Guide · Keeping track

“When did I last…?”

When did you last change the water filter? Flip the mattress? Back up the laptop, descale the coffee machine, water the big plant? Some things repeat without a schedule. The only question that ever matters about them is when they last happened.

Why the usual tools fit badly

A reminder makes you guess the interval up front, then interrupts you on a day you didn't choose, whether or not the thing needs doing. A habit tracker is worse: a chore you do twice a year renders as an endless column of missed days. Both tools turn “I'd just like to know when I last did this” into a small standing debt.

What these things actually need is not a schedule. It's a memory: a timestamp you can consult, and stamp again when the day comes.

Keeping track: a last-done log

Calibrate has a quiet list for exactly this, called Keeping track. Each entry is one line:

Water filter — last · Mar 12 · 4 months ago
Bedsheets — last · Jul 6 · 5 days ago
Backups — last · Jun 2 · 5 weeks ago

Did the thing today? Tap the little circle next to it (the same gesture you use to cross off a to-do) and the date updates. Each entry also learns your real rhythm from the marks themselves: “5 marks · roughly every 3½ months.” It shows the cadence you actually live.

It starts from a to-do you just finished

The moment you realize something is worth tracking is usually the moment you've just done it. You wrote “changed bedsheets” on today's list, crossed it off, and thought: I always wonder when I last did this. So that's where the feature lives. Tap the finished to-do and choose Keep track of this. From then on, every time you cross that line off, the log updates itself. Each mark also stays on your calendar as part of that day's record, because it's something you genuinely did.

No overdue. Ever.

Keeping track never turns red, never badges you, never decides that four months is “too long.” It answers the question you asked, when did I last?, and leaves the judgment to you. That's the difference between a lamp and an alarm: one shows you where things stand, the other decides you're behind. If four months feels fine for your filter, it's fine. If it doesn't, you'll know the moment you look.