r/AppleReminders

Edit: added YouTube link to Today’s Priorities Smart List inspiration

Just sharing if anyone is interested in using any component of this.

After years of using Things, Todoist, TickTick, etc. I decided to move to completely native Apple apps for productivity. The reasoning was mainly centered on privacy/security concerns with the other apps.

The flow is “simple.” Task gets parked in inbox, triaged at daily shutdown into work or home sub folder based on context. Next day in the morning prep session, I move up the scaffold from time horizon, priority triage, and then slide things into today. The today’s priorities displays 1-3-5 prioritization. Today’s overview shows the context or time block I intend to do the task (iCal is time blocked into the subsections listed in today’s overview)

Smart lists are leveraged across everything so it’s mainly click and drag tasks aside from the initial triage.

I also leverage a notebook because I enjoy the feel of it but I only write down my 1-3-5 in there every day.

Project management is OneNote for work, and apple notes for personal.

I have used this for roughly 60 days now and have stress tested it under heavy task load across domains. Pretty good but I’m sure all make adjustments in the future.

Sources:
-I follow Carl Pullein on YouTube and use some of his ideas.
-Moscow matrix for prioritization, mixed with 1-3-5 method.
-GTD
-“Today’s priorities” was ripped off from another YouTube video https://youtu.be/zGyeGgqHKT8?is=jNKIIQ6uNv2LQ54b
-Cal Newport deep work and time blocking.

You wrote down all the things you need to do. Now you’re staring at the list. The list doesn’t fit on the screen so you’re thinking, there might be something I’m not seeing. So you scroll up and down. Then you try dragging. Productivity gurus tell you “your list is too long.” But the things you need to do are still there.

What if you thought of it as a task pool? It’s not ordered yet, right? Worse, it looks ordered, but it’s ordered wrong. So you’re trying to drag things up and down and fix the order on the screen, or you have to read the entire list every time you want to pick a task.

I don’t know about you, but seeing the entire list distracts me. I was just about ready to focus on something and instead I learned that I have 12 other things to do. That’s the last thing I need! I only need to know what’s the one thing to start with.

I do it differently. Instead I compare reminders, two at a time, “which of these is more important?” Then my phone shows me just the top reminder. It’s a free app I built called Task Compass.

Just launched AI Reminder Pro on the App Store and looking for honest feedback.

The core idea: voice isn't a feature — it's the whole platform. Speak naturally and the app handles the rest.

"Do Walmart shopping Saturday morning" → opens your grocery template, surfaces your Favorites from past trips, schedules the reminder

"Remind me to call Dr. Smith next Tuesday at 2pm" → doctor visit reminder, clinic phone tappable directly from the card

"Walk the dog every morning at 7" → daily recurring task, set in one sentence

Other things it does:

- Daily Briefing — reads your day aloud each morning through AirPods (overdue first, then today)

- Receipt scanning — snap a photo, grocery catalog builds itself

- Smart home screen — Overdue / Today / Next 2 Weeks grouped automatically

- Calendar view — day, week, month with reminder dots

- Hearing-aid friendly — audio routes to Bluetooth hearing aids and Airpods by default (rare in reminder apps)

Free, no account, all data on your device.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/ai-reminder-pro/id6763922421

Genuinely open to feedback — what's missing, what's confusing, what works.

Hey r/AppleReminders - back with the update most of you asked for after the first post.

Widgets are live (Home + Lock Screen). Widgets for today's progress, heatmaps, habit streaks, weekly bars - across every size iOS offers, including the inline Lock Screen slot next to the date. This was the #1 ask in comments and DMs, and honestly the feature gap I knew the app had.

Here's how I've ended up using them after a month:

• Lock Screen inline (the line next to the date): "X habits left" - the subtlest nudge possible. Lives in your peripheral vision every time the phone wakes; you stop missing habits without ever feeling pushed.
• Lock Screen rectangular: the dot tracker for "habits today" is the one that's stuck for me - you see how many are pending at a glance without opening anything.
• Small Habit Tracker widget: pin one habit you're trying not to break. The ⚡ streak number is the prompt - seeing "⚡17" every time I unlock has done more for consistency than any in-app screen.
• Medium Habit tracker widget: two habits side-by-side, or this-week bar + a single habit, for a proper dashboard.

Daily Digest (opt-in). One notification a day. Today's completion + today's habits. Off by default. I'm tired of apps that try to retain me via push, didn't want to build another one.

Customizable card order in Overview. Drag whatever matters to you to the top. A few of you wanted Today pinned so the app could double as a glance surface - that works now.

Smaller fixes from earlier feedback also shipped: hide/exclude lists from stats (big if you have archived lists skewing things), tab nav reliably returns to each section's home, Perfect Day streak logic is more forgiving on edge cases.

Still on-device, still EventKit, still no account, still one-time purchase.

One thing worth sharing with this sub regardless of whether you use ReminderStats: recurring reminders silently rot. People set "Take vitamins daily" in 2023, and two years later it has a 14% completion rate but they never see that number - so it keeps firing and getting swiped. The single most useful thing building this has done for my own setup is letting me audit and delete half my recurring list. If you've never done that audit in any tool, it's worth an afternoon.

A few things I'm weighing for next - would love this sub's read on what to prioritize:

1. Quick-add reminders from inside the app, or keep it pure analytics?
2. Focus timer - pomodoro-style, tied to a specific reminder or habit, with the session counted toward your stats.
3. Weekly / Monthly summary notification - a slower rhythm to complement Daily Digest, for people who don't want a daily ping.
4. Shareable achievements + localization - Wrapped-style cards for streak milestones, plus translations beyond English.

Link in comments. Biggest thanks again to everyone from the first post who actually opened the app and told me what was broken - every shipped feature above came from a comment or DM.