Care & maintenance
Stop Googling “when did I last change the furnace filter?”
It's never on the calendar, because it was never a calendar problem. You don't need to be reminded on a fixed date — you need to know how long it's actually been since you last did it, and whether that's now too long. A search engine can't answer that. A box you check off can.
The due date isn't something you set. It's something you compute.
Groundkeep's care list works on intervals instead of appointments. For each recurring chore you log an interval once — every 90 days, every 6 months, every year — and the day you mark it actually done. That's it. The due date is just those two numbers added together, recalculated every time you check the box, so it always reflects reality instead of a guess you made back when you set it up.
Compare that to a calendar entry: you type in a date six months out, and if life gets in the way — you do the job two weeks late, or three weeks early — the entry is now wrong and you have to remember to fix it, or delete it and retype another one. An interval-based item never goes stale. Whatever day you actually did the work becomes the new anchor, automatically.
A few things this is actually good for
Anything a household repeats on a rhythm, not a schedule — the stuff you'd otherwise have to remember, or worse, look up.
HVAC filter — every 90 days
Log it done and the next due date is three months out from that exact day, not from whenever you happened to set the reminder up.
Gutter cleaning — every 6 months
Fall and spring, roughly — but tied to when the ladder actually came out last, so a late autumn doesn't throw off the whole year.
Kid's dentist visit — every 6 months
One line per kid. Check it off at the appointment and you're not stuck cross-referencing a paper reminder card from the clinic.
Smoke detector batteries — every 12 months
The kind of task that's easy to do once and then completely lose track of. The interval keeps track so you don't have to.
Calendar entry vs. care item
Same goal — don't forget the filter — but a fixed date and a rolling interval behave very differently once real life gets involved.
| Aspect | Calendar reminder | Groundkeep care item |
|---|---|---|
| When it fires | On a fixed date you picked once, whenever that was | Recalculated from the day you last logged it actually done |
| After you finish the task | You retype a new event for next time, or it just sits there passed | Tap it done — the next due date computes itself from the interval |
| If you're running late | The old event already fired and is now stale, easy to lose in the noise | It just shows as overdue by however many days, no re-entry needed |
| Where it lives | Buried among unrelated meetings and appointments | One list of care items, sorted by what's actually coming due |