Home & auto
The home & car maintenance schedule you'll actually follow (it texts you)
Maintenance doesn't fail on ability. It fails on remembering.
Nobody skips the water heater flush because it's hard. You skip it because nothing in your life ever says “today is the day.” The furnace works until it doesn't, the dryer vent looks fine from the outside, and the gutter question only comes up while it's raining. Every maintenance checklist on the internet assumes that once you know the schedule, you'll follow it. But the knowing was never the problem. A printed checklist goes on the fridge and becomes wallpaper by March.
So this page does two things. First, a genuinely complete schedule you can use with or without us. Second, each item is written the way you'd text it to us — so turning any line into a permanent, self-repeating reminder is one copy and paste.
The home schedule, written as texts
Monthly
- “remind me every month: check the HVAC filter — swap it if it's gray”
- “remind me every month: clean the garbage disposal”
- “remind me every month: press the test button on the smoke detectors”
Every 3 months
- “remind me every 3 months: check the gutters and clear what's in them” (they fill on the seasons' schedule, not yours)
- “remind me every 3 months: check the water softener salt”
Twice a year
- “remind me every 6 months: change the smoke detector batteries” — the old fire-department trick of doing it when the clocks change works because it's a date you can't miss; a text does the same job without the clocks
- “remind me every 6 months: deep-clean the dishwasher, washer, and fridge coils”
Once a year
- “remind me every year in September: book the furnace service” (before the first cold night, not during it)
- “remind me every year in October: get the chimney inspected”
- “remind me every year: clean out the dryer vent”
- “remind me every year: flush the water heater”
Skip what doesn't apply — no softener, no chimney, fine. The point isn't completing a list; it's that the jobs your house actually has stop depending on your memory.
The car schedule
One honest note first: oil change intervals vary a lot — by car, by oil type, by how you drive. Any site that hands you a single universal number is guessing. Your owner's manual has the real interval; set the reminder to match it.
- “remind me every ___ months: get the oil changed” — fill in the blank from your manual
- “remind me every ___ months: rotate the tires” — the manual lists this one too; many people pair it with the oil change so it's one trip
- “remind me every year on [your renewal month] 1st: renew the car registration” — the late fee is the most avoidable bill you'll ever pay
- “remind me every year, a month before the policy renews: review the car insurance” — renewal prices drift; ten minutes of comparing once a year is usually worth it
Set it once. That's the entire system.
Here's the part that makes this different from the checklist on the fridge: you never look at the schedule again. Text a line in (or set it on the web dashboard), and it repeats on its own — every month, every 3 months, every September — until you tell it to stop. When a reminder arrives you reply DONE, and the important ones can nudge again if you don't, always as a question (“did you already do this?”), never a nag. No app to open, no spreadsheet to update, no system to maintain. The maintenance schedule finally stops being one more thing to maintain.
Three months from now you won't remember setting this up. That's the point — it remembers for you.
Works for a parent's house, too
If you're the one who worries about Dad's furnace filter from three states away, the same schedule can go to his phone instead of yours. Consent comes first — he gets one invitation text and nothing sends until he replies YES — and then the reminders arrive as ordinary texts he answers with DONE. If something important goes unanswered, you can get one quiet heads-up. Busy people forget filters; it's not an age thing, and the setup doesn't treat it like one. More on that in the family setup.
Where we're honest about the limits
Every tool on this problem has limits, ours included — and you should hear them from us, not discover them later:
What Jon's Reminders is not
- Not for emergencies. Nothing here replaces 911 or a medical alert device.
- Not a medical device. It doesn't dispense medication, monitor anyone, or give medical advice — a DONE reply means they tapped a response, not proof a pill was actually taken.
- Nudges ask, they never re-instruct. A repeated reminder always reads “did you already do this?” — designed so nobody acts twice. Even so, if your parent has severe memory loss or cognitive impairment, a text may not be enough: a locked pill dispenser or in-person care is the right tool there.
If that's your situation, we'd rather point you elsewhere than take your money.
The printable reminder templates, free ✳
25 copy-and-paste reminders written for real families — meds, appointments, trash night, the whole list. We'll email you the printable set, plus an occasional honest note from Jon. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Common questions
How often should I change my HVAC filter?
It genuinely depends, and we won't pretend otherwise. Thin fiberglass filters need changing much more often than thick pleated ones, and pets, allergies, and how much the system runs all shorten the interval. Your filter's packaging states its rated life — start there, check the filter when the reminder arrives, and adjust the schedule to what you actually see. The reminder is the part most people are missing, not the number.
What home maintenance do people forget most?
The invisible jobs — the ones that give no sign anything's wrong until something is. Dryer vent cleaning, water heater flushes, gutters, the furnace service you only think about the first cold night. Anything on a monthly rhythm eventually becomes habit; it's the once-a-year tasks with no natural trigger that need an external nudge.
How do recurring text reminders work?
You set the reminder once — on the web dashboard or by texting it in plain English — and it re-arms itself on schedule forever. Each time it fires you get an ordinary text; reply DONE to close the loop, SNOOZE to push it, LIST to see everything you've set, STOP to end it all instantly. There's no app to install and no list to maintain.
Can I set these up for a parent's house too?
Yes, and consent comes first: your parent gets one invitation text, and nothing sends until they reply YES. After that the furnace reminder, the gutter reminder, the registration renewal all go straight to their phone, and you can get one quiet heads-up if something important goes unanswered. No app on their phone either.
What does a schedule like this cost?
Honestly: this page's schedule needs recurring reminders, which are on the Plus plan at $14.99/month (Basic at $6.99 covers one-time personal reminders only). Plus also includes 'til-done nudging and setting up reminders for someone else. There's a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can load the whole schedule in and let a month of it decide.
Load the schedule in now, while the tab is open.
Verify your number, then text us the first one — “remind me every 3 months: change the HVAC filter” — and keep going down the list. If it doesn't stick, the first 30 days are money-back, no questions.