More than a to-do list

People have kept to-do lists for centuries. Leonardo da Vinci filled his notebooks with them. Apricot started as our own version, a simple tool for our design studio to keep clients and the team on the same page. We still run the studio on it today.

Yes, it's a to-do list. But the longer we've used it alongside Claude and ChatGPT, the more it's turned into something else. This first post is about how we use it, the things it's good at that we didn't plan for, and why we think a list is the right shape for the way apps are heading.

Apps are changing shape

More and more of our day starts as a sentence to an AI assistant. You think of something, you tell Claude, and it's dealt with. That ease of just dumping things in is the best part of using an assistant. The problem is that most of what you tell it doesn't go anywhere useful afterwards.

We wanted that same ease, with somewhere for things to actually stay. So Apricot is built to be run from your assistant. When an idea comes to you, you type "add call the printer to the Studio list" into the chat you already have open, and it's done. You don't have to stop, find another app, tap through to the right list and type it all out again.

We think a to-do list is a great shape for this, often better than a project tool, doc or database. A list is something everyone already understands: a few words, maybe a date, maybe a person. There's nothing to set up or lay out, so there's nothing for you or your assistant to get wrong. A heavier tool makes you come to it. A list fits into a conversation, and assistants are very good at lists.

The things you'd expect

We use Apricot for all the ordinary things too.

• Shopping. One shared list for the household. Whoever's nearest the shop sees what's on it, and "add milk, eggs and bread to Shopping" is one message.
• Birthdays and dates. Family birthdays and anniversaries repeat every year. They stay hidden until a week or two before, so the list isn't cluttered for the other fifty weeks.
• The work deadlines that come once a year. Contract renewals, insurance, domain names, year-end accounts and company filings. Once a year is just often enough to forget, so we set them to repeat and they turn up with time to spare.
• The jobs that come round again. Bins every Tuesday, rent on the first, the boiler service every September. Tick one off and the next one appears.
• Your day. A short email in the morning with what's due, what's overdue and what's coming up tomorrow.

Lists as context

This is the use we didn't see coming. A list is a very good brief.

We keep Note Lists for things that aren't tasks: ideas for the studio, books people have recommended, research leads, places to look at for an offsite. Then we hand them to the assistant. "Look at my Launch ideas list and research the three most promising." "Go through Books to read and tell me which to start with." The list says what you care about, and the assistant goes off and does the work.

You can attach files to tasks and notes too, such as a brief, a quote or a PDF of the plans. Your assistant can read those as well, so the context sits right next to the job.

Your memory layer

Assistants forget. Each new chat starts more or less from scratch, and what one assistant remembers stays with that assistant.

What you keep in Apricot doesn't work that way. It's yours, it's there in every conversation, and it works with Claude, ChatGPT and any other assistant that can connect. Over time it becomes a memory layer: your projects, your plans, the people involved and what's been decided, all somewhere your assistant can look.

That also means you get the benefit of every new model. Each time Claude or ChatGPT gets smarter, everything you've already put in Apricot becomes more useful, and you don't have to move a thing.

Talk to it

Claude and ChatGPT both have voice modes, so Apricot works as a voice-enabled to-do list too, if you want it to. You can add something while you're walking, ask what's due this afternoon while you're driving, or reshuffle the week out loud.

That's partly why we picked the name. We wanted a real word that Claude or ChatGPT would understand straight away when it's spoken. There's no odd spelling to guess at and no made-up brand name to say twice. You say "put it in Apricot" and it knows exactly what you mean.

Your inbox, turned into tasks

We also have our email connected to our assistant. Claude and ChatGPT can both read your inbox through their own connectors. Put that together with Apricot and you get something we now rely on every week:

"Read my email from this week and put anything I need to do on the Studio list, with dates."

The assistant reads, works out what's actually an action, and puts it on the right list with a due date, sometimes assigned to the right person. It's a much better workflow than reading every email twice and copying things across by hand. Apricot never sees your inbox. Your assistant does the reading, and Apricot just keeps the result.

Hundreds of tasks, still in order

Between the studio, clients and home, we have hundreds of tasks across a lot of different projects. A few things keep that manageable:

• Topics. Group the lists about one thing together, like Launch, Studio or Home, so a Task List, a Note List and a Form for the same project sit side by side.
• All tasks. Every task from every list in one place, sorted into Overdue, Today, Tomorrow and Upcoming, or shown on a calendar.
• Important. Mark the few things that really matter, and they stand out for everyone on the list.

And the rest

A few more things Apricot does that are easy to miss:

• Sharing and assigning. Share a list with your team or family, and give a task to one person or several.
• Comments and mentions. Talk about a task on the task itself, and @mention someone to bring them in.
• Forms. A public link anyone can send a response to, such as feedback or requests, with no account needed.
• Read-only links. Show someone a list without inviting them, with a password if you like.
• Timed alerts. Give a task a time and you'll get an email when it's due. "Remind me at 5pm tomorrow to call Sam" is all it takes.
• Activity and undo. See who changed what, and put it back if it was a mistake.
• An app when you want one. Sometimes it's easier to look than to ask, so you can install Apricot on your phone or computer too.

Try it

Every feature is on the free plan. If you use Claude, Apricot is in its connector directory, and for ChatGPT and other assistants there's a short guide to connecting yours. After that, ask it what's due this week, or tell it the next thing you need to remember.

What's next

We're working hard on bringing AI automations to your tasks. It's the obvious next step, but we want to be thoughtful about it. Some work an AI agent can truly do for you, and some still needs human judgement. We're thinking carefully, as humans, about where that line sits and how best to build it, so that we don't add features Apricot doesn't need.

We're a small, independent team in London, and we use Apricot every day ourselves. We'd love to hear your feedback, suggestions, or a use for it we haven't thought of. Email us and a person will reply.

- Richard