GUIDES

Guides for running a calmer household.

Practical, step-by-step answers to the questions every family runs into - calendars, chores, meals and more.

Chores & rewards

How to divide family chores fairly by age

Fair doesn't mean equal - it means matching each chore to what a child can realistically do alone at their age, and making the whole family's workload visible so nobody's carrying more than their share. Plannie's habits and rewards board does this with a colour-coded task list per child and a ticket system they can see fill up.

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Wall display

How to set up a kitchen tablet as a family calendar

You don't need a dedicated wall-calendar device: any spare iPad or Android tablet becomes a family calendar wall display by opening Plannie in its browser and switching on wall-display mode, which keeps the screen awake, shows a family screensaver, and locks it to a household PIN.

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Meals

How to turn recipes into one shared grocery list

The fastest way to build a shared grocery list is to stop typing it by hand: share a recipe link with Plannie and its ingredients are added straight to the household's grocery list, checkable and editable by anyone in the family from their own phone.

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A realistic weekly family meal-planning system

A realistic family meal plan doesn't need seven new recipes a week - it needs five or six dinners matched to how busy each night actually is, planned once in a shared place so grocery shopping isn't a second decision. Plannie's meal planner turns recipe links into planned meals with a photo and ingredients, ready to push straight to a shared grocery list.

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Calendar

How to keep a shared family calendar without double-booking

Double-booking happens when a family's plans live in separate calendars that never talk to each other. A shared family calendar - one place where every parent adds, edits and sees every event, colour-coded by person - fixes it, and Plannie sets one up in a few minutes with two-way Google and Outlook sync.

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Assistant

What is an AI family assistant? Boundaries, privacy and examples

An AI family assistant is software that turns the everyday paperwork of running a household - a school email, a schedule PDF, a photo of a flyer - into calendar events, tasks and lists, without a parent retyping any of it. Plannie's Assistant does this through a private family inbox and chat, only ever acting on what it's explicitly given, with every action visible to the whole household.

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Comparisons

The best family calendar apps in 2026

Cozi, Skylight, Hearth Display, Sense, Google Calendar and Plannie side by side - real prices, honest pros and cons, and who should pick which.

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The Skylight alternative with no hardware to buy

What a dedicated wall display really costs, and how a tablet you already own covers the same job.

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