Set a reminder

A reminder attaches a date and time to a thing, so NewTwos speaks up instead of waiting to be read.

Why you'd care#

Most of what you write does not need an alarm. Carry-over already makes sure unfinished to-dos keep showing up, which covers "sometime soon" without any notifications at all.

Reminders are for the smaller set of things where the moment matters. Leaving for a flight. A call at 3. Taking something out of the oven. Use them there and they stay meaningful. Put one on everything and you will start ignoring them within a week.

The 60-second version#

1. 1

   Write it with the time in the sentence

   Type "Call the dentist Thursday at 3". NewTwos recognises the date as you write.

2. 2

   Accept the suggestion

   Confirm when it offers to set the reminder. The thing keeps its text and gains an alert.

3. 3

   Or set it by hand

   Press ⌘⇧X on any thing and pick a date and time.

Step by step#

Dates NewTwos finds for you#

Plain language works: "tomorrow", "next Tuesday", "in 20 minutes", "Friday 9am", "the 14th". When one is recognised you are asked before anything is set, so it never silently schedules something.

Whether the date text stays in the thing is your choice. Keeping it reads naturally later ("Call the dentist Thursday at 3"), and removing it keeps the line short. That is the keep-date setting.

All-day, and start and end#

A reminder without a time is an all-day reminder, which notifies in the morning rather than at a moment. Adding an end time turns it into a block with a duration, which is what gets pushed to your calendar if you have calendar sync on.

Repeating#

Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or specific days of the week. A repeat can have an end date, so "every weekday until the end of term" is one reminder rather than forty.

Location instead of time#

A reminder can fire when you arrive somewhere or when you leave, rather than at a time. This is free, and it is the right tool for "buy milk" in a way a 6pm alarm never is.

Going further#

Overdue reminders and carry-over. A to-do you missed will carry to today like any other unfinished to-do, but its alert stays in the past unless you say otherwise. Settings → Calendar & Reminders → Carry over reminders rolls overdue reminders forward too, so an alert you slept through does not quietly stay behind. It is off by default because it changes when you get notified.

Advanced alerts. A default lead time before the event, a second alert, an alarm style that persists until dismissed, snooze length, and how often it re-notifies. Plus

Sending them to your calendar. With calendar sync on, reminders with times can appear as real events in Apple or Google Calendar, and events from those calendars can appear in NewTwos. That is a two-way connection worth setting up deliberately rather than by accident.

Shortcuts and gestures#

Settings that change this#

• Settings → Calendar & Reminders → Carry over reminders rolls overdue reminders onto today.
• Settings → Calendar & Reminders → Default alert sets how long before the time you are warned. Plus
• Settings → Calendar & Reminders → Default reminder duration sets how long a reminder blocks out when it becomes a calendar event.
• Settings → Calendar & Reminders → Default color for reminders tints reminders so they stand out in a list.

Tips#

• Write the time into the sentence rather than opening the picker. It is faster, and the picker is still there when the date is awkward.
• All-day reminders are underused. Most "remember this on Thursday" things do not need a specific minute.
• If you are getting too many notifications, the fix is usually fewer reminders rather than different settings.
• A repeating reminder with an end date is much kinder to your future self than one that runs forever.

If it's not working#

The reminder did not notify me. Check that notifications are allowed for NewTwos at the operating system level first, because an app-level setting cannot override a system denial. Then check the alert time, since a default lead time can move it earlier than you expect.

It notified on the wrong day. Almost always a time zone or an all-day reminder firing in the morning rather than at a moment. Open thing info with ⌘⇧I to see exactly what is set.

The date text was removed from my thing. That is the keep-date setting. Turn it on and the wording stays in the line.

A repeating reminder stopped. It reached its repeat end date. Open it and clear or extend the end date.

Related#

• How unfinished to-dos roll forward, which handles most "remind me" cases without an alarm
• Thing types, since reminders are most useful on to-dos
• The capture bar, where plain-language dates are recognised