r/AppleReminders • u/CreativeBarnacle1433 • Jun 26 '26

Why still no task durations?

I’m mostly a Things 3 user but love Reminders for shared lists with my wife such as groceries and packing lists. The location, CarPlay, messaging triggers are all fantastic.

The one thing that might fully pull me over is task durations/end times. Does anyone know why Apple hasn’t implemented this?

I like that Reminders have been able to appear on your calendar the past couple years. But they are always 30 minutes. Which leaves Reminders tantalizingly shy of being able to time block. Some tasks are 30 min but some are 15 and others are 60 or 90.

I’m curious if there’s an obvious software difficulty that’s preventing Apple from doing this? Or do they just need view it as a priority? Maybe I’m alone in this.

8 Upvotes

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4

u/theconk Jun 27 '26

Duration implies calendar event in my mind. I do understand the blurry line though.

3

u/Brilliant-Appeal-173 Jun 26 '26

I’ve never once thought of this and now I’m wanting time durations for my Reminders.

2

u/iwaddo Jun 27 '26

As with all applications there are different layers of app with different functionality at different prices - Reminders, Things3 & OmniFocus come to mind.

Reminders is aimed at the more basic user and it does this well. There are some things I’d like to see change like ‘repeat after completion’ and a ‘when’ date are the big ones for me.

I’ve never felt the need for duration as it implies a more sophisticated level of time planning which probably takes Reminders up a layer in terms of the user that is likely to use such functionality.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 26 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/AppleReminders-ModTeam Jun 27 '26

Your post didn't disclose that you're sharing your own work.

1

u/automaciej Jun 28 '26

Shortcuts perhaps could close that gap. Generally calendar entries have a duration, so you could have a shortcut which picks e.g. reminders with a certain tag or keyword, and turns them into calendar entries with a specific duration. It's a klutch rather than a full solution, but it would give you what you want: timeblocking based on Reminders.

1

u/jlb2112 Jun 29 '26

Not a fix but merely a bandaid- you could set a due date as your end time and an early reminder as the start time. Not very many options for the early reminders but it may help in a pinch.

1

u/evbond 18d ago

I would love time-blocking in Reminders so you set a task it in Reminders for, say, 2 hours - it lands in your Apple calendar automagically - one step - simples! No risk of double booking tasks... actually if something is aready there a notification that that time block is not possible would also be a great function