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 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. 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, with real prices, 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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