The short version
Todoist is a general task manager built for steady, gamified productivity. Lunar is a capacity planner for ADHD women that filters your list to what you can actually do today. If your brain is consistent, Todoist is fantastic. If it isn't, the karma system quietly turns the app into a shame engine.
What Todoist does well
- Natural language input. "Email Sarah every Tuesday at 9am" just works.
- Filters, labels, projects. Power users can build any view they want.
- Cross-platform sync. iOS, Android, web, Mac, Windows, watch — all in real time.
- Integrations. Calendar, Slack, Gmail, hundreds more.
Where Todoist stops for ADHD
- Karma + streaks reward consistency you don't have. An ADHD brain on a luteal week can't be consistent. Watching your karma drop is just one more failure signal.
- Overdue tasks pile up forever. By Friday you're staring at 14 red overdue items from a week your brain wasn't online for. Each one is another small shame hit.
- No energy or cycle awareness. Todoist treats every Tuesday identically. Your brain doesn't.
- "Reschedule overdue" is a manual job. ADHD women routinely spend 20 minutes shuffling overdue tasks instead of doing them.
Side by side
| Feature | Todoist | Lunar |
|---|---|---|
| Built for ADHD women | General audience | Yes — specifically |
| Cycle awareness | No | Yes — phase-aware |
| Energy-based filter | No | Yes — 4 levels |
| Karma / streak pressure | Core mechanic | None by design |
| Overdue handling | Manual reschedule | Filtered out gracefully |
| AI task breakdown | Limited (AI assistant) | Yes (Pro) |
| Body doubling sessions | No | Yes |
| Natural language input | Best in class | Standard |
| Cross-platform sync | Everywhere | iOS (Android in progress) |
| Free tier | Limited | Free, no card required |
Why Lunar exists
Todoist was built for project-management productivity. It assumes you can decide what to do today by looking at a list. For ADHD women, the deciding is the bottleneck. On a luteal-phase exhausted day, "look at 23 tasks and pick the right 3" is itself impossible.
Lunar inverts it. You answer two questions — cycle phase + current energy — and the list gets filtered down to what fits. No karma. No overdue red. No 47-item backlog screaming at you.
Why Karma actively harms ADHD women
Todoist's Karma system gives you points for completing tasks on time and takes them away for overdue tasks. For neurotypical users with consistent output, this is a gentle nudge. For ADHD women on a cycle, it's a shame engine with a predictable monthly schedule.
Every luteal phase, when dopamine drops and task initiation gets harder, your karma score drops. Every period week, when you're managing symptoms and reduced capacity, the overdue count grows. Then the follicular phase arrives and you spend half of it catching up and re-planning instead of producing at your peak. The system is fighting your neurobiology, not supporting it.
What a real week looks like
Todoist, Tuesday, luteal phase. You open the app. Karma: 742 (down from 801 last week). 8 overdue tasks highlighted in red. You know you should tackle them but you can't initiate. You reschedule them to Thursday. Again. The list is 32 tasks long and all of them feel equally urgent and equally impossible. You close the app.
Lunar, same Tuesday. You check in: "luteal" + "low energy." Your list shows 3 tasks: reply to one email, complete one small deliverable, drink water. Everything else is filtered out. You can see exactly where to start. You do 2 of the 3. No karma hit. No red counter. Tomorrow is its own day.
Common questions
Can I import my Todoist tasks into Lunar?
Not via direct integration currently — you'd manually add your active tasks to Lunar. Most users don't port their full backlog over; they start fresh with what's actually relevant right now. The act of re-entering tasks forces a triage that's useful on its own. A 200-task Todoist backlog usually becomes 20 real tasks when you have to type them again.
Does Lunar have recurring tasks like Todoist?
Yes, basic recurrence is supported. Todoist's natural-language recurrence ("every 2nd Tuesday") is more sophisticated — if complex scheduling is core to your workflow, Todoist wins that feature comparison outright. Lunar's strength is what happens to the recurring task on the day it appears: it only shows up if it matches your current energy level.
What about Todoist for work, Lunar for personal?
This is actually the most common split among users who've tried both. Todoist holds work projects with hard deadlines, team visibility, and calendar integration. Lunar holds personal tasks, flexible work, and the daily planning flow — especially useful during luteal weeks when the full Todoist backlog is overwhelming. The apps don't compete; they cover different contexts.
If you came from Todoist
The most common move: keep Todoist for work projects with hard deadlines (where its filters, integrations, and karma-as-accountability earn their keep with a team) and use Lunar for the daily "what am I actually doing today" question. The luteal week is when the difference shows up most clearly. Try Lunar through one full cycle before deciding.