Setting Up

Finalist asks for a fair amount of trust up front: calendars, reminders, notifications, location, health. Here's what each one actually does for you, so you can decide with open eyes. Everything is optional. Skip a permission and that feature simply won't appear, and you can always change your mind later in your device's Settings under Finalist.

No account, no sign-up

There's nothing to create and no password to remember. Your tasks, habits, lists, notes and journal live in your own iCloud and sync to your other Apple devices automatically. Finalist doesn't have a server with your data on it.

Calendars

With calendar access, your events appear right on your daily page alongside your tasks: work meetings, personal appointments, shared and subscribed calendars. You choose exactly which calendars show up in the Calendars configurator under the app menu, and the same place tunes how each one behaves, like showing an announcement-style calendar as all-day (see Calendar & Reminders). For day-to-day toggling, Calendar Bookmarks put colored tabs for your calendars right in the margin of your day.

Reminders

With reminders access, your Apple Reminders appear in Finalist and can be managed from either app. This is also what lets Finalist create reminders that alert on all your Apple devices (even ones without Finalist installed) and work with lists you share with family. More on when to use reminders vs. tasks in The Five Kinds of Things.

Completed reminders also show up in the Journal tab, as a record of what got done that day. If some lists are just churn (a shopping list, say), Settings > Journal lets you turn completed tasks off entirely, or exclude specific reminder lists while keeping the rest.

Notifications

Notifications let timed tasks alert you when they're due, and enable the optional evening planning prompt, a gentle nudge to set up tomorrow before the day ends (part of The Daily Rhythm).

A task or habit notification carries three buttons: Complete checks it off without opening Finalist, and Remind in 10 min or Remind in 1 hour brings the same notification back later. Snooze it again when it returns, as often as you need.

For the things you tend to put off, turn on Remind until done in Settings, under Notifications. Choose Habits or Tasks and Habits, and how often (every 5, 10, 15, or 30 minutes). After the first notification, Finalist keeps reminding you, up to six more times, until you check the item off. Complete it anywhere, from the notification or in the app, and the reminders stop. Snoozing moves them back to the time you picked. Completing on another device stops them once this one syncs, so one might still arrive in between.

Each device asks for permission and alerts on its own, so your iPhone, iPad, and Mac can each remind you, whichever one you're using. Your Apple Watch shows your iPhone's notifications. On a Mac, Finalist asks the first time you give a task a time, and you can change it later in System Settings, under Notifications.

Location & weather

Location powers the weather forecast on your daily page and timeline, so you can plan the run before the rain. It's also used for optional journal check-ins that remember where you were.

Health

With Health access, your journal picks up the body's side of the day: your activity rings appear alongside what you wrote, and a tap in the journal logs a recent workout into the entry. To do this Finalist reads things like rings, steps, sleep, workouts, and mindful minutes, and it's strictly read-only: Finalist never writes anything to your Health data. (Not on Mac, which has no Health data.)

Photos

Only needed if you want to attach photos to journal entries or capture tasks from a photo of text: a whiteboard, a hand-written list, a screenshot.

One more optional thing

During setup I'll offer to send you occasional planning tips by email (my Insiders newsletter). It's genuinely optional and separate from everything above.

Related: Your First Day · Calendar & Reminders · Sync & Devices