How to Set a Reminder: iPhone, Alexa and Shared Apps

The quickest way to set a reminder is to tell your phone or smart speaker exactly what you need and when. On an iPhone, open the Reminders app, tap New Reminder, type the task, then tap the Date & Time button to schedule it. With a smart speaker, say "Alexa, remind me to put the bins out tomorrow at 7 pm" and it is done.

That covers a personal nudge. The harder problem for a busy home is making sure the right person remembers, not just you. The rest of this guide shows the exact taps for iPhone, Siri, Google Keep and Alexa, then how to turn a one-off alert into a reminder you can assign to a family member so everyone can see it.

Set a reminder on your iPhone with the Reminders app

The built-in Reminders app is the fastest route on an iPhone and works without any extra download. These steps are current as of June 2026.

Open the Reminders app.
Tap New Reminder and type the task, for example "Pick up prescription".
Tap the Date & Time button to add a due date. Choose Today, Tomorrow, This Weekend, or tap Date & Time for a custom slot.
To make it repeat, tap Date & Time, then Repeat, and pick daily, weekly, monthly or a custom pattern.
Tap Add to save it.

By default, all-day reminders fire at 9 am, which you can change in Settings > Reminders. To move a reminder into a shared or themed list, tap Edit Details and change the list it belongs to.

Apple Reminders app on an iPhone showing a New Reminder with the Date and Time button highlighted

Set a reminder with Siri

When your hands are full, voice is quicker. Press and hold the side button (or just say "Siri") and give the whole instruction in one go:

Time-based: "Remind me to feed the dog every day at 7.30 am."
Location-based: "Remind me to check the post when I get home."

For location reminders to work, add your home and work addresses to your own card in Contacts, and make sure Location Services is switched on in Settings.

Location-based reminders on iPhone

Location reminders are brilliant for errands you keep forgetting. In a new reminder:

Tap the Location button.
Pick a preset, or tap Custom to add an address such as your local supermarket.
Choose whether to be reminded on Arriving or Leaving.
Adjust the radius so the alert triggers as you get close.

A reminder to "buy milk" that only fires when you reach the shop is far more useful than one that pings while you are at work.

Set a reminder on Android with Google Keep

Google Keep is one of the most common ways to attach a reminder to a note on Android.

Open the Keep app and tap an existing note or start a new one.
At the top right, tap Remind me.
Under Pick date and time, set the time, date and recurrence.

Keep reminders send a notification at the set time and again 24 hours later if you have not acted on it. You can review everything in one place by tapping Menu > Reminders, and the same reminders also surface in Google Tasks and Google Calendar. To set one by voice, say "Hey Google, remind me to call mum on Friday at 6 pm."

Set a reminder with Alexa or Google Nest

Smart speakers are the fastest way to capture a thought before it disappears. Be specific so the assistant schedules it correctly.

One-off: "Hey Google, remind me to call the dentist tomorrow at 10 am."
Recurring: "Alexa, remind me to take out the recycling every Tuesday at 7 pm."

You can also set Alexa reminders in the app:

Open the Alexa app and tap More > Reminders.
Tap the Add Reminder plus sign.
Name the reminder, choose a speaker or your phone, set the date and time, then tap Repeat for daily or weekly chores.
Tap Save.

When the reminder is due, Alexa reads it out loud on the device you set it on and sends a phone notification.

Voice and built-in apps are everywhere for a reason. According to YouGov Profiles, 30% of British adults use a digital assistant every day, and among those daily users, 49% rely on them for setting timers and alarms. You can read the full UK digital assistant usage data from YouGov.

Where a single-app reminder runs out of road

A reminder you set only for yourself has the same limit across every method above: it reaches you, and no one else. A bin-day alert on your own phone does nothing if you are away and your partner forgot. A "pack the PE kit" note in your private Keep account never reaches the teenager who actually owns the kit.

To be fair to Apple, the Reminders app does close part of this gap on its own. Apple's own guide to sharing and assigning reminders shows you can share a list, then assign a specific reminder to a person (tap the reminder, tap the assignment button, and pick them, or type @ and their name). The notification then lands on their phone. So a single-app reminder is not the whole story: if everyone in the house is on iPhone and you keep a shared Reminders list, you can already hand a task to a named person.

Where that approach starts to creak is scope. A shared Reminders list is just that, a list of reminders. The household calendar still lives somewhere else, the shopping list somewhere else again, and the recurring chores in a third place. The task you assigned is not sitting next to the event it relates to or the shopping it depends on. When a reminder lives in a household app that also holds the calendar, the lists and the recurring jobs, the whole house sees the task in the context of everything else going on, and you can assign it to the person who needs to do it without hopping between apps.

A shared household task list in the OneHaus app with reminders assigned to different family members

When we built shared reminders into OneHaus, the request we heard most from families testing it was the same: stop making one person the keeper of every list. Assigning the reminder, rather than just owning it, is what removes that mental load.

Assign a reminder to someone else

Instead of reminding yourself and then chasing people, you set the reminder against the person responsible:

"Remind Tom to pick up the dry cleaning on Friday."
"Remind David to empty the dishwasher on Wednesday."
"Remind Sarah to wipe down the counters before bed."

The notification arrives on their phone, from the app, not from you. That single change takes the personal sting out of it and removes the feeling of nagging. Each task has one clear owner, so nobody assumes someone else has it covered.

To go deeper on this, see our guide on managing household tasks effectively.

Turn reminders into a coordinated family plan

A single reminder jogs one memory. Once your reminders connect to a shared calendar and to-do list, they start to run the household instead. When tasks and events live side by side, you create one plan for the week that everyone can see.

This connected view pays off most on multi-step jobs. Planning a family trip, you can set reminders to book flights, renew passports and pack bags, with the whole timeline visible to the household so there is no last-minute scramble.

A few everyday examples where one shared plan helps:

Weekend errands: A shared shopping list stops duplicate purchases. One person adds items through the week; whoever goes to the shop knows exactly what to get.
Kids' activities: A calendar event for football practice is paired with a reminder to pack the kit the night before, assigned to your own to-do list.
Bill payments: A recurring event for "Pay Council Tax" carries a reminder that pings the responsible person two days before it is due.

You can learn more in our guide on the benefits of a family shared calendar.

Create schedules for recurring tasks

Most household jobs are not one-offs. They run on a weekly or monthly rhythm, which is exactly where recurring reminders earn their place. Set the pattern once and the system sends the alert every time.

Weekly chores: "Water the plants every Sunday morning."
Monthly bills: "Pay the electricity bill on the 25th of each month."
Family routines: "Remind the kids to pack their PE kits every Tuesday evening."

For chores that rotate, keep one recurring reminder and edit who it is assigned to each week, rather than building a tangle of separate rules per person. A "Clean the bathroom" task that repeats every Sunday takes ten seconds to reassign to the next person in the rotation.

Troubleshooting common reminder problems

Reminders sometimes fail to appear, fail to sync, or drift out of step with the family's schedule. Most of the time the fix is a single setting.

Fix syncing and notification problems

You set a reminder for "pick up milk" and your partner never got the alert. When a reminder vanishes after you send it, it is almost always a setting on the receiving end. Run through this checklist for the person who missed it:

Check app permissions: Has the household app been allowed to send notifications on their phone? A quick trip to their device settings usually fixes it.
Verify the household connection: Have they accepted the invitation and officially joined the shared household?
Confirm internet access: A weak Wi-Fi or mobile signal can delay delivery. Make sure their device is online so it can pull the latest list.

These three checks solve the bulk of syncing problems. For a full walkthrough, see our guide to configuring OneHaus notifications.

When reminders get ignored

Sometimes the alert arrives on time and still gets swiped away in the noise of the day. That is a human problem, not a technical one.

Make reminders specific and time-bound. Instead of "clean up", try "Wipe down kitchen counters at 7 pm". A precise time is a stronger prompt. It also helps to agree the system together, so nobody feels bombarded. When everyone has a say in which reminders are genuinely useful, they are far more likely to act on them.

Common questions about setting reminders

How can I set a reminder for my partner without sounding like I am nagging?

Let the app be the messenger. When you have both agreed to use a household organiser, assigning a task is not you telling them what to do; it is part of the plan you made together. The notification comes from the app, which takes the personal edge out of it. Frame it as teamwork: "I have added a reminder for the bins so we do not forget" lands very differently from "Can you please remember the bins?".

What is the best way to manage recurring chores that people take turns doing?

Keep one recurring weekly reminder and edit who it is assigned to each week. A "Clean the bathroom" task that pops up every Sunday takes seconds to reassign to the next person in the rotation, which is much simpler than maintaining separate rules for each family member. The chore stays predictable; only the owner changes.

My kids ignore app notifications. How can I make reminders work for them?

Tie the digital nudge to a real-world routine. A "do homework" reminder at 4 pm is easy to ignore, but one timed to land just after their after-school snack ties the prompt to a cue they already recognise. Let them help set up their own reminders too, since they pay more attention to a system they helped build. A smart speaker announcing reminders in the kitchen can also cut through the screen-time haze better than another buzz in a pocket.

Try shared reminders with your household

If you are tired of being the only person who remembers everything, OneHaus lets you set a reminder and assign it to the family member who needs it, so the whole household sees the task in one place. Start your free 7-day trial on iPhone and turn scattered notes into a plan everyone can rely on. One subscription covers your entire household, and you can use it in any browser too.