Help & how-tos

Tap the + button on any main tab, or type straight into What's on your mind? on Home. Write the thought the way you'd say it and send; it lands in the right place based on how you phrase it (the rules are just below). Prefer to file it yourself? Tap Or sort it yourself to pick Today (a to-do for today, dropped into a time block), Task (kept until you get to it), or Open tab (something you're still deciding). This is how the invisible load stops running in the background: set it down once, and your brain can stop holding it.

Yes, and it's the best version of this. On iPhone, set up the Siri Shortcut from Settings; then you speak the thought the way you'd say it to a person and it's captured, no typing, no unlocking. Go a step further and wire it to a physical trigger: point the Action Button at it (iPhone Settings → Action Button → Shortcut → pick the Tender Years shortcut), or map a double-tap on the back of your phone (iPhone Settings → Accessibility → Touch → Back Tap), and capturing out loud becomes a reflex: say it mid-task and put your phone away. On Android there's no true hands-free trigger yet, but you can get most of the way there: long-press the Tender Years icon on your home screen, tap Quick Capture, then hit the mic button on your keyboard and speak instead of type.

Yes. Tap +, then Add from a screenshot, and pick the image from your photos. The daycare email, the birthday invite, the list of what to bring to the appointment: instead of retyping it, hand over the picture. It reads what's in there and shows you what it found, each item labeled with where it's headed (a day, Tasks, or Open Tabs). Edit a title inline, tap the × on anything you don't want, then Add to my week. If the picture has a list of things to bring, that comes along as a checklist. This is for the load that arrives as an image: the screenshot you took so you wouldn't forget, still sitting in your camera roll.

A spare few minutes usually gets spent deciding what to do with it. Skip the deciding: tap Got a few minutes? → Tend and it hands you one thing, the most worth-doing item that fits the moment you're in (something quick, at your computer, around the house, out and about). It draws from everything you've set down: your tasks, your open tabs, monthly-or-longer routines when they come due, and upcoming events worth a heads-up. To-dos already on a day stay on their day and don't nag you here. Do the small next step it offers, or tap Not yet to name what's in the way; tag it for a better moment (e.g. needs your partner), pick a day to finish it, or set it aside with just not today. Anything needed by a certain day comes back sooner as that day gets close. This is the habit: a spare pocket of time goes to the thing that matters most, and everything you touch moves a little further along.

It reads the time cues in what you write. Name a day or time and it lands on that day: "return library books Thursday afternoon". Write "by Friday" and it's held with that in mind, coming back sooner as Friday nears. No time cue ("email the pediatrician") and it lands in Tasks for this month. A question ("switch pediatricians?") lands in Open Tabs. If something lands wrong, you can move it anytime; and when a day-to-do mistakenly lands as a task, the toast offers a one-tap Change. Nothing is stuck where it fell.

Open Tend tab → Tasks and tap any task: mark it ASAP, give it a month, make it recurring (monthly, quarterly, and so on), or check it off. While tending, every card can be put on a day or told when to come back. Days and dates are yours to move; nothing is locked in.

Yes: Settings → Smart Sort. Paste the note, the list, the whole brain dump that's been living in your notes app, and it sorts everything into tasks and open tabs. A good first move on day one, and a good reset after any stretch where things piled up somewhere else.

Start a Tend session: tap Time to tend (on Home, or at the top of the Tend tab) and it hands you cards one at a time. On any card, tap Not yet → Talk it out and say what's stuck, however messy: even half a thought, or paste the email that's confusing you. It reads the knot and hands back the real thing in your way plus one concrete next step. If it reads it wrong, reply and it adjusts. When the step fits, select it (tweak the wording if you like), then tag it for a better moment, pick a day, or set it aside with just not today. You don't have to solve the whole thing; you say what's in your head and take the one step it gives back.

Set it down anyway; you don't have to know what it is yet. If it's more of a question than a task (switch pediatricians? worth doing swim lessons?), it lands in Open Tabs: the home for what you're still turning over. Nothing there nags you to decide; it waits, out of your head, until it's clearer. When you're ready to poke at it, tend it and talk it out.

For small to-dos that belong to a day: defrost the chicken, set out clothes. Tap +, pick Today, name it, pick a time block; it lands on Today in that block and clears when the day's done. Tending adds to your day too: pick a day on a card and its next step lands there, linked back to the task, so checking it off records the progress.

When a task stops being someday and becomes Thursday: open Tend tab → Tasks, tap the calendar icon on the task, and pick when. Today's time blocks are there to choose from, or any day in the week ahead; on a future day you slot it into a block when you get there. It lands on Today as its own line, still linked to the task, so checking it off there completes the task. The task then shows a → day chip; tap it to change the day or clear it. It also rests while it waits, staying out of tending until the day you picked.

Capture with + and pick Task or Open tab, or add in place: the Tasks page has an add field under each list, and Open Tabs has Add an open tab. Every task lives inside a routine's list; Family admin is the default, and you can give any routine its own list from the Routine Library (think Trip planning or Meals). If a routine is on your day, tap it there to see its tasks in context.

Swipe any card all the way right to clear it; tap Show completed at the bottom to bring one back. A short swipe left reveals more: Skip and Move on a routine, Edit and Tomorrow on a to-do. A short swipe right on a routine reveals your partner's name; tap it to hand today's turn over. Everything is a one-day change; tomorrow goes back to your usual pattern.

Open Routines and tap New routine: pull from the core library (bedtime, meals, daycare drop-off, and so on) or write your own. Set how often it happens and who owns it: you, your partner, or shared. Monthly-or-longer routines never clutter your week; they come back through tending when they're due. Any routine can also carry a Checklist or a Task list; switch either on from the routine's page in the library.

Yes. Open a routine in the Routine Library and switch its list to Checklist, then add the steps: pack the water bottle, sunscreen, spare clothes. The checklist lives on the routine, so it's there to build and reference any time from the Library. Once that routine is part of your weekly rhythm, it shows up on Today and you tap it to tick the steps off; the list resets fresh each day. Checklists are for the steps you repeat and don't want to re-remember; a Task list is for the to-dos that collect under a routine.

From Routines, tap Rhythm. Weekday and weekend views group your routines by time block, and each routine shows its schedule in plain words: which days, inside which block, who has it. Tap a routine to change any of that, move it to another block, or take it off the week; unplaced routines wait under In your library, not your week. A starting shape, not a contract.

For the things that shape a day, like appointments, parties, or a swim lesson: tap Add Event at the top of Today, name it, and pick the day and block it sits in. Add a start and end time if it has one, and it'll span the blocks it runs through so the day reads true. Where this goes further than a calendar entry: an event can carry its own checklist, so you pack in what it needs (the pool bag, the picnic gear, forms to sign) and tick it off on the day. It's not just a slot that reminds you something's happening; it holds the prep that comes with it, so the invisible load around the event lives right on the event.

Tap Ownership from Routines. Step through each routine and pick who holds it: you, your partner, Shared (together, varies day to day, or you each do your own), or Someday for things you'd like to do but aren't doing yet. A running tally keeps count as you go. Naming it once beats renegotiating it every week.

On the Tend tab, Plan your week is tending with the week ahead in mind: once a week instead of in the margins. It walks you through what you carried this week, anything to talk through together, and a day-by-day look at the week ahead. Ten quiet minutes, together or async, whatever fits.

Yes: Settings → Rhythm & ownership. Off keeps Tender Years to capture and tend. Your routines and ownership stay saved, and you can turn it all back on whenever you want. It's there for the overwhelmed stretches and new transitions that take a little practice before they run themselves.

On iPhone: open thetenderyears.com in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.

On Android: open thetenderyears.com in Chrome, tap the menu, then Add to Home screen, then tap Install in the dialog that appears.

On Mac or Windows: open thetenderyears.com in Chrome, open the menu, go to Cast, Save, and Share, then tap Install Page as App. You'll get a real desktop app with its own window and dock or taskbar icon.

Either way it opens like a normal app, full-screen, no browser bar.

Heads up: log in to thetenderyears.com in your browser before installing, or you'll be prompted to sign in once when you first open the app.

Settings → Calendar feed generates a private iCal URL. Pick which routines to include, set a duration for each, and subscribe in Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, or anywhere that takes an iCal feed. A routine flows out only if it's on your week with a set time; library-only routines stay off the calendar. You can also flip on today's to-dos and one-off events to have them ride along as all-day items. One-day changes flow through too: skip a routine for a day and it drops off; change its time for a day and it moves. Owner swaps and block moves don't flow in, and personal items stay off. Heads up: calendars refresh on their own schedule, so updates can take a few hours to appear.

Settings → Invite Partner creates a short code, good for 7 days. Send it however you like; when they sign in and enter it, your two accounts share one household: same week, same ownership, same notes.

Yes. If you use the Claude or ChatGPT desktop app, open thetenderyears.com right inside it and point your assistant at what's on the screen. Because your week, your tasks, and your open tabs are already laid out here (who owns what, when it happens, what's still undecided), your assistant can read that and actually do the next step: draft the email to the daycare, work down an event checklist, pull together what you need for an appointment. Tender Years isn't the one doing the thinking for you; it's the shared context that makes the load legible, so the assistant you already use can pick it up and help without you having to explain your whole life first. Nothing leaves the app on its own: you're the one who opens it and asks.