WillDo

Start each day with intention, not overwhelm.

Most of us have enormous to-do lists. Some of us have several. There are apps dedicated to capturing every task, project, and errand that might need doing — someday. These lists grow without limit, and opening them first thing in the morning can feel less like planning and more like confronting an avalanche.

WillDo is built around a different question. Not what do I need to do? but what will I actually do today? Each morning you open WillDo and choose your focus for the day — a short, honest list of things you genuinely intend to complete. Not everything that could be done. Not everything that should be done. Just what you will do.

At the end of the day, WillDo quietly logs what you completed and clears them from your list. Anything you did not get to carries forward — ready and waiting for tomorrow.

The power is in the daily choice — not the endless backlog.

How It Works

WillDo is a small family of apps that share one simple list: a macOS menu bar app, an iPhone app, and an Apple Watch companion. Wherever you open it, the same list is waiting for you, always one tap or click away — never in your face.

It stores your list directly in Apple Reminders, syncing automatically via iCloud across all of your devices. No new account, no subscription, no cloud service to trust with your data.

Adding items is instant. On Mac, click + or press N. On iPhone, tap +. On Watch, just glance at the list and tap to complete. Tick things off as you go. Completed items stay in your Reminders list permanently — WillDo simply hides them from view the next day, keeping your list clean. Incomplete items always carry forward.

Why Apple Reminders?

WillDo could have built its own private database for your tasks. Instead, every item in WillDo is a genuine Apple Reminder, kept in a list of your choosing — WillDo by default — plus a second list, WD-Tomorrow by default, used as a staging area for the next day. You choose the names for both lists the first time you set up WillDo (see First Launch, later in this guide). That choice brings some real advantages:

Already syncing, everywhere

Your tasks move between Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch the same way the rest of your Reminders do — via iCloud, with no extra setup, no sign-in, and no third-party server.

Nothing to lose

If you ever stop using WillDo, your tasks don't vanish into a proprietary format. They're sitting in Reminders, exactly as you left them, ready to use with any other app or with Reminders itself.

Works with Siri and Shortcuts

Because your list is a normal Reminders list, you can say "Hey Siri, add <item> to my WillDo list" from anywhere, or build Shortcuts automations that add to it — even when WillDo isn't running.

Other Reminders features still work — even if WillDo doesn't show them

Apple Reminders supports due dates, times, locations, flags, priorities, subtasks, and attachments. WillDo deliberately doesn't display or set most of these (see Design Philosophy, next) — but if you, another app, or Siri add them to a WillDo item via the Reminders app, they're preserved untouched. They simply won't appear inside WillDo's own view.

One list, many views

The same WillDo list can be viewed in the Reminders app on any of your devices, shared with family members using Reminders' own list-sharing, or used in other automations — all alongside the focused, simplified view that WillDo itself provides.

Visible in other apps too

Because WillDo's lists are ordinary Reminders lists, any other app that can read your Reminders — many calendar apps, task managers, and widget collections — can show your WillDo tasks alongside your other commitments. If you already use such an app to see your day at a glance, your WillDo items can appear there automatically, with no extra setup beyond granting that app access to Reminders.

Design Philosophy: Simple by Design

WillDo is deliberately narrow in what it shows and does. Two principles guide everything:

1. Basic text and a note — nothing else

Every item in your Today and Tomorrow lists has just a title and an optional note. That's the entire data model WillDo cares about. Due dates, priorities, tags, flags, locations, and attachments — all things Reminders itself supports — are neither displayed nor created by WillDo. If they exist on an item because you (or Siri, or another app) added them in Reminders, they're left untouched; they simply don't appear in WillDo's view.

2. No automatic repetition

WillDo has no recurring-task feature, by design. Every item that appears in Today or Tomorrow got there because someone — generally you — put it there: typed fresh, postponed from yesterday, repeated from history, or imported from another list. Nothing reappears on a timer or a schedule that you set up once and may have long since forgotten.

The result is a list that's always an honest snapshot of what you've actually decided matters today — not an accumulation of standing commitments slowly drifting out of step with your life. If something needs doing every day, WillDo trusts you to decide, each day, whether today is one of those days.

Features at a Glance

Most features are shared across Mac and iPhone. The Apple Watch app focuses on a single Today view for quick glances and quick actions. See the platform-specific sections later in this guide for full details.

Feature	Mac	iPhone	Apple Watch
Today list	✓	✓	✓ (view, complete, delete, postpone)
Tomorrow list	✓	✓	—
History & search	✓	✓	—
Import from Reminders	✓	✓	—
Move to another list	✓	✓	—
Notes on items	✓	✓	—
Home/desktop widget	✓	✓	—
Settings & Advanced	✓	✓	—

Using WillDo on Mac

A quick tour of every option in the macOS menu bar app.

The Main Window

Click the WillDo icon in your menu bar to open the panel. At the top you'll see the app name, today's date, a + button to add items, and the ··· menu.

Adding Items

Click + in the header, or press N, to reveal the add bar at the bottom. Type your item and press Return — the bar stays open for multiple entries. Press Escape or click + again to close it. The list icon on the right of the add bar opens Import from Reminders.

Working With Items

Complete: Click the circle on the left to mark an item done. It moves to the bottom of today's list with a strikethrough. Completed items are only shown for the current day — they remain in your Reminders list but are hidden from WillDo's view from the next day onwards.

Edit: Double-click an item's title to rename it inline. The field grows to two lines for longer titles. Return to save, Escape to cancel.

Notes: Each item has a note icon on the right — solid blue when a note exists, faded when not. Click to expand an inline editor, then click Done to save.

Delete: Hover to reveal the ✕ button. An inline confirmation prevents accidental deletions.

The ··· Menu

A menu with four options: Settings, History, About, and Quit WillDo. Tapping History opens your Done Log browser directly. Tapping About shows version information and credits.

Settings

Reminders List: Shows the name of the Reminders list WillDo is using.

Show age: When on, each item shows how many days ago it was added — grey below the threshold, red at or above it.

Red after X days: The threshold at which age badges turn red and the red icon activates. Configurable from 1–14 days (default: 2). Adjust with the stepper in Settings.

Red icon: When on, the menu bar checkbox icon turns red whenever any incomplete item reaches the threshold — a glanceable nudge without even opening the app.

Done Log: In Finder reveals WillDo-Done.txt — a timestamped archive of every completed item.

App Badge (iPhone only) — When on, the WillDo app icon shows a badge with the number of incomplete items, so you can see what's outstanding without opening the app.

Advanced: Access to "Clear Items in WillDo List", Reset Setup, the cleanup options, and the optional "open list in Reminders" Shortcut — see Advanced Settings below.

History

Open via History in the ··· menu. Items are grouped by day with completion times shown. Use the search bar to find anything across months of history. Tap + on any entry to re-add it to today's list — handy for recurring tasks.

Import from Reminders

Tap the list icon in the add bar. All your other Reminders lists appear with their colours. Tap a list to see its incomplete items, then tap + to copy any item into WillDo (notes are carried across too), or the arrow to move it (removing it from the original list). A green checkmark confirms a copy; an orange arrow confirms a move. The last list you actually imported or moved from is remembered and shown at the top next time — simply browsing a list does not promote it.

Tomorrow

WillDo maintains a separate Tomorrow list in Reminders (named WD-Tomorrow by default, or whatever you chose during setup) as a staging area for the next day. Access it by tapping the moon icon in the header — it fills solid blue when there are items waiting.

Adding to tomorrow: Tap + inside the Tomorrow view to add items directly. You can also double-click to edit titles and tap the note icon to read or add notes — the same as the main list.

Postponing today's tasks: Hover over any incomplete item to reveal a moon icon. Tapping it shows a confirmation banner before moving it to tomorrow. The item keeps its original creation date, so its age carries forward — a useful reminder of how long it's been around.

Repeat tomorrow: Hover over any completed item to reveal a repeat icon. Tapping it adds a fresh copy to tomorrow's list with a new creation date — it arrives the next day with no age, as if newly added.

Moving back to today: In the Tomorrow view, hover over any item to reveal a Today button. Tapping it moves the item straight into your current WillDo list.

Daily migration: At the start of each new day, everything in your Tomorrow list moves into your Today list automatically. Postponed items retain their original age. Items added fresh to tomorrow (or repeated from completed tasks) arrive with today's date.

Giving a Task a Fresh Start

WillDo keeps its list in a local database that syncs with iCloud, and an item's age is based on when it was originally created. If a task in Today has been sitting around longer than you'd like, you can give it a clean slate:

1. Mark the task complete.
2. Hover over it and tap the repeat icon — this adds a fresh copy to tomorrow's list with today's date, as described above.
3. Switch to the Tomorrow view and tap Today on that item to bring it straight back into today's list, now with no age.
4. If you no longer need the original completed item, delete it.

As with any repeated or re-added item — whether via the repeat icon here or re-added from History — only the title and notes carry over to the new copy. Other details such as completion history, alarms, or due dates set directly in Reminders are not preserved.

Move to List

Any incomplete item can be moved to a different Reminders list in a few taps. Hover over the item to reveal the moon icon, tap it to open the postpone dialog, then tap Other… (to the right of Postpone). A full-panel list picker opens, showing all your other Reminders lists with their colours. Tap a list to select it — a confirmation step shows the item title and destination before anything is moved. Tap Move to confirm, or use the back button to return to the list. Once moved, the item is removed from WillDo and lives in the chosen Reminders list.

The Widget

Available in small, medium, and large sizes — add it by right-clicking your desktop → Edit Widgets → search WillDo. It shows incomplete items first, completed ones below with a strikethrough, and refreshes every 15 minutes.

Using WillDo on iPhone

The same list, organised into four tabs.

WillDo for iPhone brings the same shared list to your pocket, organised as four tabs along the bottom of the screen: Today, Tomorrow, History, and Settings. Each tab works the same way as its counterpart in the Mac panel, adapted for touch.

Today

Your focus list for the day. Tap + to add an item, tap the circle to complete it. Completed items drop to the bottom of the list with a strikethrough and are hidden from view the next day, exactly as on Mac.

Tomorrow

The same staging list as on Mac. Add items for tomorrow, edit titles by tapping them, attach notes, or pull items back into Today. Everything migrates into Today automatically at the start of each new day.

History

Browse completed items grouped by day, with a search bar at the top. Tap the search field and type to filter; tap Search on the keyboard, tap the Done button shown above the keyboard, or simply start scrolling the list to dismiss the keyboard. Tap + on any past item to add it back to today's list.

Settings

The same options as on Mac — task age display, the red-alert threshold, Done Log access, and Advanced settings (see Advanced Settings below) — plus one iPhone-only option: App Badge, which shows the number of incomplete items as a badge on the WillDo app icon.

Touch Gestures Replace Hover

The Mac panel reveals extra icons — delete, postpone, move, repeat — when you hover the mouse over an item. iPhone has no hover, so these become swipe actions: swipe left on an item to reveal Delete and, for incomplete items, Postpone to Tomorrow.

Editing on iPhone: Long-press an item's title to rename it inline — long-press is more reliable than double-tap on a touchscreen, especially inside a scrolling list. The edit field grows to two lines for longer titles. Tap Done above the keyboard, or tap elsewhere, to save.

The Home Screen Widget

Add the WillDo widget from the Home Screen (long-press the Home Screen → tap + → search WillDo) in small, medium, or large sizes — just like the desktop widget on Mac.

Apple Watch Companion App

Your Today list, right on your wrist.

WillDo includes a companion app for Apple Watch — a single Today view, designed to be glanced at and acted on in a couple of taps.

Installing the Watch App

Installing WillDo on your iPhone does not always install the Watch app automatically. If you don't see WillDo on your Apple Watch after installing on iPhone, open the Watch app on your iPhone, scroll to WillDo under "Available Apps", and tap Install. This is a normal part of how Apple Watch apps are installed (including via TestFlight) and only needs to be done once.

What It Shows

Your current Today list — incomplete items first, followed by anything you've already completed today (shown with a strikethrough). Pull down on the list to refresh. The title bar shows "WillDo (N)", where N is the number of incomplete items.

What You Can Do

Complete or reopen: Tap an item to toggle it between complete and incomplete.

Delete or postpone: Swipe left on an item to reveal Delete, or — for incomplete items — Tomorrow, which postpones it to your Tomorrow list.

Watch Face Complications

WillDo offers two complications you can add to your watch face (long-press the watch face, tap Edit, then tap a complication slot to choose one):

• WillDo — a simple checkmark icon that opens the app.
• WillDo (with count) — the same, but shows the number of incomplete items in today's list as the icon itself (or a checkmark once everything's done). Handy for an at-a-glance sense of how much is left without opening the app.

Both are available in the circular, corner, rectangular, and inline complication styles, depending on your watch face. The count reads directly from Reminders via iCloud, the same as the rest of WillDo, and refreshes periodically in the background.

How It Works

Apple does not allow watchOS apps to write to Reminders directly, so the Watch app and the iPhone app work together:

• Your iPhone keeps the Watch's list up to date automatically, sending the latest Today list across whenever it changes — whether the change came from the iPhone, the Mac (via iCloud), or the Watch itself.
• When you tap, swipe-delete, or postpone something on the Watch, the Watch sends that request to the iPhone. The iPhone performs the actual change in Reminders, then sends back the refreshed list.

Sync Timing — What to Expect

Because every Watch action is relayed through the iPhone, the Watch app needs your iPhone to be nearby and reachable — within Bluetooth/Wi-Fi range, with WillDo able to wake briefly in the background. In normal use, with your iPhone in your pocket or on the same network, changes made on the Watch reach the iPhone — and, shortly after, the Mac via iCloud — within a few seconds.

If your iPhone is out of range, switched off, or hasn't run WillDo recently, the Watch will still show your change locally straight away, but the underlying Reminder won't actually update until the two devices reconnect and the iPhone processes the request. Keep your iPhone nearby if you're relying on the Watch to make changes.

If WillDo isn't granted access to Reminders on the Watch itself (Apple Watch Settings app → WillDo → Reminders), the Today view can't load its own local fallback copy of the list — but it will still receive the live list from your iPhone once connected.

The Tech Bit

How WillDo works under the hood.

Your WillDo Lists in Reminders

WillDo stores all your tasks in a dedicated Reminders list — called WillDo by default — and maintains a second list — called WD-Tomorrow by default — as a staging area for the next day. You choose the names for both lists the first time you set up WillDo on any device (see First Launch, below). Your items are real Reminders, synced automatically by iCloud, and visible in the Reminders app whenever you want to see them there — on Mac, iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch. WillDo simply provides a faster, more focused interface for managing your daily selection.

First Launch — Checking for an Existing Setup

Before asking you to name your lists, WillDo checks whether a configuration has already been published to iCloud by one of your other devices. Occasionally — for example on a freshly signed-in device — iCloud hasn't finished syncing yet, so WillDo can't immediately tell whether this is genuinely your first device or whether your existing setup just hasn't arrived. Rather than guess (and risk publishing a new configuration that overwrites the one you already have), it asks you first.

This is my first device — proceeds straight to naming your lists, below.

I've used WillDo before — asks iCloud to check again and shows a Check Again button. If your other device is online with WillDo open, its configuration should arrive within a few seconds, and WillDo will automatically offer to adopt it (see Setting Up a Second Device, below). If it still doesn't appear, open WillDo on your other device first — to nudge iCloud into syncing — then tap Check Again.

First Launch — Naming Your Lists

The first time you open WillDo on any device, it asks you to name your two lists — one for Today, one for Tomorrow. The fields are pre-filled with suggested defaults, WillDo and WD-Tomorrow, which work well with Siri (a list named simply "WillDo" can otherwise be ambiguous when both lists start with the same word). You're free to use the suggestions or type your own names.

Choose names you're happy to live with — while you can rename the underlying Reminders lists later from within the Reminders app itself, WillDo doesn't currently offer a way to re-point itself at a renamed list afterwards without going through Reset Setup again (see Advanced Settings).

First Launch — Setting Up a Second Device

Once you've named your lists on one device, that configuration is saved to iCloud automatically. If you then set up WillDo on another of your devices — your iPhone after your Mac, or vice versa, or your Apple Watch — it checks iCloud first and, if it finds the configuration from your other device, offers to use it.

Use this configuration — adopts the same list names as your other device, so both devices end up pointing at the same pair of Reminders lists. This is the recommended choice for a second device.

Choose different names — lets you pick new names instead. Doing so replaces the shared configuration in iCloud with your new choice, which will then be offered to any other device where you set up WillDo from this point on — including the device(s) you've already configured, the next time they need to re-run setup. WillDo warns you about this before you confirm.

If iCloud hasn't finished syncing yet when you open WillDo on a new device, you may first see the "Checking for an Existing Setup" screen described above — once your other device's configuration arrives, WillDo switches to offering it here automatically.

First Launch — Existing Reminders List Found

For each of the two lists (Today and Tomorrow, in turn), WillDo checks whether a Reminders list with the configured name already exists — perhaps from a previous installation, or one you created yourself. If so, it asks what you'd like to do with that list.

Use this existing list — keeps all current items and continues using that list as-is.

Rename existing & start fresh — renames the existing list (for example to "WillDo-Old") and creates a brand new, empty list with the configured name. Your old items are preserved under the new name in Reminders.

This choice is presented separately for each list, and only once per list, so take a moment to decide which suits you.

This prompt doesn't appear when you choose Use this configuration on a second device (see Setting Up a Second Device, above): a list matching the shared configuration's name is exactly the list being shared between your devices, so WillDo binds to it automatically without asking.

Completed Items — Logging and Retention

WillDo does not delete completed reminders. When you tick an item off in WillDo, it stays in your Reminders list permanently. WillDo simply hides completed items from previous days so your current list stays focused.

Each morning when the app opens, WillDo logs the previous day's completed items to your Done Log file. Only items ticked off within WillDo are logged — items marked complete directly in the Reminders app are not included. When items are logged, any internal WillDo marker characters are automatically removed from their notes field, leaving your notes clean in Reminders.

Items completed today are shown with a strikethrough at the bottom of your list. The next day they disappear from view but remain safely in Reminders.

Cleaning up: Over time completed reminders accumulate in your Reminders list. Use the cleanup options in Advanced Settings to permanently delete completed items older than 1, 3, or 6 months.

Sync Across Your Devices: Timing and Cautions

WillDo's three apps all read and write the same underlying Reminders lists, but they get there by different routes — so it's worth understanding the timing involved.

Mac and iPhone — via iCloud

Mac and iPhone each talk to Reminders directly, and iCloud handles the rest. Sync is normally fast — typically a few seconds — but it isn't instant. If you tick something off on your iPhone and immediately glance at your Mac (or vice versa), give it a moment to catch up before assuming something's wrong.

Apple Watch — via your iPhone

The Watch app reads its list directly from Reminders via iCloud, the same as Mac and iPhone. But watchOS doesn't allow apps to write changes to Reminders, so when you tick off, delete, or postpone an item on the Watch, that action is relayed to the iPhone, which makes the actual Reminders update (see Apple Watch Companion App above for the full picture). This adds a dependency for actions: the Watch needs the iPhone nearby and reachable for changes to take effect. A change made on the Watch while the iPhone is out of range will appear to "stick" on the Watch immediately, but won't be reflected in Reminders — and therefore not on your Mac — until the devices reconnect.

Daily Reset and Multiple Devices

The daily reset — logging yesterday's completed items and migrating your Tomorrow list into your Today list — runs once, the first time you open WillDo on a new day, on whichever device you open it on first. On iPhone, this check also runs each time WillDo returns to the foreground, so it's not necessary to relaunch the app. This means a device's item count may briefly look out of date until you open WillDo on it for the first time that day, at which point everything updates immediately.

If you use WillDo on more than one device that shares the Done Log (for example two Macs, or a Mac and an iPhone sharing the same iCloud container), each device checks the shared Done Log file before running its own reset, so only one device normally performs it per day. However, if you open WillDo on two devices at almost exactly the same moment — before iCloud has had a chance to sync — both could attempt the reset at once, which may occasionally cause unpredictable results (such as a duplicated task). This is rare; if it happens, simply open WillDo on one device first and wait a few seconds before opening it on another.

The Apple Watch app does not perform a daily reset of its own — it simply reflects whatever Today list the iPhone sends it.

Tomorrow List: Internal Marker

Tasks created within WillDo for the next day — whether added directly in the Tomorrow view or repeated from a completed item — are tagged internally so the app knows to give them a fresh creation date when they arrive in your main WillDo list the following morning.

This tag appears as wd at the very beginning of the notes field. It is invisible inside WillDo itself, but if you open your Tomorrow list in the Reminders app you may notice the characters wd at the start of the notes on those items. This is intentional and harmless — the tag is automatically stripped when the task migrates into your Today list.

Tasks that were postponed from your Today list to your Tomorrow list carry no tag and are moved as-is, preserving their original creation date, notes, alarms, and all other details exactly.

If you add tasks to your Tomorrow list directly in the Reminders app (outside of WillDo), they will also be treated as untagged and moved as-is — no details will be lost.

The Done Log File

Completed items are written to a plain text file called WillDo-Done.txt, stored in WillDo's own iCloud container (visible as "WillDo" in iCloud Drive). If iCloud Drive is unavailable, it falls back to a local Application Support folder. Each line records the completion time and title:

The file is plain text, human-readable, and yours to keep. WillDo prepends new entries at the top so the most recent day is always first. Even on a day when nothing is completed, WillDo writes a small "No items completed" placeholder entry — this is normal, is hidden from the History view, and simply records that the day's reset has run.

Advanced Settings

The Advanced section (found at the bottom of Settings, on Mac and iPhone) provides access to actions that are useful but should not be triggered accidentally, plus one optional feature.

Clear completed and Clear all items — permanently remove items from your list, each requiring inline confirmation before anything is deleted.

Reset Setup — re-runs the first-launch setup flow on this device, letting you rename your lists or point WillDo at different Reminders lists. Tap Reset Setup, confirm, and the setup prompt appears immediately. Your existing tasks and Done Log are not affected. Because list names are shared across your devices via iCloud, if this device finds its previous configuration still published, it will offer to use it again (effectively restoring what you had) — or you can choose different names, which updates the shared configuration for your other devices too, as described under First Launch.

Clean Up Old Completed Items: Permanently deletes completed reminders from your Reminders list older than 1, 3, or 6 months. Each option requires confirmation.

Tap title to open in Reminders: An optional toggle that turns the WillDo and Tomorrow titles into links, jumping straight to that list in the Reminders app. Off by default — see "Open List in Reminders" below for what it needs and what to expect.

Open List in Reminders — Why a Shortcut?

Apple's App Sandbox — required for App Store distribution — does not let WillDo tell the Reminders app directly to open a particular list; Reminders offers no scripting interface that a sandboxed app is permitted to use. To work around this, WillDo hands the job to a small Apple Shortcut, which is allowed to open a Reminders list on its behalf.

Setting it up is a one-time step: in Advanced Settings, tap "Add Shortcut". Once added, turn on "Tap title to open in Reminders" and the WillDo / Tomorrow titles become links.

Tip — set this up on Mac if you can: on Mac, tapping "Add Shortcut" opens Shortcuts.app directly and prompts you to add it with one click. On iPhone, the same button opens the share sheet, and you need to scroll to find and tap the Shortcuts icon to import it — a little less direct. If you use WillDo on both, it's easiest to add the shortcut once on the Mac; Shortcuts syncs your shortcut library via iCloud, so it will then already be available on your iPhone too — no need to repeat the setup there.

The trade-off: each time you tap, your device briefly runs the Shortcuts app in the background to carry out the request before switching to Reminders. You may see it flash on screen for a moment — this is a normal side effect of how Shortcuts work and is harmless. Because of this, the feature is off by default and tucked away in Advanced Settings; turn it on only if the convenience is worth the occasional flash.