I'm Spencer and recently built CheckYourList to help with my ADHD.
The app lets you create repeatable checklists. It's great for packing lists, daily routines, cleaning lists and things that you need to take with you constantly. The reason it is different to apps like Apple reminders is once you complete a checklist you can uncheck every item so it is ready to go next time.
I built the app because I found myself forgetting things more and more after the birth of my son. For example, dropping him at daycare and then going to the gym, required so many things. I felt overwhelmed and would take ages to leave the house as I searched around looking for what I needed. I wanted a solution, I built this app to help.
The app is available on iOS and WatchOS and syncs between the two with all the data in iCloud (I never see the data).
I'm constantly iterating the app, I am currently working on the ability to keep a history of checklists you have completed so you can check you did things (like taking medication every morning). If anyone has any ideas for features they would like to see let me know :)
I'm mainly a web developer, I've put a lot of work in my spare time over the last six months learning iOS development and swift. The app is built in SwiftUI, which coming from javascript the syntax was quite comfortable, although the language does have some very big differences.
The most difficult thing was learning where SwiftUI would not work and how to drop down to UIKit where needed. Things like how to focus a text field programmatically are missing in SwiftUI (coming in iOS15).
A big thank you to Paul Hudson at hackingwithswift.com as without his HWS+ videos I don't think I could have built a production ready app as most tutorials don't cover production scenarios and apples documentation is truely terrible. His information on core data was invaluable.
Echo what others say: nice interface, and you found something useful in a very crowded space.
The only feature I would add is: shareable, community lists. I’d like to know the standard list everyone else has voted on to do taxes, register a car in a state, or whatever else. (Diligence a company?)
I feel like I’m missing out on the wisdom of others in how to do some things.
Shared lists with your significant other, roommate, etc, would be very helpful. Groups in general (work, family, volunteer responsibilities) would be super useful.
Not to discount this app, but Trello is pretty nice here. My wife and I have several boards shared between us. It's especially cool to be at home and add a few things to the grocery board, then the other checks their phone and grabs the things while they were already out.
I recently changed my opinion on todo list type projects. I previously thought it was a crowded place and a solved problem, not worth building yet another. But a todo list is such a powerful tool and has so many different use cases that each new variation can focus on a different niche and brings new value.
Typing one-handed since I have my 4-day-old newborn napping in my arms now as her mom gets some rest.
Even before having her, I have found it difficult to find a balance between high level to do lists (missing details), and more detailed checklists (that are harder to manage).
Keeping the simple repeatable stuff separate should make it easier to offload that cognition from my brain so I can focus on the stuff I NEED to think about.
Quick feedback: this is an interface paradigm that I haven't thought of before (and haven't stumbled upon, if it exists in other apps). Immediately recognized how useful it is and I've already set up a few checklists.
And the UI itself is simple and to the point without any BS (probably because you're independent and don't need to hit OKRs), and matches iOS so it was easy to jump into and get started.
This is excellent work! I've currently got all my reusable checklists in Remember the Milk, but they get lost in there among all my other hundreds of todos.
I'm always surprised how few todo apps seem to target reusable lists, it's definitely an overlooked niche. Back in the Palm Pilot and early iOS days, SplashData's SplashShopper app was fantastic at this, but they don't seem to be able to keep up with modern application development update/release cycles and it's slowly become unusable over time.
Anyway- you asked for feature requests.
1. Consider making lists organizable in some way -- make them nestable or categorizeable. Like, my travel checklist in RTM consists of multiple sub-lists: clothing, electronics, toiletries, medical, etc. Splash Shopper does this with a sortable category on each item.
2. Consider adding prepopulated lists, particularly for things like groceries where the list can have lots of common items, will likely be long, and building it from scratch may feel daunting.
3. Consider having separate views for all the items on the list vs. everything that currently needs checking off. Like, when I travel or go grocery shopping, I may not need everything on the whole list. Let me build a list from a bank of all the items in the list rather than forcing me to uncheck everything in order to reuse the list and then prune the stuff that I don't need on the list for this particular trip.
That's amazing! I had the exact same idea, and just last week or so started picking up Kotlin to implement it. I've been using Tasker with AutoWear for a makeshift version of this and it _works_, but is obviously not ideal (bits of code everywhere, bad UI).
Another thing I thought of was to keep track of the time spent in each subtask and have the watch vibrate to remind you to focus if you take more than a couple of standard deviations to finish a given step.
I'd love to use yours. Unfortunately as I'm an Android guy I'll have to build it myself still :)
I have feedback on the name of the app. Since it’s spelled without spaces, as “CheckYourList”, it doesn’t show up in search results when searching for “check your list”.
This looks amazing. I spent a lot of time searching for something exactly like this earlier this year, but eventually gave up. I set up a Shortcuts automation to do something similar: I have a few lists in Apple Reminders that I use as repeatable checklists, and every night the shortcut runs and just unchecks all the items. It works, and has really improved my life, but it has a few very annoying limitations. So I’m really looking forward to trying this, thanks.
Edit: tried it, it looks great, only one issue for me is the dialog that automatically pops up when the last item is checked. If you could add a way to completely turn that feature off then I would pay for this in a heartbeat. It might seem a tiny thing but that automatic popup would make it impossible for me to use this app, with my kind of ADHD. Also, there doesn’t seem to be a way to edit an item once created. Otherwise it looks great.
Sounds like you went through the same process I did as well :) I was surprised to find a lack of apps that have repeatable checklists.
I did something similar to you with google forms. I had a shortcut set up to launch a google form to go through. Smart idea with using a shortcut the uncheck the items!
Let me know how you go with the app :) Especially if it is missing anything you think you need.
I think thats the problem. There are a lot of apps that are almost there but not quite specific enough to this problem. Ones i've found have been frustrating to use.
Just saw your edit. Is it because you need the list to stay checked so you can make sure you have completed it before day end? This behaviour is one of the challenges I need to handle. I was planning on having some settings available around how the checklists uncheck, like you could have automatic daily unchecked set on some checklists but not others. For editing the items, at the moment you need to delete and re-add, however I have an updated version coming within the next few days with with the ability to edit the items. I just need to finish testing it before I make it live.
I'm heading offline soon, but if you drop me an email to help@checkyourlist.app I'm happy to build you a version with it disabled that is also fully unlocked.
I just recently released my first iOS app written in SwiftUI and HackingWithSwift was such a lifesaver. Glad to see others find it as valuable as I did.
Great job on this app. My son has ADHD and struggles mightily with repeating tasks each day. Downloading it on his iPad to see if it helps!
Its definitely the best resource out there! Just a heads up re iPad, some people have been reporting issues with the iPad version. I'll be working on the iPad compatibility soon to ensure it all works.
My name is also Spencer and have been diagnosed the same . This is a great niche app. Any app I've used for todo lists couldn't get this right so I'm glad to see it. The one feedback is a configurable task max limit. My time is very valuable so I have to limit what todo to the most valuable tasks.
Hi - can you say more about how you’re keeping data secure and encrypted and such? Checklists can include some very personal information so I think having a strong security and privacy practice can help with adoption since it is hard to trust a random new app versus built in apps.
Hi! Basically the data is stored in iCloud in the same way your Apple reminders and notes are. I never have access to the data as it is stored on your local device and Apples server.
So in terms of security and privacy, your essentially trusting Apple itself.
This is not the best take on this, as that means no crash reporting and no metrics.
I think people need to realize 99% of indie devs aren’t doing anything nefarious with anonymous crash and client user data and just want to deliver a better product to you, their users.
I'm Spencer and recently built CheckYourList to help with my ADHD.
The app lets you create repeatable checklists. It's great for packing lists, daily routines, cleaning lists and things that you need to take with you constantly. The reason it is different to apps like Apple reminders is once you complete a checklist you can uncheck every item so it is ready to go next time.
I built the app because I found myself forgetting things more and more after the birth of my son. For example, dropping him at daycare and then going to the gym, required so many things. I felt overwhelmed and would take ages to leave the house as I searched around looking for what I needed. I wanted a solution, I built this app to help.
The app is available on iOS and WatchOS and syncs between the two with all the data in iCloud (I never see the data).
I'm constantly iterating the app, I am currently working on the ability to keep a history of checklists you have completed so you can check you did things (like taking medication every morning). If anyone has any ideas for features they would like to see let me know :)
I'm mainly a web developer, I've put a lot of work in my spare time over the last six months learning iOS development and swift. The app is built in SwiftUI, which coming from javascript the syntax was quite comfortable, although the language does have some very big differences.
The most difficult thing was learning where SwiftUI would not work and how to drop down to UIKit where needed. Things like how to focus a text field programmatically are missing in SwiftUI (coming in iOS15).
A big thank you to Paul Hudson at hackingwithswift.com as without his HWS+ videos I don't think I could have built a production ready app as most tutorials don't cover production scenarios and apples documentation is truely terrible. His information on core data was invaluable.
You can see the app in the app store here: https://apps.apple.com/au/app/checkyourlist/id1571623264