Repeating Daily Checklist

Actions - Help & Questions
#1

I have a list of little things that I want to make sure I do at the end of each day.

[ ] Dishes in Dishwasher
[ ] Plug devices in that need to charge overnight
[ ] Check office for things that need to be put away

etc.

I’d like to be able to maintain this list in Drafts (maybe as a template?) and then generate the checklist each night around 10 p.m. (if that can be automated, great, if not, I can do it manually).

The general idea is “I want to be able to check all of these things off today and be able to re-use the same list again tomorrow.”

Has anyone already invented this wheel? If so, would you be so kind as to share?

#2

Do you want to reset the list each day or create a new list each day?

#3

I’m going to do something I usually look down on: redirect the question to a different app. I’m doing this only because I have a system set up for a similar task list, but I don’t use Drafts for it.

I have weekly checklist of items in Reminders. They alert me every Tuesday morning to do a series of tasks. As I check them off, they get marked as done for that day and automatically generate a new item for the following Tuesday morning. This works well because Reminders is on all my devices and is connected to Notifications. I have never let these tasks slip in the three years I’ve been using this system.

Is there a reason something like this (daily rather than weekly) wouldn’t work for you?

#4

I just need the list each day, it doesn’t matter to me if it’s the same list or a different one.

#5

I understand (and appreciate) the sentiment, but in this case, it makes no difference to me what app I use. In fact, I was trying to remember another iOS app that I think could do this, but I can’t remember the name.

I didn’t even think of this, to be honest, but it’s probably the best solution.

#6

TAD-Uncheck All action in the ThoughtAsylum - Tasks & List action group will uncheck all of the check boxes. But effectively all it is doing is a text replace on the check marks across the content of the draft.

#7

You might be thinking of the iOS app ‘Due’ which can have tasks with recurrence rules. I use this (with a very similar task list :slight_smile: ) and have been quite happy with how it has worked out. The thing that really helps is that Due will continue to remind you about an action until you complete it, though it has various snooze options available to you in that reminder so you’re not tempted to just complete it w/o actually doing it.

Anyhow, I love Drafts and use it for a lot, but would also recommend either Due or the Reminders app.

Jason

#8

It wasn’t the app I was thinking about, but I absolutely love Due and could not live without it.

Was thinking that this should be in a separate app, but maybe Due would do.

Realized that putting it in Reminders wouldn’t work because Fantastical shows me all day “You want to do this thing at 11pm tonight” which isn’t helpful.

#9

A couple of suggestions for this.

If separate Drafts, indexed by date (perhaps for tracking reasons)

  1. Create the checklist in Drafts with title # [[date]] Daily Routine (or similar)
  2. Mofidy the New Draft with Template action to replicate the checklist draft created in step 1 only, rather than presenting a menu selection.
  3. Create a Shortcuts Automation with trigger = Time of Day, single Shortcut step of Run Action on Draft, using action created in Step 2.

If having the date in the title isn’t necessary, then the above could be modified to:

  1. Create checklist in drafts
  2. Create Shortcut Automation
    a. trigger = time of day
    b. get draft created in #1 using UUID or name
    c. create new draft using the text from (b)

Or if using the same draft can be used repeatedly, the the Shortcut Automation can call the TAD Uncheck All action and run it on the template draft.

Alternatively, if Reminders.app is acceptable, then the actions could be created in a separate Reminders list. If that list is hidden in Fantastical, then the actions won’t be seen all day.

FWIW, I also use Reminders.app for this sort of thing. I have a series of habits I want to encourage, some daily and some weekly, all at a specific time of day. I use Reminders because a/ Reminders is one of the few apps allowed to make my phone buzz, and b/ the notifications are persistent (don’t disappear once the phone is opened).

Sorry for the very long reply. Hopefully there’s something useful somewhere in there.

#10

I use the Simple List with an action to reset all check boxes as has been mentioned. I then have a Markdown link to the Draft in Todoist for a recurring task.

I know this might seem bonkers, but subtasks/checklists in Todoist are an utter train wreck. It’s therefore much easier to be reminded about the checklist by Todoist (it does this well), work through the checklist and then reset all when done. It’s then ready for the next time the Todoist reminder fires. Nothing fancy but works well.

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#11

For future reference (i.e. probably me when I can’t remember in a few months), the app I was thinking of was Clear. Unfortunately:

  1. I can’t remember how to reset all “cleared” tasks

  2. ‎Clear Todos on the App Store shows that the app has not been updated in two years (Jan 21, 2019), and the last update was: “Under the hood changes to begin preparing for a migration to the upcoming new Clear.” Which, as far as I can tell, never materialized.

#12

I just wanted to note that I used a sh*t-ton of TDK SA90s back in the day (aka The 80s), and seeing the name was a major time vortex of the mind.

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#13

Clear still works surprisingly well considering iOS changes etc. I’ve an action to send a list from Drafts to it if ever I feel the need to swipe things off with the arcade noises.:slight_smile:

Just checking the app now, I can’t see a way to reset all completed tasks en masse. You have to manually swipe each one to reinstate by removing the strike through as far as I can tell.

#14

I still have some in their cellophane wrappers.:sunglasses:

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#15

Just wanted to point out another simple Drafts action that can make reusing checklists easier. If you have a Markdown tasks list, just run this action and all the boxes will be unchecked. I added it to one of my action bars.

https://actions.getdrafts.com/a/1NM

I made a tag called “Checklists” and a workspace that filters to this tag. That way, I could move my commonly used checklists to the archive and out of my Inbox.

I could see setting a daily task in Due that reminds you to go in and open the checklist and reset it.

Another idea would be to use a dedicated service like Taskade which allows you to create task list templates and regenerate them. We’ve been using it for weekly tasks on a team I’m on at my job.

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#16

I already use a similar action to reset en masse. That’s why Drafts is preferable to Todoist as you can’t do the quick “reset all,” within that app.