An Apple Reminders alternative for tasks that start in a note.

Apple Reminders is free, it is already on your phone, and it is good. If you are looking for an alternative, here is when Remlo is one, and when it is not.

Reminders has lists, tags, sections, and smart lists that gather tasks by date or tag. It has column view, so a list can look like a board. It has subtasks, location alerts, and Siri. You can share a list with someone and they see your changes. It opens in a second, and it costs nothing.

If your tasks are shared, if you want a nudge at a place or a time, or if you talk to your phone to add them, stay on Reminders. I do, for groceries.

Where I stopped using it for work

Reminders has a notes field on every reminder. I wrote one line in the title and the whole situation in the notes field. It never worked.

The context for a task is not in the task. It is in the call you were on, the email thread, the three bullets you typed while someone was talking. Those live in a notes app. The reminder is a pointer to something I have to go and find.

So I had two places. The note had the story, and the reminder had the deadline. I ticked one and the other kept saying the thing was undone.

What Remlo does instead

You type a checkbox in front of a sentence, in any note. That line is a to-do. It is collected on the To-dos page with every other to-do from every other note.

Tick it in the note and it is done on the page. Tick it on the page and the line in the note is ticked. One to-do, two places to look at it, and no copy to drift.

A slash command inside the note sets it for today, tomorrow, or a date you pick. A to-do carries a due date for when it has to be finished, a scheduled date for when you mean to do it, and a someday flag for neither. Anything scheduled or due shows up in Today.

The To-dos page has a list view and a board view, and the stages on the board are yours to name.

Every to-do links back to the note it came from. A task written in Tuesday’s call opens Tuesday’s call. Remlo creates a page for every day, so there is always somewhere to type.

What you give up

Alerts. Remlo schedules a to-do and shows it in Today. It does not wake your phone at a time or when you arrive somewhere. Check Today in the morning, or keep Reminders for the three things that need a nudge.

Shared lists. Remlo is single player on purpose. Your notes live in your own iCloud, which is why they are private and why they are not collaborative.

Everything outside Apple. Remlo runs on Mac, iPhone, and iPad, and that is all.

Free. Remlo is $19 a year with seven days free, or $149 once.

Using both

Plenty of people will end up here. Reminders holds the things with a time or a place: the dentist, the parcel, the milk. Remlo holds the tasks that come out of writing.

The line between them is easy to find. If you would say it out loud as an errand, it is a reminder. If it showed up inside a sentence about something else, it is a to-do in a note.

Who should switch

The person who already keeps notes in an Apple app and finds the reminders app has no idea what the notes say. The person with a lot of meetings. The person whose reminders have a notes field full of context nobody reads.

If you add a task, do it, and tick it in under a day, Reminders does the job and you should not change anything.

Remlo is native on all three Apple devices, works offline, and syncs through your iCloud.

Reminders is where I put the errands. Remlo is where the work is, because that is where I was writing when the work came up.