One of our most common feature requests is for us to add recurring tasks that happen less frequently.
There are a couple of different sorts.
- A routine that only appears only in certain months of the year, or weeks of the month. For example, a holiday routine with all the tasks you only do in November and December.
- Tasks that are important but infrequent, and aren’t actually routines. For example;
- changing air conditioner filters
- giving the cat flea medicine every 6 weeks
- putting out the recycling bin every second week
- ensuring the cat has its once-a-year vet checkup and vaccinations in January.
The second sort are tricky. They don’t fit comfortably into routines, because they are important, time-sensitive, and not as “forgivable” as regular routines. You don’t want the reminder to change your smoke detector batteries to reset after a day or a week like the routine stars, because it’s too important for that.
We’re thinking about the best way to approach this in HomeRoutines. They don’t fit well in routines, for the reasons listed above. Perhaps they’d fit well under To Dos, but I don’t want to make the entry of To Do items more complicated by adding settings to each and every task just to enable you to make some tasks recur infrequently. Or perhaps they’re a whole new section on the home screen – or a whole new app!
What do you think? Do you want recurring tasks? How would they work best for you?
