✅ Family To-Do Lists

Why to-do lists?

Family life runs on small tasks — pick up milk, sign the permission slip, call the dentist. The Family To-Do page gives everyone a shared place to track what needs doing, who’s responsible, and what’s already been ticked off. No more sticky notes on the fridge.

Creating a to-do

There are three ways to add a to-do, all from the To-Do page: the + Add To-do button, the quick-add bar, or ✨ Magic beans. Whichever you use, the new to-do (the topmost of them, when magic beans adds several) is scrolled into view and glows for a moment so you can see where it landed, unless a member filter is hiding it.

With the Add To-do button

Use this when you already know the details. It opens a side panel with room for everything at once.

On your phone, the To-do tile in the quick-add menu (the orange + button) opens the same panel.

With the quick-add bar

The quick-add bar at the top of the list is the fastest way to jot down a task.

With magic beans

Tap ✨ Magic beans at the top of the page (or the magic beans card inside the Add To-do panel) and snap or share a note, a list or a school email. beanies reads it with To-do already picked, then shows you the to-dos it found to check before anything is saved.

Viewing and editing a to-do

Tap any task to open its detail panel. From here you can edit everything about the task:

• Title — Click the title text to rename it
• Due date — Click to set or change when the task is due
• Due time — Appears once a due date is set. Pick a specific time if needed
• Assignees — Assign the task to one or more family members
• Description — Add notes or extra details. Any links you include are automatically detected and shown as clickable buttons

The panel also shows who created the task and, if it’s been completed, who completed it.

Completing a to-do

There are two ways to mark a task as done:

• Tap the checkbox next to the task in the list — quick and satisfying
• Open the task and click Mark Completed at the bottom

Either way, you’ll get a little celebration and the task moves to the Completed section at the bottom of the page. Changed your mind? You can reopen a completed task from its detail panel or by tapping the undo button.

Someday · Maybe to-dos

Not everything on your mind is a real commitment. Someday · Maybe is for the loose ideas — “take the kids camping”, “re-do the garden”, “learn to bake sourdough” — things you’d like to get to one day but aren’t scheduling and might never do. They stay visible so you don’t lose the idea, without cluttering your real task list.

It’s the difference between “buy a birthday present” — a real to-do, even if it doesn’t have a date yet — and “learn to bake sourdough”, which is a lovely idea with no pressure attached. Both belong on the To-Do page; only one of them should be nagging you in your daily briefing.

There are two ways to park a task as Someday · Maybe:

• Open the task and switch Track as from 📋 To-do to 💭 Someday · Maybe
• On a computer, hover over a task in the list and tap the 💭 button to park it — or the 📋 button on a parked task to make it active again

Someday · Maybe tasks collect in their own 💭 Someday · Maybe section on the To-Do page, just below your open tasks. The section is always visible (it doesn’t collapse) so the ideas stay in sight — but these tasks are deliberately kept out of the way everywhere you’re meant to be focused: they don’t appear in your daily briefing, the To-Do widget on the Family Nook, the planner sidebar, or the calendar.

You can still tick off a Someday · Maybe task — it moves to Completed like any other. Reopen it and it returns to the Someday · Maybe section, not your active list.

Sorting and filtering

Use the Sort dropdown at the top-right to order your tasks:

• Newest — Most recently created first (default)
• Oldest — Oldest tasks first
• Due Date — Soonest deadlines first, with undated tasks at the end

On desktop, you’ll also see member filter chips below the sort menu. Tap a family member’s name to see only their tasks.

Overdue tasks

If a task’s due date has passed and it’s still open, it’s marked as overdue with an orange badge. Overdue tasks also appear in your daily briefing on the Family Nook so you don’t lose track of them.

Deleting a to-do

Open the task and click the delete button in the bottom corner. You’ll be asked to confirm before the task is permanently removed.

Repeating to-dos

A to-do can repeat. Turn on Repeat This To-do when you add one, pick how often, and it stays a single to-do that moves to its next date each time it is done or skipped. Every repeating to-do in the family is listed in the Reminders section on a phone, or the Family Reminders panel on desktop. See Repeating to-dos and card reminders for the details.

To-dos linked to an activity

When magic beans finds an activity and to-dos in the same note (a field trip letter with a permission slip to return, say), it saves the to-dos first and links them to the activity once you save it. Share Something Straight to beanies explains how that works.

• In the list, a linked to-do shows a small chip with the activity’s name and date. Tap it to open the activity in the planner.
• In the task’s detail panel, the Linked Activity row does the same.
• If the activity is deleted, the chip simply disappears. The to-do stays.

Deleting an activity that still has open linked to-dos asks what should happen to them: Keep the to-dos (the default) or delete them too. To-dos that are already done are always kept. Deleting a to-do never touches its activity.

See and add to-dos from the activity

Open any activity in the planner and its To-dos section lists everything linked to it, open ones first. Tick one off right there, or tap it to see the details. Ticking works from either place: the To-Dos page and the activity always agree.

A new to-do is given to you and due the day before the activity (or today, if that day has already passed). Change either one in the add row before you press Enter.

To-dos on the Family Nook

Your open tasks also appear on the Family Nook homepage in the To-Do widget, with a quick-add bar so you can jot things down without leaving the Nook. Tasks assigned to you that are due today, overdue, or without a due date also show up in your daily briefing (the orange box).

Two of those rules go a little wider than "assigned to you":

• A to-do assigned only to a child shows up in every grown-up’s daily briefing too — framed by the child’s name ("Emma: wear AM uniform for school photos") — so the parent who actually has to make it happen sees it. The child still sees it as their own task. Want just one parent on the hook instead of all of them? Add that parent as an assignee alongside the child.
• A to-do with no assignee shows up for everyone ("Buy milk (anyone can do this)") and stays there until someone ticks it off — so a loose task doesn’t fall through the cracks. Whoever does it gets the credit.

The full briefing rules — dates, sorting, the five-item limit, medication reminders — are in the Your Daily Briefing guide.