Scheduling
When tasks come back
You tick a chore off. When does it show up again? That depends on two settings, and they do different jobs.
Auto or pinned
Two ways to schedule a chore
When you add a recurring task you pick a Schedule: Auto, or Pin to days. Auto thinks in gaps. Pinned thinks in weekdays. Most of the confusion around Tidywell scheduling comes from mixing the two up, so it is worth a minute.
| Auto | Pin to days | |
|---|---|---|
| What it means | Do this roughly every so often. Tidywell picks the day. | This is my Wednesday job. The day is the point. |
| What it counts from | The last time you did it. The clock restarts on every tick. | The weekday. It does not care when you last did it. |
| If you do it early | The schedule moves with you. Mop on Tuesday and it is next due the following Tuesday. | Nothing moves. Wednesday is still Wednesday. |
| Best for | Vacuuming, wiping down surfaces, anything where you care about the gap and not the day. | Bins, laundry day, changing the sheets, anything tied to a day of the week. |
What "How often" does in pinned mode
In Auto, How often decides when the chore comes back. In Pin to days it does not. There it only sets how fast the cleanliness bar drops, which feeds room health. Your pinned days own the schedule. So you can pin the kitchen mop to Wednesday and still set it to Daily, because the floor really does get dirty every day. The chore still only appears on Wednesdays.
An example
A Wednesday chore, over one week
Say you pin "Mop the kitchen" to Wednesday. Here is what your Today list does over the next seven days.
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
DoneOn your Today listResting
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
DoneOn your Today listResting
Tick it and it goes quiet until next Wednesday. Skip it and it stays on your list every day until you do it, because the Wednesday you promised yourself went past untouched. It does not wait a week to remind you.
The full picture
Every combination, and what actually happens
All of these assume a recurring task you last completed on a Wednesday.
| What you set | What happens |
|---|---|
| Auto, WeeklyNo pinned days | Back next Wednesday, seven days after you did it. If you had done it on Friday instead, it would be due the following Friday. The day drifts with you. |
| Auto, DailyNo pinned days | Back tomorrow, and every day after that. |
| Pinned to Wednesday, WeeklyThe common setup | Back next Wednesday. Quiet in between. |
| Pinned to Wednesday, DailyFast decay, one cleaning day | Still back next Wednesday. The daily setting only makes the cleanliness bar fall faster, so the room shows as needing attention sooner. It does not put the chore back on your list. |
| Pinned to Mon, Wed and FriDone on Wednesday | Back on Friday. Not Thursday. |
| Pinned to Wednesday, done early on TuesdayWorking ahead | Wednesday still appears the next day. A pinned day is an appointment, and doing the job the day before does not cancel it. If you would rather it moved with you, use Auto. |
Everything else
The other kinds of task
Not every task recurs. These behave differently again.
| Type | What happens |
|---|---|
| One-timeHas a due date | Shows from its due date onwards and stays until you do it. Once ticked it is gone for good. |
| WheneverNo schedule at all | Lives in "When you have time" rather than your Today list. Tick it and it toggles off. Tap it again to untick. Nothing decays and nothing comes back on its own. |
| SeasonalOnly some months | Hidden outside the months you chose, however overdue it looks. Window screens in February can wait. |
| Moved to a date"Not today" | Disappears until the day you picked, then comes back. Completing it clears the move, so it returns to its normal rhythm rather than sticking to the date you bumped it to. |
| Vacation modeWhile you are away | Cleanliness stops dropping and pinned days stop appearing, so you are not nagged from a beach. A chore that was already badly overdue before you left still shows. |
Questions
The bits people ask about
- I did it at 10pm. Why is it back the next morning?
- A chore reopens at midnight on the day it is next due, not at the hour you ticked it. If it was due that day anyway, it reopens the following midnight. Doing something late in the evening does not buy you an extra day.
- Why did my Wednesday task appear on a Thursday?
- Because the Wednesday went by without it being ticked. It stays on your list every day until you do it. It will not vanish and wait a week.
- My daily budget is full. Where did my pinned task go?
- Nowhere. Pinned tasks ignore the daily budget cap, because you asked for that job on that day. Everything else queues up behind the budget.
- The room still looks dirty but the chore is not on my list.
- That is the cleanliness bar and the schedule doing separate jobs. The bar tracks how long it has been. The schedule decides when to ask you. In pinned mode they come apart on purpose.