A Shared AI To-do List for You and Your Assistant

The most useful AI to-do list app is not one with its own AI. It is an ordinary list that your AI assistant can reach. You keep one list; the assistant you already talk to — Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code — connects to it. When you mention something in passing (“I must renew the car insurance”), it adds it. When you finish something, you tick it off, or tell it to. When you ask “what is left this week?”, it reads the list and answers from the list, not from memory. Both of you are working from the same page, and neither of you has to copy anything across.

Why a list inside a chat does not last

Most people try the obvious thing first: ask the assistant to keep a to-do list in the conversation. It works for an afternoon. Then the chat gets long, or you start a new one, and the list is somewhere in a scroll you will never read again. You cannot tick things off on your phone at the shop, and a different assistant has never heard of it.

A shared list fixes that by putting the list outside any one conversation. The assistant reads it fresh every time you ask, so it is never out of date, and you can open it yourself without the assistant at all. Switch assistants next month and the list is still there.

Setting one up

On fenbs every account has a personal board, made the first time you sign in. It is yours alone: no people to add and no roles to manage. The personal to-do template gives you four lanes and a few samples to delete. The lanes read naturally as a to-do list: To Do is everything on your mind, Next Up is what you mean to do soon, In Progress is what you are on now, and Completed is done.

Then connect your assistant. In the Claude or ChatGPT app you add fenbs as a custom connector, where your plan allows it, with the address below; in Claude Code it is one command↗ (opens in a new tab). Either way the browser opens, you sign in, tick what the assistant may do, and press Approve. The step-by-step versions are on the Claude, ChatGPT and Claude Code pages.

https://fenbs.ai/api/mcp

claude mcp add --transport http fenbs https://fenbs.ai/api/mcp

A day with a shared list

1. Morning, in chat: “What is in Next Up?” The assistant lists four things, the highest priority first.
2. You: “Move the dentist to In Progress, I am ringing them now.” It does.
3. Mid-morning, while talking about something else: “Remind me I need to send Sam the photos.” It adds a task to To Do and says so, with its ref.
4. At the shop, on your phone, you tick off the birthday card yourself. No assistant involved.
5. Evening: “Summarise today and move anything I finished to Completed.” It lists what moved, asks about the one it is not sure of, and leaves that one alone until you answer.

The last step is the one worth copying. An assistant that asks before closing something it is unsure about keeps the Completed lane honest, and an honest Completed lane is what makes the weekly summary worth reading.

Habits that keep it useful

• One line per task, written so you would understand it in a month. “Car insurance renewal — quote from current insurer first” beats “insurance”.
• Keep Next Up short. Five things at most. Everything else waits in To Do, and the assistant can help you choose what moves up.
• Let it add, but make it say so. “When you add a task, tell me the title” in your instructions means nothing lands on the list unannounced.
• Use priority, not dates. fenbs has priorities 1 to 10 and no due dates or reminders; if something must happen on a day, it belongs in your calendar too.
• Clear out on Sundays. Ask the assistant to list anything in To Do that has not been touched for a month, and delete or promote each one. A to-do list that only grows stops being read.
• Ask for summaries from the list, not from memory. “What did I finish this week?” should be answered by reading Completed, which is what a connected assistant does.

Using an AI agent for your own task management

Most writing about AI agents and tasks is about teams. The same idea works for one person, and it is a gentler place to learn it. The difference between an assistant that chats about your list and one that works it is permission: once connected, it can add, move and comment. Start small.

• First week: approve read and comment only. The assistant can tell you what is on the list and suggest moves in a comment, but you make every change. You learn what it gets right.
• Then add write. Now it can add tasks and move them. Keep one rule in your instructions: it never moves anything to Completed without asking.
• Give it jobs, not just a list. “Break ‘plan the holiday’ into tasks” or “find everything about the house and put it in one category” are things an assistant does well and a person puts off.
• Keep standing notes. On fenbs, AI context notes are read by the assistant before it starts. “I call the car ‘the Golf’; household bills are category Home” saves you repeating yourself.

If your assistant also works on code or on a team board, keep the personal list separate. Ask it to check which board it is on before adding anything; fenbs_whoami tells it.

Privacy points

A personal list holds personal things, so it is worth knowing exactly who can see it.

• A personal board has no other members. Nobody else is on it, and there is no screen for adding them.
• The assistant acts as you. It holds your role, narrowed by the scopes you ticked: read, write and comment. It cannot do anything you could not.
• You can take it away. Settings, under Connect an AI assistant, lists each connection by name; revoking one stops it at once and leaves your own sign-in alone.
• What the assistant reads becomes part of your conversation with it. That conversation is handled by your assistant’s provider under its own terms and settings, so check those settings as you would for anything else you tell it.
• Keep secrets out of tasks. No passwords, card numbers or account codes in a title or note. “Renew passport” is fine; the passport number is not.

What it will not do

It will not ring you at nine or book time in your calendar. fenbs sends no reminders and has no due dates; it is a list you and your assistant work from, ordered by lane and priority. If you want an app that plans your day around meetings, that is a different kind of tool, and AI task managers vs task boards with AI members explains the difference.