Everything on one screen: how often this usually needs to happen, the free way to set it on the iPhone you already own, and what changes if a phone call does it instead.
Twice a day — a morning one and an evening one. The free built-in option comes first below, because for plenty of people it is genuinely the whole answer.
The morning one survives because it is attached to getting up. The evening one has no anchor, which is why nearly everyone who misses this rhythm misses the second half of it.
Why this one slips: The morning half survives because it is attached to getting ready. The evening half has no anchor, and that is the half everybody drops.
This is free, already on your phone, and for a lot of people it is genuinely enough — try it for a fortnight before paying anyone, including us. Its limit is that it ends in a notification: it is not exempt from Do Not Disturb the way a Clock alarm is, and a banner can be cleared without being read. If the timing is the hard part, set a repeating Clock alarm instead — iOS lets alarms sound even on a muted phone.
A silent banner still loses here: a late banner reads as tomorrow’s job the moment you are already lying down.
With ReminderCall your phone rings like a normal incoming call — a real call over the phone network, not a banner and not an in-app alarm. You answer, and a voice reads the reminder out loud in the words you wrote. Answering is an action, which is harder to do absent-mindedly than clearing a notification.
To be precise about it: a call follows your ring settings rather than your notification settings. On hard mute it vibrates and takes over your screen instead of ringing out loud, unless you save the number as a contact with Emergency Bypass switched on yourself.
The morning half survives because it is attached to getting ready. The evening half has no anchor, and that is the half everybody drops.
Starting, stopping and switching — the time-blindness shaped problems a silent banner is worst at solving. The failure is almost never that you did not know — it is that the prompt arrived at a moment when acknowledging it was easier than acting on it. The morning one survives because it is attached to getting up. The evening one has no anchor, which is why nearly everyone who misses this rhythm misses the second half of it.
Read next: phone call reminders for ADHD · reminders when your phone is on silent · does it help if you ignore notifications?
This is free, already on your phone, and for a lot of people it is genuinely enough — try it for a fortnight before paying anyone, including us. Its limit is that it ends in a notification: it is not exempt from Do Not Disturb the way a Clock alarm is, and a banner can be cleared without being read. If the timing is the hard part, set a repeating Clock alarm instead — iOS lets alarms sound even on a muted phone.
The other free move, and often the more effective one: anchor it to something you already do without thinking — after the kettle goes on, before you lock the front door, as you sit down at your desk. A reminder attached to an existing habit needs far less from your phone. Try both for a fortnight before you pay anybody for this.
Get ReminderCall — free on the App Store Get →