my life could use some helpful hints

A couple months ago, I was preparing for a family vacation to China. Then disaster struck.

My wife was already there, and I was deep in the doldrums of family vacation preparation for the rest of us to meet her. The kids were so excited they were nearly losing their minds, mostly because they knew Shanghai Disney was in the cards.

There was about two weeks to go before the trip, and I was handling school and camp runs for the kids. Driving home one day in an obliviously singing mood after dropping off my son at his python coding camp, a thought smashed into my head like a ton of bricks: visas.

I skidded the car into the driveway and ran upstairs, 2 steps at a time, looking to find my passport, while at the same time desperately trying to recall, in the dark corners of my rapidly aging brain, the last time I had renewed my China tourist visa. As it turns out, in a fantastic stroke of luck, my 10-year tourist visa, acquired in April 2016, had expired exactly 2 months ago (notice that I didn’t say which kind of luck it was).

As I frantically researched the web and prepared the novella-sized stack of documents I would need to acquire a China tourist visa on short notice for a trip starting in less than 2 weeks, it crossed my mind that it seems like every time we schedule a vacation, especially a family one, we forget something. I quickly drove that thought out of my head, as it was doing nothing to solve the problem at hand, which was to locate my birth certificate and university transcripts from roughly the Pliocene epoch.

Thankfully, things ended up working out - thanks to some expedited visa fees (and a “VIP service fee” to the China Visa Service Centre in Singapore, the purpose of which I still don’t fully understand).

But then the thought struck me again. What if - if - we could actually have a family trip where we didn’t forget anything (some of my loyal readers may remember the Japan incident)? Wouldn’t that be amazing?

beanies says: yes, it would, and it would like to help.

As you may know, we (why do I always say “we”?) recently introduced the beanies lists feature, which allows you to create and attach any list of arbitrary things you’d like to remember for an existing travel plan or activity. That’s all well and good, provided you know and can recall everything you need to do, and you’re well-thought-out enough to list out every detail in advance. To those people: I envy you, I really do.

For the rest of us, when it comes to those key things like visas, kid’s packing, birthday gifts, and more that seem to always slip through the cracks, there are now: helpful hints.

How does it work?

Schedule a travel plan on beanies.family, and you might notice something - a new section on your to-do list (and, subsequently, on your family nook daily briefing as well) called helpful hints.

Helpful hints are those little things that seem to trigger, at least for me, constant anxiety and stress. Things like:

• (The aforementioned) visas for an international trip
• Remembering to hit the toy store to buy a gift for your son’s preschool friend’s 6-year-old birthday party
• Planning for your own family’s birthday party (or your anniversary)
• Remembering to pack a few days ahead (and not literally at the last minute)
• And lots more

They’re also entirely dismissible (or ignorable) if you’d like, and you can always configure how things work from the settings page.

Sounds like it might be useful. Where do I find these “helpful hints”?

Add a travel plan, a friend’s birthday, an anniversary, or something similar to your calendar, and if a helpful hint applies, you will see it in your to-do list and daily briefing.

Below is an example of what I wish I had when planning my family’s Shanghai trip:

as with all features, wouldn’t it have been nice if i had thought of this 2 months ago?

Luckily, I suffered, so you don’t have to. You’re welcome (again).

What if I don’t want helpful hints, or I’d like to only get certain ones?

You’re in luck. You can see all the different types of helpful hints under the “reminders” box on the settings page, and you can enable or disable any hint you’d like. This is just the beginning - I expect more categories to come in the future, and perhaps even custom helpful hints!

don’t want a helpful hint about your upcoming anniversary? switch it off. but don’t blame us later when you’re in the doghouse 🐶

So, here we are again: my pain becomes your benefit. I truly hope you enjoy this new feature, and if you do like it, let me know!

Oh - one more thing I should mention: my Apple developer account is approved!

apple finally took my money!

It only took 4 weeks of nudging and waiting, combined with 3 more days of back and forth with support because my (perfectly valid) credit cards kept getting declined by Apple’s (extremely unforgiving) payment system. But the iPhone app is now, finally, amazingly, built, tested, and submitted. Now, there’s nothing left to do but wait for Apple’s approval to be ordained from the heavens. So I should be updating you again next week. Or maybe in 2 years.

Thanks for your patience, and don’t forget those visas, my beans.

greg

by the way, the kids enjoyed their shanghai disney adventure. especially zootopia hot pursuit, which i probably rode enough for 2 lifetimes.

ps - do you like helpful hints, or are they annoying? Let me know your thoughts, or tell me what to build next, on the beanies.family discord.