It started at the dinner table.

Laptop open, sketching UI ideas in this alien-cover notebook I picked up from Dollar Tree — my girlfriend insisted I get it, and honestly the cover slaps — when I started thinking about something one of the kids asked me a few weeks back.

She wanted a chore chart.

My first thought was “this isn’t going to work.” A piece of paper on the fridge? Nobody’s remembering that. But I followed through anyway. We talked basics: who does what, when, what’s the reward. It lasted maybe a few days before it quietly died on the refrigerator door.

So there I am at the table, staring at nothing, and it clicks. Not a paper chart. An app. Leaderboards. Weekly progress comparisons. A reward system that actually means something to kids. Something that makes doing chores feel less like… chores.

Then I remembered: everyone in this house has ADHD.

Oh no.

Here’s the thing though — I think that’s exactly why this could work. I’m diagnosed too, so I know how the ADHD brain responds to dopamine loops, streaks, and visible progress. But I also know that my experience isn’t everyone’s experience, so I started doing the research anyway. Every diagnosis is different.

What I kept noticing while looking at existing chore apps is that most of them are easy to game. You can mark tasks done before they’re actually done. They’re built for individuals, not households. And they don’t account for the kind of brain that needs a reason to care right now, not just a reminder.

That’s the gap I’m building for.

The app is called HabitHive, and I’m building it in Saltcorn — a low-code, open-source platform that most developers haven’t heard of. Paired with n8n for automations and hosted on Linode, it’s about as indie as it gets. I’ll be documenting the whole build here: the wins, the mistakes, and whatever chaos the kids introduce into the testing phase.

Let’s see if I can make chores actually stick.