Reminders: Reuse Old Entries

I really dig the Reminders app. I’m a big fan of simplicity, and it just doesn’t get much easier than a basic list of items that you can check off when they’re complete. 

Behind that simple interface, though, there’s a lot of fun and useful stuff you can do, like syncing your reminders between all of your devices with iCloud, using location-based reminders, or creating a shared family grocery list. Here, though, is one of my favorite little tricks—reusing existing reminders so that you don’t have to keep typing “diced tomatoes, 28oz” every week of your life. 

So as you may know, checking the box next to any reminder indicates that you’ve finished whatever it was. If you want to see what you’ve previously checked off, click on the “Completed” line within any of your lists on your Mac.

(If you can’t see that, be sure you’ve scrolled all the way to the top.)

Once you’re viewing your completed items, deselect the checkbox next to any one of them to plop it back onto the list it came from and reuse it.

This is an option on iOS devices, too—just click on “Show Completed” first…

…and then tap the circle next to an item to put it back in its place.

I find this especially great for the aforementioned grocery lists. Since I tend to buy the same 20 or 30 items pretty much every week, this saves me a ton of typing. Though have I ever actually needed a list to remind me that I need to buy, say, coffee? Or cheese? I have not. Lists are for vegetables and other necessary evils.