Show HN: I built a tool for repeatable checklists

For a long time (after devouring Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto), I've noticed a gap in the productivity tool market—most tools don't cater well to repeatable checklists. Task managers handle one-off tasks effectively, but falter with routines. On the other hand, project management software often feels overly complex. What I wanted was in the Goldilocks Zone between Todoist and Jira.

For my own personal use, I created StepList. I've used it to assist and track workouts, my daily workday, software deployment and setup, household management, and more. Over the last year I've prepared StepList for sharing with others, and it's finally ready. It's designed to be unobtrusive and straightforward, allowing you to focus seamlessly on your tasks.

Key features include:

Easy List Creation: Quickly make lists with basic formatting options.

Search and Access: Find your lists and those shared by others.

Efficient Execution: Perform tasks swiftly, whether on a computer or mobile browser.

Flexible Scheduling: Set up lists to be done once or on a recurring basis, with email reminders.

Simple Delegation: Assign lists via email, no StepList account needed for collaborators.

StepList is fairly vanilla Rails 7 app. I've found Hotwire to be a powerful tool for building apps that work well on mobile and desktop (though in a few key places, I eschew it to keep things fast).

StepList is free to use, with a $5/month premium plan for unlimited scheduled, delegated, and private lists.

- Drew

Show HN: I built a tool for repeatable checklists
steplist.app

Neat! Congrats on the launch.

I built something similar as a feature embedded in a niche product aimed at helping manage a specific type of business many years ago.

The most popular part of the feature was the gamification built on top of reporting. Managers enjoyed the checklists being completed (and reported) more accurately. Staff enjoyed getting a (small) raise for being on the leaderboard.

Basically we just tracked who specifically marked an item off the checklist as complete. Then provided reports (and printable awards) to management.

The business would then implement a program like “whoever completes the most tasks per quarter gets a $0.50/hr raise”.

These checklists were things like “Front of house AM” “Back of house Lunch” etc. with a step by step list of things that needed to be done.

Just throwing that out there as an idea for a future iteration for you.

Oh, I've always wanted something along these lines. I've yet to find an app that handles "this thing, if I'm late, still needs to be on-time next time" (like a mortgage payment) versus "this thing, if I'm late, should move all future occurrences accordingly" (like cleaning the toilets).

That's great! Thanks for the annecdote.

I've thought this is a well matched tool for small businesses, like cafes and repair shops with low-tenure workers and onboarding them quickly. If there's success here, I'll roll out Teams as a feature, which is about 80% done and hidden behind some feature flags.

Looks great. Minor nitpick: it's pretty standard to have a pricing page available on the main toolbar, that lists the limits of the free version