Documentation

What's a chore?

In Flow, a chore is something that needs to get done regularly around your house. This can be frequent things like doing the laundry, or less regular things like changing bedding or giving lea treatment to the cat. The key thing is that they repeat on an ongoing basis and are never "done" in the sense that you won't have to do them again - like that pile of washing up by your sink.

Repeating chores

When you define a chore, you need to decide two things. The first is how often you want to do the chore. The next thing you need to decide is how this time period interacts with when you complete a chore.

For some chores, for example paying a bill which is due on the 1st of each month, you want the next occurrence of that chore to be scheduled for 1 month after the previous scheduled time, regardless of when you actually complete the chore. In this case, select since it was last scheduled when you create the chore.

For other chores, for example putting the dishwasher on, you want the next occurrence to be scheduled relative to when you last actually did the chore. Say I usually run the dishwasher every 2 days, but am on holiday for a week. When I mark "put the dishwasher on" as complete when I get back from holiday, I want the next occurrence to be scheduled 2 days from now, not 5 days ago.In this case, select since you last completed it when you create the chore.

This behaviour is inspired by org-mode.

Rescheduling chores

When you complete a chore, Flow will automatically choose who should do the chore next time it is due. If only you can do the chore, you will be assigned next. If more than one person can do it, Flow will randomly choose a person from the available people, but not the person who just did it. This helps chores to be distributed evenly among household members, while keeping things interesting by giving you variety in the chores you personally have to do.

What's a project?

In Flow, a project is a thing that needs doing once around the household, and which requires more than one step. Each of the steps involved in the project is a task. This is quite close to the Getting Things Done (GTD) definition of a project, except that the project and associated tasks can be distributed between different people in the household. Often, you'll want to share the work involved in a project depending on what different people are good at or enjoy doing, or how much time they have.

Projects have a status, which can be upcoming, in progress or done. Upcoming projects are things you need or want to do at some point, but can't make any progress on yet, and therefore shouldn't have any "up next" tasks. In progress projects have associated tasks which you, or someone in your household, can make progress on now.

What's a task?

In Flow, a task is a thing that needs to get done once, as part of a project. Ideally, your tasks should be small, concrete things that can get done in one sitting, for example "fill in this form for house insurance", "purchase this specific kind of cat bed from this shop" and so on.

You can assign tasks to specific people in your household, or leave them as available for anyone to do when they have time. We recommend not assigning a task unless it is actually something that only one specific person can do, to encourage sharing household work among anyone who has time.

Tasks have a status, which can be "waiting", "up next" or "done". "Up next" tasks are ones that you could do right now. "Waiting" tasks are tasks that you know are required for that project, but can't do right now. For example, you might need to do another task first (research cat beds before buying a cat bed), or be waiting on communication from someone (like your boss to confirm you can have time off before you book that flight).

If you need to do another task or tasks before a "waiting" one, you can mark this explicitly in the "waiting" task's "blocked by" section, and when these tasks are done, your "waiting" task will automatically be promoted to "up next".

What's the deal with deadlines?

You can set a deadline on tasks and projects independently. If a task doesn't have a specific deadline, the deadline from its project will be shown, if there is one.

We recommend only setting deadlines on tasks and projects that are actual hard deadlines, for example this tax form needs to get returned by a specific date, so that the concept of a deadline stays fixed for everyone in the household and is respected.

You will see all available tasks for you in your overview, and in the daily email if you enable that, regardless of whether they have deadlines, so there's no risk of losing tasks that don't have deadlines.