there. And once once that lightning hits, it'll be like a day of writing and it'll be in there. So it's one of those. It needs a lot of time to percolate before the next one shows up. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Just realized we didn't describe the nine tools for people. We are very we did the very ADHE thing on me and just ran with my questions and did not take a moment to describe to our listeners. I kind of assumed a lot of them use it or know it, but though let's let's go through them. Remind people what are the nine tools that are part of the of of the of the Globin tools. Bram: Yeah. so the the the three biggest ones, the three ones, the three most used ones by far are so the magic to do is was the original. it's a to-do list that you can type in, you know, you can organize your to-do list in there. And tool tasks can have subtasks. So you can organize, okay, to complete this task, I need to do this and this and this. But crucially the tool can do that for you. So if you fill in a task, you click the little magic wand button and it'll automatically break that down into steps. And with the Th there's a little slider with chili peppers that you can decide how spicy you are and how much you need it broken down. To say, okay, I t I'm having a very spicy day. I need extra steps and it'll try to break down opening my car door into seventeen steps if it tries, if it can. So to give you as much as possible you can just like start checking off. So that's the magic to do. the formalizer is entirely about trying communication. It's like I know what I'm trying to say, I can write it out, but it doesn't really sound right for who I'm trying to reach. I'll it'll take that piece of text and you can say I would like that to sound a bit more professional or a bit sillier or a bit more sarcastic, or I want this to sound a little more formal. Well, hence this is called a formalizer. so and it'll convert the text, keep the same content, try to keep your same intent, but make it that little change the tone a bit, just convert the tone. the judge takes a piece of text and will tell you how the emotions in it feel or how it should be interpreted emotionally. That is not a perfect system. So then nobody should ever think like, yeah, definitely the other person is angry if they type this, because it's a small tool, it has no context, but it helps you get an outside perspective on what was just said to you or what you're trying to say. It could be, I'm trying to send this email. How would that come across to someone else? It can tell you, yeah, in this email, you would sound angry or dismissive or or uninterested or all of these. it'll help you out with that. The professor is something that will try its best to tr to explain a concept to you. And that's one of those that okay, it's not just a knowledge tool, it's trying to give you a bit of information about what you're trying to ask about, but then also give you an example to put that in context. It's not just here is the Wikipedia article about this thing, because that's not really useful. It's here is what you're trying to what you're trying to get explained on a level that you pick. It's got the same kind of pepper slides. And it gives you as an explanation appropriate to you and an example of what that looks like in context. Just because that actually gives you an idea of what it looks like rather than, you know, if I ask about quantum mechanics without an example, I might be lost about that. there's the consultant, and the consultant is kind of similar, but instead of explaining something to you, it'll try to create a list of like the pros and the cons of what you're trying to get to. And then give based on those pros and the cons, try to give you some advice. To say like, should I do A or B? Okay, it'll give you the pros and the cons and go like, based on all of these, I think A is probably the better choice for you. all there just to sort of keep get you out of that mind block of I need to make a decision. How do I make this decision? I don't know. It you'll probably still disagree with it, but it'll give you something to start from rather than a blank page. there's the estimator that you can just give a task to or anything you're trying to do and it'll try its best to figure out how long that'll probably take. It's like, if I type in there wash my car, it'll say, that'll probably take you about an hour. If it's I need I need to fly from, you know, London to Los Angeles, that's that's a nine hour flight. You know, it'll tell you roughly how long something should take, just to also get you out of that. I don't know if I should start this task now because I've got something in in two hours that I need to be at. If the task only takes ten minutes, I can do it now. there's the compiler, which takes a brain dump. So you just ramble at it and you just type in whatever comes up in your brain and it'll organize that into a set of tasks. just a single list of hey, this is what you all said you need to do, this, this, this, and this. And you can then send that to the magic to do to add to your to-do list and break down if you need to. There's the chef, and the chef just takes a description of you know, ingredients you've got in your house. I've got, you know, I've got tortillas and some some pizza sauce in my house. What can I make with this? And it'll give you a recipe to follow. it is very often wrong. It'll give you something that'll vaguely work. Sometimes it gives you really good recipes, but it tries its best to give you something just to also get you in that mindset of okay, I can actually do something with this stuff that I have in my fridge or my pantry. With the tools I have, you can tell it, I I have a tortilla and and pizza sauce, but I don't have an oven. What do I do next? And it'll try to give you a recipe no matter what you say it as far as tools or constraints. and then the last one is the new one that I added a few weeks ago, which is the Taskmaster. And the Taskmaster came out of that idea that the the magic to do list is great, but a lot of people who you use it have a hundred items in there and they're all broken down by stuff. It becomes an overwhelming list. How do I start going through this one by one so I can focus on just one? And the Taskmaster tries to do that by giving you a single to do item to focus on. You can scroll through your list to get to pick the right one you want, you can break it down in the moment. And gives you a timer that you can also keep keep time of how long you've been working on it. So like, I'm gonna do this task now. You click the start, you start on it, at the end, you click done. Okay, I'm good, complete, move on to the next one. So it sort of gives you that that one task at a time. Here's what I what I in progression of what I need to do. So that's all nine, I think. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Yeah, love it. Love the description. I think they're very useful tools. I I I love the point pointing out which ones are the more popular and the fact that Chef gets it wrong. I I wanna say that I like to take pictures of my fridge before I go grocery shopping because I never remember what I have. And when I get to the store I I I can open the fridge picture and kind of look at what what's in there as a strategy. I try I I I took the the picture and put it in trying to say what can I make from what I have in the fridge. It didn't like it as much. so next next future, futures future solutions is is but I will say that that the tool I like was the breaking down tasks. and and I know that a lot of my my clients like that is one of their favorites too. I think that the Bram: Yeah. Daniella Karidi, PhD: The using the level of peppers of trying how much does a task need to be broken down. Sometimes tasks need a lot, and other times tasks don't need as much. Especially for me, if it's a new task, it needs more breaking down than if it's an old task. So so being able to manipulate that is not something I've seen in other or haven't seen in that way in other technologies. Bram: Yeah, exactly. Daniella Karidi, PhD: When when you play with these and you use them in everyday's life, they they mirror a lot of the executive functions. And when I give a tool for t to people, sometimes I get this response, well, then will they not be ever learned to do this themselves? so if we rely on these external tools to replace some of our executive functions, what are your thoughts about for people that say that? That if we're gonna do this externally, if we let if we let the AI help us make a decision or break down a task or any of those things, we'll never be able to learn to be better at doing it ourselves. Bram: Sh I I I that applies to some tools. You know, if if you use ChatGPT to to write a book for you, you're never going to learn proper writing technique. That's kind of inevitable. But there are many, many things that we do in daily life where that are not down to learning it or not learning it. something like, you know, a task breakdown. Yes, of course everyone or like by far most people know how to break down a task into subtasks. They know how to do that manually. But what What the tool does is take away the the effort, the mental fatigue, the the barrier to doing that. And that's not something you can learn. You can't learn to be less mentally fatigued by taking an entire list or by writing a long professional email. That's just not something that is learnable. So why not let the tool help with that? Because that'll that takes that gives you energy back. It's not about the learning, it's about giving the energy back. So yes, there are some some situations where you don't want to use AI too much because it'll stop you from learning what you're actually supposed to be learning. But in so many other ways it can just help you with something that you would otherwise have to spend energy on and that gives you that energy back. Daniella Karidi, PhD: I appreciate that insight. I I respond to that many times with I know how to make bread, but I still would go to the bakery and get it. it it doesn't mean that I don't and and and that I don't think everyone needs to know how to make bread. It's okay to have bakers that specialize in making bread. And we don't all need that skill. so in some ways it it it if it's follows that. I also know how to change my tire, but still appreciate when someone else does it for me because it's quicker, easier, and less exhausting. so so I think that the insight of both the cost of doing a task by yourself and also we don't always need to know to do everything ourselves is kind of the way I see AI. I'm also severely dyslectic. So I do a lot of spelling mistakes and having the spell checker, you know, that when it when it became an everyday thing. When I grew up it wasn't an everyday thing. And now it we all use it, not only people with with Bram: Exactly. Daniella Karidi, PhD: with reading and learning problems. So I see a lot of these techno technologies developed to help people with challenges or disabilities or special needs and then finding that the whole population can benefit from them. Bram: Yeah. What you're pointing out with the spell checker in particular is sort of a very good point there. Is this this kind of s this kind of pattern existed long before current AI appeared. Even before before you know computers existed, people were using assistive technology. And nobody was thinking, you are using a wheelchair, you won't learn to walk now. Like nobody was thinking that. that technology has always existed, assistive technology in many, many forms. AI just allows you to do it for some more what used to be called what used to be considered intellectual tasks. It it allows you to have that that extra assistance. The sis the sis the the pattern behind it is still the same. It's still the helping people do something that they that is not something they need to learn. That is something that they have to do no matter what. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Yeah. so now that you've been doing this for a little bit and you had a lot more exposure to the neurodivergent world than you had before, and also using your engineer brain, kind of what you wished other people that are just joining the the the technology slash neurodivergent world knew? Like what you would you wish they would knew, the new developers that are coming on on or the new users. Bram: I get a lot of questions from developers. So you know, I get a lot of engineers coming to me going, like, hey, how did you build this? Why did you build it this way? especially neurodivergent engineers coming, I'm building this thing for people with ADHD. Can you like give me some tips or advice or this or that? There are some things I I have to tell every single one of them, and it's about activation energy. And activation energy is the the effort it takes to go from doing nothing to doing the task. And the more steps you introduce and the more the more individual tasks you need to do before you get to that, the harder it gets and the less people will use it. So all of the the ever everyone I that I see that starts in this in this space starts out with we'll make a nice landing page and we'll make people log in and then they have to go through three steps and then need to do onboarding, you've lost 95% of your audience. They're gone. They'll never come back. Make this as immediate as possible because that's how people, especially ADHD autism how they use tools is if it doesn't help them within the first 30 seconds, they'll never come back to it. So that's what I what I what I want people to understand. And it's honestly true of of neuro neurotypical people as well. They want be they want things to be very obvious and immediately useful to them. And that allows them to then say it's going to be useful. that entirety of goblin tools is built with that idea in mind. If you go to the formalizer, it's you go goblin tools, you click formalizer, there's your entry box, there's your button to get it done. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Yeah. Bram: It takes you four clicks total and you've got your answer. If it's any more than that, I'm doing something wrong. it it it will scare my audience to start doing to start doing more than that. So that's why I try to keep that as as light as possible and I wish more people did that and more understood that better. Daniella Karidi, PhD: I love it. I I think that you're I mean you're speaking to the choir. I even in my intro sessions where I get people to meet me and decide if I'm the right coach for them, I make sure that they leave with something because I I think that that that is very critical and and I make sure that that happens in the beginning as close as possible. and I I do appreciate removing the traction between starting tasks. I think that understanding that the cost of starting something and the shifting between tasks is so heavy on the neurodivergent brain is a really important insight and I very much appreciate it. Bram: It is. It is. Yes. And that's kind of the point, is try to not make the tool feel like a task. Is it it's always switching tasks that causes delay and causes difficulty. If the tool is something you could just like hop in to get something done and come back out of, it doesn't feel like a task to do it. And that's always the goal. Daniella Karidi, PhD: And and one one of the questions I like to ask anyone on this when they come to my podcast is if you were going back to younger self before you got into Goblin, before you found yourself in the newer divergent world, what would you tell yourself if you need to start the now from the beginning? Bram: I don't know if I'd sell myself anything. the fact that it was that it went that quickly made it clear that like I had something that is red that is genuinely useful. I don't think I've made any major mistakes along the way. I maybe maybe in a few years I'll come back to that that sentiment and think, if I should have I should have done this differently. If I could tell my younger self anything, it would be try doing this, you know, a year a a year earlier or a year or two years earlier. The technology did already kind of exist then, it would have been more difficult to build. But that that would have given me an extra two years of helping people. it it would have been possible if I'd only like found out about it by that point. So I would probably tell if I could go back far enough, I would go back to, you know, twenty twenty Bram and say, Hey, you should build Goblin Tools, it'll work. that that would have d that's what I would love to be able to do. Daniella Karidi, PhD: I appreciate that. thank you so much for being a guest on the the podcast. Is there anywhere people can find the tools and f or find you if they want help? do you want to tell people where they can can get in touch with this information? Bram: Yeah, so the website is goblin.tools. all the tools are on there and they're available for free for anyone. there are apps on Apple and and Google and they're sold for two ninety nine. very cheap single purchase, so it's not a subscription. I don't like subscriptions for anything for neurodivergent people. It's a it's a huge anti-pattern. So there's no subscriptions anywhere on it. It's a single purchase and you're good lifetime. so that's the primary place. Go to goblin.tools, try things out. If you like them, keep using them. If you don't Close the site and move on. I think that's Daniella Karidi, PhD: I appreciate that. I I both appreciate the free version and the app version and the fact that there's no subscription. I've struggled with that very much. people keep on telling me you should have a membership and I really struggle with that. So I love that. I'm I I I do appreciate it being free version and an affordable version on the apps. And I I I'm thanking you both for being a guest and for developing those tools. Bram: Thank you for having me on and yep, my pleasure. Yeah.