An app that treats rabbit holes as something to manage — not just suppress. It combines a focused todo/pomodoro flow with ADHD-aware guardrails (food, sleep, obligations) and a “parking lot” for curiosities that show up mid-session. Optional browser tooling catches digital rabbit holes at the click.

The problem

Rabbit holes are hard to leave because of time blindness, task-switching paralysis, unfinished-project overwhelm, neglected priorities, mental crashes, lost thought paths, and emotional fallout (guilt, skipped meals, ruined sleep, missed deadlines).

Useful strategies already exist: timers, parking ideas instead of chasing them, clear intentions before starting, and sometimes intentionally leveraging deep dives.

Core loop

  1. Start with intention — Estimate a pomodoro and write a clear session goal (rich text: bullets, checklists, numbered steps). Optionally use NLP/SMART-style checks so the goal is specific enough to stay accountable.
  2. Session widget — App shrinks to a small overlay: mute, ticking timer, and a chat-style parking lot for ideas/questions mid-focus. Sites and apps unrelated to the intention are blocked.
  3. Optional ambience — White/brown noise for the session.
  4. Finish early — Celebrate with boosts; optionally upload a screenshot of progress (personalizable).
  5. Pause with a plan — Name the distraction/emergency and set a return reminder (e.g. “delivery in 5 min”, “short walk 10 min”); alarm if they don’t come back.
  6. Bail with breadcrumbs — On early exit, log what was done and leave breadcrumbs so the task is easy to resume.
  7. Extend carefully — Extra focus time is allowed when energy is high, but capped, and blocked from eating into food windows, bedtime (−30 min max), and time-sensitive commitments.
  8. After the task — Review parking-lot notes now, or schedule them into intentional rabbit-hole time. Turn notes into tasks, file them, search them, or ask AI to declutter.

Personalization

  • Daily food windows (by chronotype/shift)
  • Sleep window (hard stop before bed)
  • Day-start capture of time-sensitive and recurring obligations (with multi-reminders to break hyperfocus)
  • Breaks between tasks (walk, water, stretch, nap) plus palette cleansers for context switching
  • Intentional rabbit-hole slots (daily/weekly; e.g. commute Wikipedia deep dives)
  • Distraction tracking to recalibrate strategies
  • Reward points tied to completions, unlocking personal reward goals

Browser extension (digital rabbit holes)

Set a browsing intention, track navigation, and when a click looks like a rabbit hole, ask why and confirm before continuing. Bookmark tooling can add “read later” times and reminders. Design and typography should stay dyslexia-friendly.

Habit gap

People who aren’t used to mindfulness or parking thoughts mid-loop need gentle scaffolding to build the parking-lot habit — frictionless capture in the session widget is the wedge.