My wife and I recently decided it was time to stop reminding our kids what they need to do on a daily basis to get ready for the day and night. We tried many of the iOS apps on the market but they all left me wanting more. I don’t feel like they did a great job encouraging or motivating our kids besides a basic points system.
Enter shortcuts and a dad determined to give them a unique chores experience they get excited about.
Current state:
Each of our 2 boys has their own set of widgets on an ipad homescreen. One for morning tasks, one for afternoon/evening tasks, one to check their points.
The chores and points system live in Data Jar.
The shortcuts get all chores (either morning or afternoon), check if their last completed date is today. If not, it adds them to a list. It then speaks the count remaining and displays a multi select list for them to choose from. After selection it updates those chores dates so they aren’t presented again the next time it is ran. It also updates their points and speaks their new total.
Once all chores are complete they are asked if they would like to have a dance party. If yes, I sends text to all homepods that says they have completed all tasks, gets a random funny congratulations sentence (tailored to the 6 year old and one tailored to the 12 year old - fortnite themed of course), and says its time for a dance party. A random song from their curated playlist plays on the ipad.
Since the bus comes at 7:45, I also have an automation setup on my phone that checks how many chores they have left and sends them to all homepods to announce the time and remaining tasks. This runs on weekdays at 7:30, 7:35 and 7:40.
Future enhancements:
Display all rewards in a list with the remaining points needed to redeem that reward.
I’m curious if anyone else has implemented chores through shortcuts?
Thanks for listening.