App that simply pushes notifications to phone?
June 26, 2021 9:22 PM   Subscribe

My brain, once a steel-trap, is now a sieve. Thanks, parenthood. Looking for an app that will simply push notifications to my phone without my having to set timers/dates/etc.

I used to use email for basic reminders - e-mail myself, it sits unread at the top of my inbox until I do the thing.

On my phone though, that's a multistep process - open email, hit compose, add my own email address, jot a word or two in the subject line, hit send. Alternatively I use Keep to set reminders, but that's fairly involved too.

Is the an android app that _simply_ could push a notification to my phone? We're talking 'feed cat' 'finish e-mail' 'remind x about y'. Ideally I open the app, write the thing down, it immediately pushes a notification which sits on my phone until I dismiss it.
posted by stray to Grab Bag (7 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
You can use Google Assistant to do that with your voice, without ever even opening an app (assuming you have Assistant set up). Just say "Hey Google, remind me to feed the cat in one minute" and then, one minute later, boom, there's a reminder that can just sit there until you act on it.
posted by pdb at 9:42 PM on June 26, 2021 [2 favorites]


microtasks is very good at exactly what you're describing.
posted by /\/\/\/ at 10:27 PM on June 26, 2021 [2 favorites]


I use notin - good for 1 or 2 persistent reminders.
posted by ellebee at 4:24 AM on June 27, 2021


Response by poster: Great options, all thanks!
posted by stray at 9:45 AM on June 27, 2021


Note to Self stopped working for us on our Android phones, but we installed Boomerang to do the same thing. You can set up two email addresses to push things to.
posted by QuakerMel at 9:54 AM on June 27, 2021


I use Any.do on my Android for this exact problem. I write the task, pick a date and time, pushes a notification. I can also delay it by 15 min, 1 hr, 3 hrs, or tomorrow with a single click. Very useful!
posted by ceramicblue at 10:38 AM on June 27, 2021 [1 favorite]


On Android I use the stock Tasks and Reminders in Google Calendar for notifications of daily things like stretching, taking pills, and ad-hoc things that have a due date or that I want reminders for. You can easily set a repeating daily reminder or task for feeding the cat as well as non-recurring ones. You'll probably want to give Calendar its own space on your screen to reduce clicking, rather than burying it in a folder/group if you go this route.

The difference between tasks and reminders is that Tasks don't have notifications but automatically show up in the Google task list, which is an optional sidebar in web GMail (there is also a standalone Tasks app), while Reminders have notifications. They both show up in Calendar itself and they both can be recurring.

I also use the egg timer part of the stock clock app a lot: click the BIG TIME widget or the Clock app, then click the hourglass icon at the bottom and click "add timer." I use this for anything near-term that I have a tendency to forget and want an actual alarm: naps, soup on the stove, leaving to get to that one store that closes at 3pm, get out of the shower because you've been in there for an hour, etc. You can set it for anything up to 99h59m59s.

Keep reminders are unreliable in my experience and I stopped using them pretty early on.
posted by rhizome at 12:28 PM on June 27, 2021


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