Meal Times and Reminders: Never Wonder at 6 pm Again

The 6 pm scramble

You know the feeling. It is nearly dinner time, you open the fridge, and nothing is ready or even decided. The cooking was never the hard part. The trouble is that the thinking started too late.

A small, well-timed reminder can move that thinking earlier, to a moment when you can still check the pantry, pick a dish and buy one missing item on the way home. That is what Degchi's reminders are for.

Finding the Reminders screen

Open the Me tab and tap Reminders ("Daily nudges & meal times"). The first row is Notifications. If it says Allowed, you are set. If it says "Not allowed yet", tap Allow notifications. Without that permission your phone will not let any reminder through, and Degchi will tell you so: "Reminders can't reach you until notifications are allowed for Degchi in your phone settings."

Daily nudges

Under Daily nudges there are two options:

• Lunch idea: a "What should we cook?" prompt for lunch.
• Dinner idea: the same prompt for dinner.

Each one has its own switch and a time you can set. Choose a time that gives you room to act. For dinner, that is usually a couple of hours before you want to eat, not the minute you want to eat.

When the nudge arrives, it reads "What should we cook today?" with a short line underneath, such as "Dinner time! Here's what's ready in your pantry tonight." Tap it and Degchi opens, ready to show you what you can cook from what you have. If you want to see how that list is built, read How Degchi Works Out What You Can Cook Today.

Meal times

Below that, Meal times lets you set when your household usually eats Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. Each meal has an on/off switch and a time. Breakfast starts switched off, so turn it on if you want it, for example for a quick omelette or a stuffed paratha morning. Good starters are the Pakistani-style omelette, egg-stuffed flatbread and potato-stuffed flatbread.

Test it before you trust it

Reminders are only useful if they arrive. Tap Send a test reminder. Degchi tells you a test will arrive in about five seconds and suggests locking your phone to check that it rings. If you see "Degchi test reminder" with "Notifications are working", you are good.

If reminders are late or missing, the cause is usually the phone, not the app. Some manufacturers close background apps aggressively to save battery. The screen has a tip for exactly this: on Vivo, Xiaomi, Oppo or Realme phones, allow Degchi to auto-start and set battery to Unrestricted. It takes a minute in your phone's settings and is worth doing once.

A water reminder, too

Degchi also has a Water reminder (Me tab, then Water reminder, "Stay hydrated through the day"). Turn on "Remind me to drink water", then choose:

• a Daily goal, counted in glasses,
• how often to remind you ("Remind every" a number of minutes),
• your Awake hours, from and to, so you are not reminded at night.

A reminder arrives as "Time for water" with a note to tap the tick when you have had a glass, and a "+1 glass" button on the screen keeps your count for the day. It is a small thing, but it is easy to forget when you are busy in the kitchen.

Starting dinner earlier

Reminders do the part of meal planning that is easiest to skip: starting early. A nudge before dinner turns "what are we eating?" into a quick look at what is ready, and if you are one item short, you still have time to fix it. If the whole family uses Degchi, the same habit can feed into a vote; see How to Settle "What's for Dinner?" with a Family Vote.

Set your first reminder

Degchi is in beta and free to use. Add a Dinner idea reminder for tonight and see how it feels. If you would like to try it, join the Degchi beta with your Gmail address.