Life has been stressful lately, meaning that I've had even more trouble than usual keeping on top of tasks and household chores. While I already use TickTick for reminders for my work, as well as Asana for my deadlines, my chores have been slipping by the wayside as I deal with notification fatigue and worsening forgetfulness.

So when I stumbled across Donetick during my Reddit browsing, I was immediately interested in trying out the software. Not only could it possibly help me manage my forgetfulness around chores, but the ability to self-host it on my main PC added to the appeal.

What is Donetick?

An open-source task management app

There are plenty of task management apps out there, but Donetick is an open-source, self-hostable task app that allows you to keep track of chores. This focus on household chores is useful in a few ways: it allows you to have a separate dashboard for your chores, it's designed to be shared with other members in your household, and it's relatively flexible when it comes to due dates and automated scheduling.

For me, having a separate dashboard for chores helps me avoid notification fatigue. I already get notifications from Asana and TickTick, and I've been struggling to keep up with how many notifications I get lately. But having a specific web dashboard where I can easily set up new tasks that repeat at custom intervals has helped me keep my chores front-of-mind.

You can choose between Donetick's hosted solution (which includes a Free and Premium plan) or self-host the software. I set it up using Docker Desktop so that I can easily access it on my Windows PC. The developer also has a Android app available on Github, but you can save the site as a PWA on your phone or send notifications through Pushover. You can also add the app to your Home Assistant add-ons.

Donetick features

Gamification, stats, automation, and more

For an app with such a specific focus, it has a surprisingly rich set of features. You'll have your home dashboard, where you can add tasks that need to be completed. Due dates are optional, but help with filtering tasks. You can also set the assignee and priority for a task, along with labels to help categorize them.

Subtasks allow you to break up a specific chore into different parts, which helps with chores that need to be done in stages. If you set a due date for a task, you can also set when you would like to receive a reminder. These reminders are pretty flexible and you can add multiple reminders to a single task. Users can also set whether to track the time spent on a specific task.

When setting up Donetick, you automatically receive an assigned Circle. You can then invite others to this Circle if you want to share tasks with them and divvy out chores. Finally, there is also a gamification element, which allows you to assign points to specific tasks. I think this element is great for parents who may want to track and gamify chores completed by their kids, since it allows you to accrue and redeem points.

In terms of automation, you can schedule tasks to repeat at certain intervals or a certain time from the completion date. There is a Things feature which allows you to set a certain state as the trigger for a task. Meanwhile, you can also auto-assign tasks based on categories such as the person with the least completed or least assigned tasks.

Using Donetick to track my chores

Setup took a bit of trial-and error, but it was worth it

Getting my Donetick container took a bit of trial-and-error due to my relative newness to self-hosting. I had a bit of trouble configuring the software initially, but managed to get it set up along with a Pushover integration. I also saved the site as a web app on my smartphone to make it easier to tick off chores that I had completed. Since I am only using it within my home, I don't have to worry about accessing it outside of my local network.

It is possible to use the Donetick app to access your server (available on Github), but it will need HTTPS support to enable this connection.

While I wondered how effective tracking my tasks would be using Donetick, having a separate task manager with limited notifications has helped me get on top of my chores. I'm used to just relying on my memory to get things done, but this has failed me recently. So having a dashboard where I write down all my household tasks has helped significantly.

I don't have anyone else added to my Circle, but Donetick would've been a great way to keep on track with chores when I lived with others. This means you don't have to always deal with the mental load of what needs to be done and can just add it to the app and assign it to others.

There will still be days when I shrug off chores and delay them based on my schedule or energy levels. But so far, Donetick has helped me approach my chores in a more focused way.

Consider trying Donetick for your chores

If you're like me and struggling to keep on track with all your chores, Donetick is a useful app to try out. There are other task management apps out there, but I find that the focused nature of Donetick helps me with my notification overwhelm. I can use my usual to-do list apps for work, while having a private and self-hosted dashboard for my household chores.