Daily checklist apps: three ways a list comes back each day

A daily checklist is a different thing from a to-do list. A to-do item gets done once and goes away. A checklist item, such as "back up the laptop" or "check the support inbox", has to be there again tomorrow. Apps bring it back in one of three ways, and knowing which way you want narrows the choice quickly.

We make Dayboard, which uses the plainest of the three, so read this as our perspective. What we say about other apps comes from their own help pages, read on 5 October 2026 and linked. We have not tested them against each other, and you should try the one that sounds right.

The three ways at a glance

1. The task repeats

You give a task a repeat rule, for example every day or every weekday. When you tick it, the app moves it to its next date instead of removing it. Todoist describes it this way: "When you complete a task with a recurring date, it automatically shifts to the next date" (Todoist help). Recurring dates are part of Todoist's free Beginner plan.

Google Tasks has a Repeat option when you set a date, with one documented limit: "Tasks with subtasks can't repeat" (Google Tasks help). Apple Reminders lets a reminder repeat hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, or on a custom pattern such as every other day (Apple support). TickTick lists recurring tasks in its free plan, and Microsoft To Do offers repeat options as well.

2. The day view empties overnight

Here the app keeps a special list for today and clears it for you. Microsoft says of its version: "The My Day smart list resets every night, so you have a blank slate to add the tasks you want to accomplish each day." Anything you did not finish is "saved to your Tasks list and included in your suggestions the following day" (Microsoft support).

Any.do works in a similar way: "Each morning, your view resets", and a task you want to keep can be pinned so it stays visible until you complete or unpin it (Any.do help).

3. The list stays and you untick it

The plainest version is a list that does nothing on its own. Google Keep can show any note as a list with checkboxes (Google Keep help). The Tasks widget in Dayboard is the same idea. The items stay where they are, ticked or not, until you change them.

What Dayboard does, exactly

Since this is our product, here is the precise behaviour. Two widgets can hold a daily checklist, and neither brings it back automatically.

So in Dayboard a daily checklist is either a standing list in Tasks that you untick yourself, or a short list you write fresh each morning in Habit Tracker. If you need the list to return by itself, or to alert you at a set time, Dayboard does not do that today, and one of the apps in the first two sections will suit you better.

Why keep a checklist on a Dayboard at all

The reason is the one Dayboard was built for. Our founder made it because the things he needed during the day lived in separate places, and he wanted them on one screen. A checklist benefits from the same treatment when its steps depend on other things.

Take a start-of-day routine as an example: read the support inbox, look at today's meetings, choose the three tasks that matter. On a Dayboard the checklist sits in one widget, the inbox and the other tools are one click away in Quick Links, and the meetings are visible in the Calendar widget. You work down the list without leaving the page. A reminder app will bring the list back more reliably. It will not put the things the list refers to next to it.

One board on the free Daily plan holds four widgets, which is enough for that layout. The details of the free plan are in our post on free daily planner apps.

Three questions that settle it

• Should a missed item follow you into tomorrow? A repeating task does. A day view moves it to suggestions. A standing list simply stays as it is.
• Do you need an alert at a set time? The repeating-task apps above have reminders. Dayboard does not.
• Is the checklist the main thing, or one part of a screen you look at all day? For the first, pick a task app. For the second, a board may fit, and you can try ours free.

If what you are really tracking is habits, with streaks and history, that is a different tool again. We wrote about it in our post on daily habit trackers.

Questions people ask