A shared task list the whole family can see and act on.

In most households, the task list lives in someone's head. A parent knows that the permission slip needs to go back, the lightbulb in the hallway needs replacing, the car needs to go in for an oil change, and someone needs to call the pediatrician. These things get done when that person remembers. They get dropped when life gets busy.

Family Basecamp's Tasks feature moves that mental inventory into a shared space. Anything that needs doing can be added, assigned, prioritized, and given a due date. The person it's assigned to sees it in their view. When it's done, they mark it. Parents see what's complete and what's still open.

How tasks work

Creating a task takes about ten seconds — give it a name, assign it to one person, several people, or everyone, set a priority (high, medium, low), and add a due date if it has one. The task appears in the assigned person's list and in the family task view immediately.

Filters let you switch between seeing everyone's tasks, just yours, or just what's incomplete. The high-priority tasks rise to the top. Overdue tasks are flagged. Nothing hides.

Assigning to multiple people

Some tasks belong to more than one person — packing for a trip, cleaning up before guests arrive, preparing for a family event. You can assign a task to several family members at once, or to everyone. Each assigned person sees it in their view. When one of them marks it done, the task closes for everyone.

What falls through without this

The things that never get written down don't get done on schedule. They get done in a rush, or they get dropped, or they become someone's source of quiet resentment because they had to remember it alone for the third week in a row.

A shared task list doesn't solve every household management problem. But it solves the one where you're the only person who knows what needs to happen. Once tasks are visible to everyone, everyone can own a piece of it.