Reminders and alarms for your daily routine
Ethos can remind you of each task at its time or a few minutes before, with Done and “Snooze 10 minutes” on the notification. For the one or two things you can’t afford to sleep through, a task can ring as an alarm instead, through Silent and Focus. You can also have one morning notification with the day laid out, and a weekly nudge to review your week. Reminders are free, on every device.
Reminders before each task
In Settings, Reminders, “Remind me” sets the timing for every task: Off, At the time, or 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes before. That applies to every task unless you turn reminders off for one of them. To do that, open the task in the week editor and turn off its own “Remind me” switch.
A reminder shows the task’s name and when it is, such as “At 08:15”, with any note you wrote beside it. It has two buttons:
- Done ticks the task without opening Ethos.
- “Snooze 10 minutes” brings the same reminder back in ten minutes.
Press and hold a reminder to open it out: the task’s time in large figures, what you wrote about it, and how the day is going, such as “3 of 8 kept today”.
What Ethos doesn’t remind you about
Ethos leaves these out:
- Tasks you’ve already ticked.
- Tasks you’ve skipped for today.
- Everything on a rest day or a day off.
- On a light day, everything except your anchor tasks.
If you push the rest of the day back because you’re running late, the reminders move with the tasks. When the day goes wrong explains each of those options.
The alarm, for what you can’t sleep through
A notification can be silenced by a Focus, or slept through with the phone on Silent. For a task that mustn’t be missed, turn on “Wake me with an alarm” in the task’s editor. In the app’s words, it “Rings through Silent and Focus, like the Clock app. Best kept for one or two things, like waking up.” Ethos asks for permission to set alarms the first time you turn it on, and not before.
The alarm follows the day as it stands. It doesn’t ring on rest days or days off, or for a task you’ve skipped or already ticked, and if you’ve moved the task for today, it rings at the new time. Ethos schedules alarms for the next few days at a time. Alarms are on iPhone.
The morning summary
Turn on “Morning summary” in Settings, Reminders and Ethos sends one notification each morning with the day laid out: the weekday as its title, and a line such as “5 things today, from 07:00 to 22:00.” Choose when it arrives with “Arrives at”. There’s no summary on a rest day, or on a day with nothing on it.
If you keep routines with your family, the morning of your turn on a shared rota brings “Your turn: Bins” or similar, at your summary time or an hour before the job if that’s earlier. A chore rota that goes round covers turns.
The weekly review
Pick the day for your weekly review in Settings. At six that evening, if there’s a week to look back on and you haven’t done the review yet, a notification arrives: “The week in review”, with “Sixty seconds, and one change worth making, or none.” Tap it to open the review. It suggests at most one change to your week, or none.
On Apple Watch, the Mac and the Lock Screen
Your iPhone’s reminders reach your Apple Watch, and you can press Done from your wrist. The watch also schedules its own reminders for the next two days from its own copy of your week. They still arrive when your phone is in another room or at home, and when both are nearby you get one reminder, not two. More is in a daily planner on Apple Watch.
The Mac schedules its own reminders, which never leave the Mac. Your iPhone schedules its own, so a task with a reminder notifies you on both. The daily planner page shows how reminders fit the rest of the day.
On iPhone, a Live Activity can also show the task you’re on, on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island. It appears around the time its reminder would, counts down to when the task would count as late, and has a Kept button. It goes by itself a little after the task’s time. Because Ethos has no server, it can only start a Live Activity while the app is running or when you use a widget or Siri.
Questions
Can I get a reminder before a task instead of at its time?
Yes. In Settings, Reminders, set “Remind me” to 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes before, or At the time. It applies to every task that has reminders on.
How do I turn off the reminder for just one task?
Open the task in the week editor and turn off “Remind me”. The other tasks keep theirs.
Can Ethos wake me up with an alarm?
Yes, on iPhone. Turn on “Wake me with an alarm” for a task such as Wake. It rings through Silent and Focus, like an alarm in the Clock app, and doesn’t ring on rest days or days off.
Why did my reminders stop?
Check that notifications are allowed for Ethos in the Settings app. Ethos plans reminders about a week ahead and tops them up in the background; opening the app once also tops them up.
More from the blog
- A chore rota app for the bins and the school runTo keep a chore rota in Ethos, add the job to your family group as a shared routine, turn on “Take turns”, and tap the people on the rota in the order it should go round.
- A Cozi alternative for iPhone, Mac and Apple WatchIf your whole household uses Apple devices, Ethos is a Cozi alternative built around the jobs a family repeats: shared routines, turns on the bins, and one shopping list, on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch.
- A daily planner for Mac that lives in the menu barEthos for Mac puts today’s count in the menu bar as a small ring, so you can see how much of the day is kept and tick the next thing without opening a window.