Recently I’ve found that setting up items on my Local ToDo lists based on a date helper to be very helpful for automating reminding me to do regular chores. Sometimes you can easily attach sensors and automate based on that, but other things are a little more time based such as Draining the hot water heater, changing the furnace filter (or the slew of reverse water filters), maybe even just remembering to check the smoke detectors on a regular basis.
What this does is based on a Date helper to track when the task was last completed, we can automate when we expect to put something on the TODO list next:
To get started with this:
- To setup, create a Local ToDo list that can be targeted
- Add a Date Helper and set the date you last completed the change/task.
- Make sure to set the value on this helper. You could use today’s date or a date in the past if you want the todo/task to trigger immediately.
- Use the blueprint to create the automation:
This will set a Due Date “Interval Days” from the date of the helper. The Task Creation Advance setting tells how many days in advance to setup the todo task. So if you wanted the task to be created 2 weeks before it’s due, then you’d set this to 14 days.
The script will run whenever the helper is changed to automatically complete tasks (Say I did my post to home assistant, I don’t need to update the todo list, I can just update the date helper to today and then the task will complete because it’s no longer inside the bounds of the reminder dates).
Caveat if you set the Interval Day
After updating date helper:
Once the daily task falls back in range, it will kick again (ok I set the date back to yesterday to get it to kick again… but you get the point)
