Transcription
Apple's Reminders app is so much more complex than you think. And it's evolved even further with iOS 26. So much so that I no longer even use any other task management application. So in this video, we're going to do a deep dive into the Apple Reminders application. I'm going to show you all the new features in iOS 26, some hidden tricks, and how I get the most out of the Reminders application so you can copy it and organize your life as well.
So, let's start with some new features that were just introduced with iOS 26 before showing you my ultimate Reminders workflow that I use personally in my business every single day. So, the first thing you'll notice is the liquid glass design. Of course, we do have that throughout iOS 26 and you will see that it's very evident here in the Reminders application as well.
Now, the biggest new change, the most recent change has to do with when you go to create a new reminder. We now have an urgent tab down here, which means you can now set reminders as priority. And when you set them as urgent, it will set off an alarm on your primary device, which it will have listed down below. And this is what the alarm for that urgent reminder will look like on your lock screens. You do have a slide to stop. You also have a snooze button right here. And when you tap on snooze, this is what you will see now on the lock screen. You will have an option to complete the reminder or you could also reschedule it from this screen along with a live countdown.
Now, if you tap on reschedule, it will take you back right into here and you will be able to easily reschedule that. And if you want to swap that snooze button out for a complete button, you can go all the way down to the bottom of Reminders and you do have a new option for complete from alarm. So, this can be useful if you want to be able to just mark a reminder as complete without having to hit the snooze button.
We also now have the ability to set a reminder from the Control Center. And this is actually my new preferred way to set a reminder. And I'll show you why here in a moment. But if you go ahead into the Control Center and you search for Reminders, you can see that we have a toggle for new reminder. So now anytime you want to set a new reminder, you can go into your Control Center. Tap on that and you will get this pop out for Reminders straight from the Dynamic Island. You could add it very easily right there. But as you guys might know, because it's in the Control Center, that means that we could also add it to our lock screen down here. So, we could add it as a toggle straight from our lock screen if you just want to be able to tap that and add a reminder. Or you could also set it as an action for your Action Button. And this is actually my go-to way of setting reminders. And I'll touch more on my exact setup and my exact process with Reminders and how it basically runs my business and my life at this point. But if you go into your Settings and go to Action Button right here and you swipe over until you get to Controls. So if you go all the way down here to Controls, you can now choose a control and you can search once again for Reminders. You could add that. So now when I press and hold on my Action Button, you can see it's a quick way to set a reminder.
There's also another new feature in iOS 26 where you can autocategorize lists. So if you have a list of different to-dos and it's kind of all over the place, maybe it's just something you have to do today or you kind of just, you know, combined all your to-dos into one. If you tap on the three dots here, we have a brand new option here for autocategorize. So now if you tap on autocategorize, take a look at this. It will think for a second and it will use Apple intelligence to determine the sections and the categories for those to-dos. We have follow-ups, gifts, household chores, leisure, personal care, and subscriptions. And you'll now see this new badge up top. You could always tap on that and you can turn off autocategorize if you do not want it any longer. But these will also collapse and you can add on to those there as well.
Now, here's a new Reminders feature that I really love. And this is really going to be beneficial if you get a lot of phone calls and you're somebody who forgets to call people back. I do the same thing. So now, if you swipe over on somebody right here, you can see next to the trash icon, we now have a blue clock. When you tap on that, that will allow you to set a call back reminder. So, it says remind me in 1 hour, tomorrow, or later. And if I do, you know, we'll just do later for example, you can see it will set a new reminder right here. It will open up the Reminders interface. And if I were to do that for tomorrow, let's just say for tomorrow, you can see it will just give me a reminder at the top of the phone application. And you'll be able to see that call back reminder. If you go into the scheduled section right here, you can see that it says call back and it shows right there that it's from the phone application. And if you tap on the "i" right here, it will show you the contact details. You can also set that as urgent if you want to to set an alarm to call that person back if it's something that's maybe very important.
And there's another new change I wanted to mention about the time zone of reminder. So if you go into your Reminders settings right here and you scroll down, you can see that we will have a section here for time zone. So if you want this to be automatic, you can do that. But if you go into here, you can set the time zone manually because you can see by default Reminders will automatically use the time zone of your current location. And but if you always want to set your time zone to be like an EST time so you don't get confused, you could have that set. So now if I select New York, it's always going to set my time zone to be New York even if I'm in say San Francisco for example.
Okay. So before we talk about my exact workflow in Reminders and how I use it to organize my life, I first want to talk about some of the more basic functions of Reminders, but there are going to be some little hidden tricks mentioned throughout as well. So this is the page you'll see on the Reminders. Up top we do have our pinned lists. So, if you don't want a list to be pinned up there, you can unpin that. If I want to add one, so if I want to add this right here, I can tap and hold and I can pin that and it will go up top just like so. And again, it is really easy to remove as well.
Now, in Reminders, we do have some buttons up here. So, we have search. You also have this right here, which will add a new list. We also have templates for the list. We'll talk about that in a moment. We have our three dots where you can edit list and you can also edit your templates. And then down here on the bottom right, of course, is going to be where we add a brand new reminder. So, a reminder is basically like a task. A list, as you can see right here, is essentially a category, and you're going to have reminders inside of that list. So, an example would be like a grocery list. There's actually a built-in groceries section right here where it will automatically know it's groceries, so it will organize the items automatically using sections. So, with standard though, you could have things like home, you could have things like work, you could have things like, I don't know, things you want to get as gifts. You could have like a gifts list and then under that list you'll have reminders inside of that list.
So we're just going to come up with a list called activities to do. We could set a little color right here. We could also set something like this. We could set a little emoji for that. So now that we have that new list right here called activities to do. We'll tap on this check mark. And you can see that now we have a reminder list for activities to do. And inside of there we can add a reminder.
Now, if we went back to the main screen right here and tap on the plus, you can see it will just create a new reminder, a general reminder into the default list. We could always change that right there. So, we'll just add a new reminder real quick to show you. So, we'll just say go running. That's going to be our reminder. You could add notes right here. So, we want to add some additional notes about that. If it's a reminder that requires a URL, if you need to, you know, reference a website, you could add that right there. We have the date, the time, and if it's urgent. Like I mentioned before, if you set urgent, that will set off an alarm on your main device, which it shows right there. And you will have the ability to basically see that reminder with more emphasis. So reminder sometimes can get lost with the simple notification, but if you have an alarm, that will make it a lot more likely that you see and you know, you can really be held accountable for completing that reminder.
So we do also have this right here. So if you go ahead and set a date and a time, we do have repeat. So if you want to repeat a reminder on a, you know, hourly, daily or monthly basis, you can even do it by yearly or custom. You can set that to be right there. And then of course, like I mentioned, we do have our list. And you also have details. So details is interesting because you do also have early reminders. So if you want to get an alert before you actually have this set to be due, you could set that right there. You have tags. If you want to organize with tags, you could do that. I don't find them super useful, but you can do that. You could flag it as well if you want it to stand out a little bit more in your notes. And you can set it as a priority. In my opinion, priority is kind of outdated now that we have the urgent option for alarms. I would recommend using the urgent alarms instead of priority personally. And then we have places and people. And this one's really interesting because this will show a reminder based on your GPS signal. So if you're arriving at a certain destination, that's when the reminder will trigger as a notification on your device. And you could also have it set for arriving or leaving that destination. And then one of my favorites down here is when messaging. So it says selecting this option will show the reminder notification when chatting with a person in Messages. So if you want to say something to somebody and you maybe always forget, you can set a reminder to automatically pop up when you start messaging that person inside of iMessage. Let me show you how this works. So now that I'm messaging this person, I will get a reminder that says, you know, the name of the reminder and it says below that because you're messaging that contact. And when you tap on that, it will take you into there. You can see there is also a badge there that says when messaging a specific contact. And then also down here at the bottom of a reminder, you have the ability to scan a document or take or choose a photo of your liking as well.
Now, I did mention this earlier, but one of my most used Reminders lists is the groceries list. I think this is easily one of the best features of Reminders, especially if you're somebody who gets groceries on a weekly basis. So, if you go into create a new list, you do have the option here to choose a grocery list. And from here, you just name it simply groceries. I'll just name it groceries main right there. If we add that and we go into the groceries list right here and tap on the plus, if we start adding items, you can see that if I add bread, for example, I'll add pickles. You can see it will autocategorize everything as I type it. And that is very handy.
Now, let's say we'll just add something else right here. Let's say that you have a significant other and you guys both go grocery shopping. Sometimes maybe it's separate and you, you know, you need to know what is needed on the grocery list. You could actually share this with a contact as well. So, if you go to the share right here, you do have the option if you go ahead and go to Messages and you go to, you know, type in the contact's name, you will have the option to collaborate with that person on a list. That way when you collaborate with them, it will show the list in sync on their device and on your device and you you can both add to it and mark things off as complete.
And if you tap on the three dots right here, you do also have some other options. So you can sort this, you can manage sections, you could save this as a template as well. So saving things as a template can be really handy. So, if I save that as a template, for example, and I go back right here and I go up to the templates view or actually I go to create a new list and then I go to templates, it will show my saved templates right here and it will save, you know, it will basically duplicate that list essentially. So, let's go to YouTube videos. This is one that I did back in 2022. If I go ahead and create one based off of that, you can see that it will add it right here. And this is what it looks like.
Now, you can also view your completed tasks. So sometimes people like to know what they've completed. You could tap on this right here and it will show everything that you have completed. You can also clear that as well. Up top you also have the today view. So if you have anything marked as needing to be done today or anytime in the past, it will show that right here. So when I say in the past, it's more so things like you could see that are set to be on repeat. So like monthly, weekly. This one's a reminder that was set earlier. So it will show all those. It will also break it down by morning, afternoon, and tonight. So that's only for the today view. And then you do also have schedule. This will show again all the things that are scheduled for the future. You have all which will show all your reminders. You have flagged like I mentioned earlier. And you can also remove these as well. So if you don't like seeing flagged up here, you can hide that. I don't use that myself. And also for completed, you know, I don't really use that very often as well. I don't really need to see my completed ones. So I can kind of consolidate up here and make this easier on the eyes.
Something else I want to mention is smart lists because these can be very handy. So, if you go to create a new list and you go to list type, the other list type that you have down here aside from groceries and standard is going to be smart list. And this allows you to organize using tags and other filters. If you tap on edit filters, you can choose to include reminders that are matching either all or any of the filters. So, if you have it set to all, that means it must match everything that you set down here. But if you have it set to any, it means it only has to match one of these filters that you have selected down here. So, if you're somebody who uses tags, you could choose that. And you can see all the things you can choose from. And when you're in a smart list, like this one right here, it's called workday. You can see you could tap on the three dots and go to show smart list info and it will show the filters that are enabled. And you can see you can change that right here as well.
Now, here's something else you might want to do, and that is to create folders and reminders. You can see I have a home and a work section right here. Those are both bolded with a little drop down right here. And that's because I've added things into my work and into my home folders. Now, it's easy to create a folder. A really simple way to do it is if you have multiple lists right here, you take and drag one of these lists and just hover over another list. That will create a folder. It's actually called a group inside the Reminders application. So, once you have a group, you can name it. You can also include certain ones right here as well. So, if you want to add on to that, you can do that right there. You can also reorder how they appear.
Now, inside of Reminders, you can also reorder manually by just taking and dragging. And you can move these down to wherever you would like.
Now, here's another tip that a lot of people don't take full advantage of, and that is setting a recurring reminder. So, something that's important, like maybe sending your quarterly tax returns for me, for example, that's important, and I want to set that to be on repeat, you know, happen multiple times automatically without having to keep adding that to my reminders. So, if I set a date and a time down here, we do have repeat, and you can choose to repeat that every 3 months in this example. So, I'd recommend for things that you need to do on a monthly basis or, you know, a quarterly basis, set that and be sure to set that as repeat down here, so you don't have to keep adding that task to your reminders over and over.
And here's another tip a lot of people don't use, and that is subtasks. So, you can create a subtask under a main task. So, if I have this reminder set to send out my quarterly tax returns, maybe I could set a subtask to say, you know, pay CPA as well. So, I can do something like that, and that could be a subtask underneath of that. So now if I go ahead and add that, you can see that quarterly tax return is right there. But also underneath of that, we have a subtask for pay CPA.
Now you can also swipe over like this on any of your reminders to do details, flag, or delete. If you go to details, that just takes you to the details page right here. It's also very easily to delete uh reminders. If you swipe all the way over, it will delete that. So if I go right here, you can see I can, you know, remove that. And if you want to undo it, you can simply shake your device and it will undo that reminder just like so.
Another tip I find myself using very often is inside of the Mail application and that is adding reminders from the Mail app so that I don't forget to respond to an email. So if I go into an email right here for example, let's just go into this one and if I go ahead to the share sheet right here. So we'll go to share. We have the option now for remind me. So if you go to remind me right here, this will set a reminder. I'll just say remind me in 1 hour to respond to this email. And it says, "Mail will remind me tomorrow at 12:01 a.m." And then whenever you have that set, it will show that email up at the very top of your inbox so you don't forget to respond.
And now I want to show you my exact workflow on my iPad and it's pretty much the exact same on my Mac. I use this all day, every single day. And really, my trick here is using the Kanban board for tasks. At least the way my brain works, this just works so much better. So by default, this is what the to-do lists look like. But if you tap on this right here, the three dots, you have an option for view as columns. That is the trick here. That is the major key. So if I go ahead and tap on that, that will transform this to-do list into a Kanban board. And this is really easy because it allows you to take things from today and move it over to tomorrow with a simple gesture like that. So you could do this very easily. And this really keeps me on task because it shows me the things I need to do today, the things I need to do tomorrow, this week, next week, 30 days, and so on.
Now, you can set this to be to your liking, but if you tap on this right here, this little plus right there, that will add a new column. You can keep adding on these different columns as many as you need. So, this is extremely handy for me, and I use this again on my Mac and on my iPad on a daily basis. And this is really just the key here is using this as columns. You can also tap right there to add it as a list or view it as a list again if you would like to.
Now, it's also important to sort this by manual instead of by due date or anything else. That way, you know, this stays in control of how you want it to be. So, if you want something to be higher up on the to-do list or lower, you could set that right there. I would also highly recommend saving this as a template once you have it set up to be, you know, how you like it. That way, it's easy to replicate if you want to do it for other areas of your life. So clearly this one right here is about my YouTube business only. But if I wanted to do the same thing for the home or you know traveling something like that, I could have this set as a, you know, template and replicate that easily.
And when it comes to my Reminders workflow on my iPhone, I typically have a Reminders widget on my home screen right here. Typically it's on like the last page of my home screen. It will just show me some of my reminders right there. Again, the way I set a reminder personally is with the Action Button, but sometimes, you know, or if you don't have an Action Button or if you have something else set to the Action Button, my other preferred way to set a reminder is simply with Siri. So, if I say, "Remind me tomorrow to cut the grass at 12:30 p.m." You can see it will automatically add that reminder there. Now, if you wanted to go to a specific list, you could also say that. So, let me say add cookies to grocery list. And sometimes if you have multiples named the same thing, you can do that right there. I'll just say groceries main. There we go. It will add it to that specific list. It can be very handy and very quick to use Siri. I would highly recommend using Siri or like the Action Button. That way you don't have to take so much time and actually go into the Reminders application to, you know, set a reminder.
Now, also from the widget, I should mention that when you have this widget, it is interactive. So you can complete reminders from here. So instead of going into the Reminders app to complete something, I just simply tap on it right here from my widget and it will complete it like so and it will disappear.
I also want to mention that Reminders is fully integrated with Calendar. So if you go into the Calendar, if you tap on this little calendar icon in the bottom right, you can see that you will have scheduled reminders right here. Make sure that is selected. They will show up as blue. You also have the option to show completed reminders down there if you would like to. And if you go into this, you can see your different reminders that are right here. You could also complete these straight from Calendar without needing to go into Reminders itself.
So that is a detailed look of the Reminders application and kind of how I use it in my life. So if you guys want to see me go more in depth with Reminders, more specifically with how it integrates with the whole Apple ecosystem, please let me know in a comment down below. I can really go a lot deeper on this subject because I use this app every single day on all my Apple devices. So, if you want to see more details, if you want to see another more specific video about Reminders, please let me know your thoughts down in the comments below and I will be reading those to see. But if you guys enjoyed this video, I would appreciate if you give it a thumbs up. Also, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss out on future Reminders videos and also all the other Apple applications as well because I use those every day. I will be making a full video on basically how to get the most out of the Apple ecosystem in terms of Reminders, Notes, Calendar, and so on. But anyways guys, thanks for watching and I'll see you.