Automate Your Shopping List With Todoist

Productivity Tips & Tricks

I’ve been using Todoist for almost a year to track everything from appointments and my grocery list to project deadlines. I’ve even used it to remind myself to practice my French and clean up my inbox.

Inbox Zero is so worth it!

However, today I wanted to talk about my newest Todoist project — automating my shopping list.

Now the folks over at Todist already have some helpful templates for managing your grocery list and meal planning. So, this article will focus on how you determine the frequency with which you need to buy certain items.

Habit tracking, if you will.

Why? I tried doing the Amazon Subscription thing for a while, and I couldn’t quite figure out how often I should be buying things. So, I’d end up running out of toilet paper before we were due to receive more or end up with waay too many dishwasher pucks.

Todoist Project Menu

Getting Started

Once you’ve opened up Todoist, you’re going to want to create a new project by clicking the ‘+’ sign beside Projects or scrolling down to the bottom of your Projects list and clicking ‘Add Project.’

Now just type in your project’s name, choose a colour to make it stand out, fill in any other preferences and press Enter.

Once you’ve created your new project, you’ll be able to add sections. For my project, I’m going to create the following sections;

• Grocery List
• Online Orders
• Misc.

Because I like to support local, I try to buy all my groceries from a smaller store that offers delivery. But, they don’t carry everything I need, so there are a few things I still order online.

So, anything I can get from my local grocer will go on my ‘Grocery List,’ anything I order off of Amazon or elsewhere will go under ‘Online Orders’ and ‘Misc.’ will be a special bucket for items I’m not sure about yet.

Start Saving Your Receipts!

Once we’ve created our project sections, it’s time to start figuring out how frequently we buy certain items. If you already save your receipts, you’ll want to look at the dates.

Because I’ve already been using Todoist to keep track of my grocery shopping, I know I order groceries every week. So, I am going to add a recurring task called ‘Order Groceries’ and schedule it for ‘Every Sunday.’

While you can use the schedule button to create task deadlines, the smart Quick Add will automatically recognize the recurring dates, highlight, and add them when you save the task.

So, depending on how often you plan on grocery shopping or ordering groceries, you could write;

• Order groceries every 3 months
• Order groceries every month
• Order groceries every other Sunday
• Order groceries every week
• Order groceries every day

etc.

After looking through your receipts, you may notice there are a few items you buy monthly, biweekly or even annually. You would want to add these items to the appropriate section as reoccurring tasks.

You could even create reoccurring tasks for common household items you probably don’t remember to replace but really should.

Add Items to Your List As You Get Rid of the Containers

If you’re struggling to make sense of your receipts or you don’t have any, there are a few ways you can still figure out how often you replace certain items.

For things that keep their disposable packaging until they’re empty, like toilet paper, shampoo or deodorant, use a sharpie to label the item with the date you open it.

That way, all you have to do is check the packaging before you throw it away to see how long that item lasted.

Now this one might be a bit annoying for people that don’t like having overdue tasks. But that’s exactly why it works.

If you’ve just chucked something in the garbage or recycling and you don’t remember when you bought it, add it to your ‘Things to Buy Again’ project anyway as a recurring task.

Preferably written as ‘today every month’ or something like that, and don’t check it off when you’ve replaced the item.

Instead, wait until you are again shopping for it. The date you threw out that item will still be visible on the task making it easy for you to figure out how long it has been.

Make Pantry Staples Part of Your Checklist

I use a bullet journal as well as Todoist because it’s easier for me to jot down things that I notice we’re running low on during the day so I can add them to the app later.

I usually add items that are a one-off as their own tasks and make sure they are scheduled for the same day I order groceries. This is because we don’t necessarily want/need these things each week.

For pantry staples, I will add those items as subtasks because it’s a great way to remind myself to double-check how we’re doing on things like flour, sugar and pasta every week.

To add a subtask, you can stagger your tasks in List View or click on the task, ‘Order Groceries,’ in Board View and add whichever items you want to remember to order when you do your next grocery run.

Depending on how often you cook and the items you consider staple ingredients, your list may be more or less complicated than mine.

However, the main idea is that every time you are reminded to order groceries, you will also be prompted to check on things like canola oil or salt and pepper.

If you don’t need those items this grocery run, you can just check them off.

Evaluate Your Most Frequently Purchased Items

The main reason anyone would want to automate their shopping list besides having a terrible memory is that being organized can save you money.

Looking through receipts and figuring out how to anticipate when something is going to run out have helped me keep a tighter rein on how I spend my money.

• I don’t need to spend extra on shipping or make any late-night runs on an empty stomach because we’ve suddenly run out of toilet paper and really really need more.
• If I notice we buy something often, I can start looking for cheaper alternatives or ways to buy those items in bulk.
• If I notice we buy something and usually throw it out or don’t use it, I know not to buy it again. (This was a real problem when I was trying to ‘adult’ by buying polenta or green leafy things that kept turning into mush.)
• If there is a cheap, easy meal that we eat a lot of, I know to keep those ingredients on hand, so it’s less tempting to order-in.

So, In Conclusion

It really sucks to waste money on things you didn’t actually need or run out of something when you really needed it.

Whether you decide to use a productivity app like Todoist, a bullet journal or something else, knowing your habits and creating a system that works for you will make life less stressful.