Unforgetful – Marco.org
Marco.org
I’m Marco Arment:<br>a programmer, writer, podcaster, geek, and coffee enthusiast.
I have ADHD. Probably.1
My entire adolescence was defined by forgetting to do my homework, disappointing everyone around me, and being told by every adult that I was lazy, "just" needed to try harder, and wasn’t living up to my potential.
I’ll be working on the resulting shame and anxiety for the rest of my life.2
If someone tells me, "Remember to pick up the dry cleaning tomorrow," I definitely won’t remember.
If someone tells me, "Remember to put the laundry in the dryer in ten minutes," I probably won’t even remember that.
If you’re thinking, "It’s just ten minutes! Nobody can possibly forget that," I have made an app that’s probably not for you.
Computers saved me.
Despite constantly being told that I’d never get a good job, computers provided a lucrative career path filled with even worse academic performers who couldn’t care less about my grades. What a stroke of luck! I’d be mediocre to terrible at most jobs, but I turned out to be very good at using computers to turn coffee and Phish into money.
But computers also save me in smaller, everyday ways.
They help me remember.
Sorry, I just had to go put the laundry in the dryer, which I had forgotten.
Really. It’s that bad.
Calendar alarms changed my life. Events without alarms don’t happen. (If you’re thinking, "Why doesn’t he just check his calendar?" I have made an app that’s probably not for you.)
I had less success with reminders until we had ubiquitous voice capture.
If I think of something at inconvenient times, like while driving or exercising, I need to capture it immediately or I’ll forget. It cannot wait until I get to my phone or computer. It has to be recorded right then or it’s gone.
Siri, for all of its faults, has always been very good at creating tasks in Apple’s Reminders app — and Siri is everywhere. Computer. Phone. Car. Watch. I can almost always ask Siri to add something to Reminders.
So Reminders’ integration and ubiquity are invaluable to me.
The Reminders app, though, doesn’t fit me at all. I don’t like how it looks, how it works, or how it’s organized. Hell, I don’t even like its icon. There’s nothing about it I like. So I never open it. (Not as if I’d ever remember to check it anyway.)3
Most of my Reminders interaction has always been via Siri and notifications. And that fits me very well, with three major exceptions:
If I say "Remind me to buy milk," but I forget to specify a time (or Siri misses it), Reminders will never notify me, and I’ll never check the app, so it’ll be lost.
If I inadvertently dismiss a Reminders notification without snoozing it, Reminders will never notify me about it again, so it’ll be lost.
When I do snooze a Reminders notification, which I do a lot, the snooze options suck.4
This spring, I made myself an app to fix all three, and… it escalated.
I’ve been using it for months, and it has profoundly improved my life. Today, I’m releasing it, in hopes that maybe it can help other people, too.
Introducing Unforgetful.
The concept is simple: Reminders for ADHD.
This means:
It’s impossible to lose a task. Notifications always repeat, even if you miss or dismiss them, until the task is completed or deleted.
Designed for procrastination. Snoozing is a core feature, with thoughtful intervals that scale as you snooze a task more.
Nothing is hidden away. A hidden task is a forgotten task. No folders, no tags, no organization, no different views or modes.
No judgment or shame. Nothing is overdue. You’re not in trouble. Everything is either due now or in the future. Didn’t get to it today? Maybe tomorrow. Every day is a fresh start.
And Unforgetful does all of that with your Reminders data. That means:
Siri works perfectly, everywhere. Just say "Remind me…" without having to specify an app.
It replaces your Reminders notifications. Turn them off, turn these on.
No import. This isn’t a new system to learn or migrate into. Your Reminders data is just… there.
No export. If you try Unforgetful and it’s not for you, just delete it and turn Reminders notifications back on, and all of your data is right there in Reminders.
Mix and match. Don’t like it everywhere? You can still use Reminders on your Vision Pro or whatever, or simultaneously use Unforgetful with Reminders or any other app that uses Reminders data.
I’ve optimized lots of features and details for ADHD, too:
Fast capture with dictation. Tap the microphone button in Unforgetful — or its full suite of widgets, or its Lock Screen or Control Center controls — and quickly dictate a task.5
Spaced-out notifications, not an overwhelming pile at once. If multiple tasks are set to alert you at the same time, they space themselves out so you’re not barraged with a hopeless stack of obligations. And the order changes every day, so nothing gets lost between things.
Recurring-task backlogs don’t pile up. If you...