How I Use Apple Reminders to Be Productive

I've been using the Apple Reminders and Calendar app for over four months now. I've been doing a few different experiments to kind of see if this can be the core of my productivity system. This video is sponsored by Paperlike. Let's get into it. A task manager for me is the backbone to my life. If I don't write something down, I will absolutely forget about it and it will not get done. For me, I don't just use a task manager to manage my work life, but I also use it to manage my personal life as well. This could be things like grocery lists or home improvement projects. The ability to go in and just tap on something and mark it as completed. And then on top of that, have it just disappear off of a list when it's completed. It clicks with the way my brain works. Now I've been a big user of the app Things for years. I love the design of it. I love how quick and easy it is to manage tasks and projects. It's keyboard shortcut support. It's shortcut support is fantastic, but I always like to try out other task managers to kind of see what's happening on the market, but I always end up going back to things. But over the last couple of years, my business and the core of my work life has grown past what things can do. Things hasn't received major updates in a really long time. So the core way that it works hasn't really changed. And like I mentioned, I like to play with other task managers and that kind of made me realize there are two big features that are in other task managers that I really need. A Kanban system and calendar integration. Now I looked around at a lot of different third-party options and there were some interesting things out there, but Reminders has a Kanban view built right into it. Plus on top of that with iOS and iPadOS 18, Reminders now integrate right into the calendar app. Plus Reminders has really good shortcut support. So I've been able to build out a few different automations to help me. Now for me, Reminders is both a task and a project manager. And I kind of define these two as different things. So tasks are one-off things like, Hey, I need to mow the lawn or I need to take out the trash or I need to clean out the gutters. Those kind of just like one-off tasks. Projects are more multi-step like videos. I need to write a script, film, edit, upload that kind of thing. Plus projects can take place over multiple days. With Reminders, I'm able to track all of this in one app from everything that is personal task related to household projects, work projects all in one place. Now I have tried breaking up task management and project management into two different apps, but for me, it just didn't work with the way my brain is. I want to see everything that I need to do that day in one place. When getting started with Reminders, it's best to build out your structure. Lists are the perfect place to start with this. Select add list at the bottom. Here, you will be presented with a window for assigning name, color, and a symbol to a list. I treat my lists like categories. I have admin work for all my business stuff I like to do like email, paying work invoices, managing the channel, podcasts, and more. Video projects and short lists track all the videos I'm currently working on. Comfort zone is for my podcast. Home is for, well, home projects. Personal is all of my personal tasks like paying bills and general life stuff. After getting my list set up in Reminders, the next thing I did was set up an inbox. Now this is just another list, but I pin this to the top and put it in the top left corner. You can pin a list by long pressing on it and select pin. Most task managers have this sort of place to put tasks that don't have a project or list associated with it. In the settings app, under apps, then Reminders, I made this inbox the default list. The inbox for me is a dumping ground for tasks that come into my mind and things I need to do. Stuff that I want to get done, but I don't have time to assign the metadata to it in the moment or figure out when I can do them. Now I'll typically go through this list a couple of times a day. When going through it, I'll take these tasks and I'll assign due dates or put them in the proper list or any other metadata associated with it. This video is sponsored by Paperlike. Paperlike is one of my favorite iPad accessories. It's a matte screen protector that gives you a textured feeling for when you're using the Apple Pencil. Paperlike uses proprietary nano dot technology. This is engineered to add resistance and improve feedback when using the Apple Pencil over the out of box experience, giving you that pencil and paper feel. Paperlike is a matte screen protector, so it reduces the glare from lights or the sun on your screen, making it the perfect accessory if you work outdoors or under bright lights. Now this is similar to the nanotexture option for the iPad Pros, but it isn't limited to just getting the one or two terabyte option. Plus it gives you that extra textured feel with the Apple Pencil, which the nanotexture option does not. I have Paperlikes on both of my personal iPads. The new version of the Paperlike focuses on improving clarity of the display, and it does a great job at that. Paperlike sells a ton of different iPad accessories, including cases, cleaning solutions, accessories for the Apple Pencils. So I'm going to put some links in the description below. I highly encourage you to go check them out. My thanks to Paperlike for sponsoring this video. Now, another list I pinned is my someday list. This is a list of tasks that don't have a due date assigned to them. This is basically like I have some downtime, so these are some tasks I can accomplish lists. This is a smart list. When setting up a new list, you have an option to convert to a smart list. In here, you'll be given a few different filters. You can set it up so that it will show tasks that meet all or any of the filters. All means that that task must match every single filter you add. Any means it may match one or more of the filters you've added. This is an area I'm really disappointed with when it comes to reminders. The filter options themselves are quite limited, and you can only use a filter once. Meaning if I want to filter from three specific lists, I can't use the list filter three times to include those filters. This means I haven't been able to set up all the smart lists I want. For my someday list, I have three filters set up here. One that shows tasks that don't have existing dates. Second are tasks that aren't in my grocery list, and the task must not have a flag. I use flags to get around the fact that you can't add multiple lists to a smart filter, so I assign all my video projects, sponsors, and comfort zone work a priority flag so they don't get mixed in here. This way, I'm just getting tasks that I need to do for work or personal stuff but aren't a part of a bigger project. I have another smart list that shows the video projects I am working on for that day. This uses the date and tag filter to just pull video projects. All video projects, long and short form, are tagged video. Sometimes I can work on multiple video projects in one day, so it's nice to be able to filter down just to the projects I am needing to focus on on that day. Now, I don't expect everyone to be watching this video to have a video projects list, but if you have a kind of heavy category of work that you do and you want to filter that, or maybe filter that out of a smart list, this can be for you. Now, I also made the opposite of my video projects list, an everything-but-videos smart list. It shows all of my tasks that are due today that aren't video related. So, this filters out the tag video, but also only shows stuff that is due today. Now, I think of these two lists as sort of filters. Some days I could be working on multiple video projects like today, but I still have non-video tasks due. Now, this way when I'm in certain modes, I can just see what's due today and kind of filter out the two different kinds of work that I do. But the today view is my personal default view for working from. Usually, I spend most of my time in this list. At the top, select the menu button and select edit list. Here you can hide some of the built-in lists like all, flag, assigned to me, and more. These are the ones I hide because I don't need these views personally. I've added the inbox list, some day, and today's video projects. My most frequently used lists are the today and scheduled view. At the end of my day, I always check the scheduled view for the next few days. Make sure I have everything I need. If I don't, I can order something or email the person that has what I need, whatever. I also deal with any emails I might need to send off or stuff I need to reply to. One of my favorite features between mail and reminders is the ability to drag and drop a message from mail right into reminders. This creates a new reminder with a built-in link to that message. So you can just tap right onto it and then reply to that message if you want. I've color-coded my list in reminders. Blue is video work, orange is admin, green is comfort zone, yellow is other projects, and purple is personal tasks. This also matches my calendar so it's easy for me to see what kind of work is coming up. I just know what those colors are related to. Under the edit list menu, you can set up groups. You can also drag and drop lists right on top of each other as well to make these. Groups allow you to put certain lists together. When you tap on these groups, you can see all of the tasks that are in all of the lists that are part of this group. I've set up two different groups, a personal one and work. When I'm at work, I collapse personal, and when I'm home doing house projects or personal tasks, I collapse work. This kind of allows me to silo tasks for specific times. If I'm really needing to focus on home improvement stuff, I can just focus on that. But if I'm needing to focus on work stuff, I can focus on that. This is especially helpful for me because I work from home and I don't have that physical barrier of like, okay, I'm leaving the office and going home or I'm leaving home and going to the office. In reminders, you can convert a list into a grocery list. When creating or editing a list, just select list type and pick grocery. The benefit of using this is as you add grocery items, it will auto sort them into categories, making it a lot easier as you walk the aisles to grab everything you need. I have found this to work extremely well. If you live with someone, you can set up a shared list. I have one set up here with my girlfriend. This way we know what each other needs at the store in case only one of us can go that day. My house project list is another shared view we have. Having the ability to share project lists is really nice. If I worked with a team of people, this would be absolutely something I would implement in a second. In shared lists, you can assign a specific task to a person. You can also leave it open so the first person that can do it gets it done. This is where I see features like tags and flags being really important, a way to set a priority or an order of tasks. Like I mentioned at the start of the video, one of the really big features for me that got me to move away from things into reminders is a kanban view. Any list can be turned into a kanban board. In reminders though, this is called columns. In a list, select the menu button and then tap on view as columns. In that same menu, you can add more sections. I've built out my video projects and sponsorship lists like this. For those that aren't aware, a kanban board is a way of laying out different state of tasks in a project. The basic version of this is you have three categories, upcoming, working on, and completed. This is a visual way of displaying what needs to be done, what is being worked on, and what is completed. As a task goes from one state to another, you just move it over. For my video projects list, I broke it down into a bit more detail. I could be working on multiple videos at once and I want a clear way of seeing the state of every video. So for categories, I have ideas, research, script writing, filming, edit video, submit for ad approval, upload and configure, and scheduled for release. Then once I release a video, I just mark it as completed. What I like about this is it gives me a board to quickly glance at the state of everything. Under the list menu, you can edit the sections, including rearranging them. If you turn off the column view, this will go back to a standard list view. The sections will remain, but are now a top-down list view. I really like the fact that the sections just don't disappear. Plus this style of view works really well on the iPhone. You can jump back and forth between the two views as much as you want and you won't lose any data. Another list feature is templates. In any list, you can hit the menu button and select save as template. This will take that list and all of the tasks and make it a template. When you go to create a new list, there is a template tab. Here is where all the templates you have are stored. Select one and it will prompt you to name it. Then it will be added to your list. This isn't a feature I use much, but I can see the power of it. One of the best features of using a native iPadOS app is multi-window support. This is something I miss from Obsidian a lot. I use the multi-window support to put reminder windows in different stages, but also show different views. For example, I have my main reminders window. But then I'll have another window with just my Kanban board of my video projects on. In reminders, you can hide the sidebar. So for my secondary reminders window, I just have a focus on my projects. I really like having these multiple windows up. This helps me jump through the different areas I need to focus on. I just wish stage manager on the iPad wasn't limited to the four windows. If you go into settings, apps, reminders, you can set up a reminder summary notification. This will send a notification with the tasks that are due today. If you tap on it, the notification will take you to the today view. I have this set up to show on my device at 6am every morning. This just shows a notification with the first task and a number of other tasks that are due today. Another feature I change in settings is modifying how the badge count works. I hate badges on iOS and iPadOS, and that's why this works perfect for me. It's a way to trick my brain into getting all of my tasks done for that day. In settings, I set it so that the badge count includes all the tasks that are due today. By default, it only shows the overdue ones, which is kind of weird. Widgets is another big part of how I work. Both on my iPhone and my iPad, I use the widgets as a full summary of my day. The reminders widget works just like any other task manager widget. You can tap on a task and mark it as completed. If you go into the widget settings, though, you can change what list is displayed. This can be lists you set up, the today view, scheduled, or even smart lists. I could see the widget being really handy if you have a shared list of tasks with someone. Then you can just track right from your home screen what tasks are being done. While managing tasks and building out a proper list structure is really important, what's even more important is the ability to create tasks. I mean, that's kind of the whole point of a task manager. I'm a big believer in adding as much information to a task as possible. The notes field of a task is my secret weapon. In here, I add all the data about a project that I could possibly need. This could be the project's go live date, ideas around the project, or a task, the sponsor, or other projects that are tied to it. Under the notes field is also a place to add a URL. I use this all the time for referencing data about a task. This could be a reviewer's guide, a piece of hardware I want to check out, an app I want to download, or more simply, if the reminder is about something I need to do online, like pay a bill, fill out a form, submit a receipt, that could go here as well. When you add a link to a reminder, it adds an icon. You can just tap on it quickly to go to that page in your default browser. It works just like how I mentioned the mail and reminders work together. Because my email inbox can just become an absolute disaster, I do this a lot with really important messages. I treat reminders as my super duper important inbox, stuff that has to be replied to. You can also add images to reminders. I do this occasionally with screenshots of information I will need for a task. I would love to see this feature though expanded to support files, specifically PDF files. I do use a couple of third-party apps and automations. On my iPhone, I use an app called Remind Me Faster. Adding a task through reminders is clunky, and if you're adding a lot of metadata, it takes a lot of clicks. Remind Me Faster gives you a way to add tasks using natural language. Now technically, reminders does have natural language input, but I have found it to be incredibly buggy, to the point where if you type tomorrow at 6 p.m., sometimes it'll give you a different day or a different time. I don't know why it's been that way for a really long time. I have the app Remind Me Faster set up in Control Center, so I can access it from anywhere in the OS. I can quickly just type in my reminder and get back to work. There is also a lock screen control as well, but I just like the Control Center one a bit better. When typing out a task in Remind Me Faster, it has support for natural language input for both the date and time. By default, it saves the task to your default reminders list. You can change this in settings if you want. When adding a task, you can tap on the list name to change it, or you can swipe right above the keyboard to change the list as well. If you're using Apple's Reminders app, you really need to get the third-party app Remind Me Faster. And Apple, if you're watching, you should buy Remind Me Faster and integrate it into the app. I also have a couple of shortcuts I use with reminders as well. I have a new video project and a new sponsor shortcut. These are great examples for when shortcuts are better than manually creating tasks. These ask for the name of the project or the sponsor, then add all the metadata for my stuff automatically, so they get filtered into the right list. If you remember earlier, I mentioned I use both flags and tags for these, so that way they get filtered in and out of different smart lists. I also have some text I put in here in the notes field for both to use as well. If you have different projects that you're constantly adding tasks into with the same metadata, having an automation that can handle that for you so everything stays consistent is really handy. Another shortcut I have set up is my defer video projects list. For me, video projects can't be done in a single day, so assigning a single due date to them is pointless. What this shortcut does is it looks at any video projects that are overdue and is not completed. Then it makes it due for that day. This way I don't constantly have overdue projects sitting in the today view. I have this shortcut set up on a timed automation to run every day a little bit after midnight. If you have any projects that take multiple days, I highly encourage you to set up something like this. I'll put some links to the shortcuts I mentioned along with everything else in the description below of this video. For me, the biggest thing I miss from the things task manager is the fact that you can set up a start date for a task so you would have a hey you're working on this thing on Monday, but then you could set up a separate due date so you could say hey this thing is due on Wednesday. I love that feature because a lot of my projects aren't just a single day and I don't want to break things up into 20 different small tasks. I don't like that methodology. I've tried it in the past. It just doesn't work for me. It just ends up flooding my task manager with a ton of different small things. I would rather just have one task for hey my iPad reminders video. All right I've talked about reminders a lot in this video already, but at the beginning I mentioned the calendar app as well. I have been a big Fantastical user for years. I love that app. I think it's an incredibly well polished and well put together app, but they are increasingly going more towards enterprise features and with their price increases lately. I don't think it's for me anymore even though I love the app and I think it's a really good app. I just don't take advantage of a lot of the stuff that's in the app and with iOS and iPadOS 18, Apple's built-in calendar app now has support for showing your reminders tasks that are due on today or tomorrow or whenever they're due in the calendar app which is really nice. So this gives me the calendar view I want for my task manager. I like this because I can see everything laid out when our tasks do, when I'm working on what, and I'm not filling up days to be too heavy on certain tasks. If I defer things I tend to do that where I'll defer a bunch of stuff to a random Monday and like that Monday we'll just end up with 20 tasks. With stage manager I can have multiple reminders windows and a calendar window next to each other. I can see all my events and tasks due in one place. You can even get to the task notes from the calendar app and you can even change data about when that task is due by selecting it right in the calendar app and going to edit. The iOS calendar app also has support for calendar sets which is a feature I use a lot and tie into my focus modes. Calendar also has support for natural language input but it is a bit limited. Just supports date and time and you can't change events to other calendars like in Fantastical. But you can create reminders tasks in the calendar app. When creating an event select the reminders tab. Here you can fill out all the metadata in one field. No tapping around in a small window. This is a much better way of creating tasks than the reminders app and it's way less clicking around. They should bring this window to the reminders app. Calendar also has one of the best extra large widgets out there. It gives you a layout of your day and the next three days. It dynamically adjusts to show your next appointment for that day. This way you can always see what's coming up. For now this is my task management system. This is what's working for me and I think this is what I'm going to be sticking with for 2025. As apps get updated I'm always trying something new but as of right now what's on the market this really is what's working for me. My thanks to Paperlike for sponsoring this video. If you like the video hit the thumbs up button, subscribe if you haven't already, and have a great day.