An app you have to remember to open is an app that will not help.
Out of sight is genuinely out of mind here, and a plan you cannot see is a plan that stops existing somewhere between putting the phone down and picking it up again. The widget is the smallest possible fix: put the next thing where your eyes already go, so remembering it is not a task of its own.
One task. Described accurately.
Amber, not red.
A task that has gone past its time is the single most common thing this widget will ever have to display. Which means the way it displays that is not a detail. It is the thing you will see most.
Red is the obvious choice and the wrong one. A red tile on the Home Screen is a small alarm you cannot dismiss, and it is there every time you unlock your phone to do something unrelated. For an audience that already carries a running sense of being behind, that is not information. It is pressure, applied continuously, by an app that claimed it was going to help. So the overdue state is warm amber, the label is "Still on the list" rather than anything with the word late in it, and the time reads "was 1:00 PM" instead of counting up the minutes since. The task has not become more urgent by sitting there. It is the same task, and the widget describes it in the same voice it used an hour ago.
Most task widgets are a compressed to-do list: three or four rows, a count of what is outstanding, sometimes a badge. That design assumes the problem is not knowing what to do. Here the problem is starting, and a list on the Home Screen makes starting harder, not easier, because it hands you a choice at the exact moment choosing is expensive. So this widget shows one task. There is nothing to scan, nothing to pick, and nothing to feel behind about. Just the next thing, and a tap that opens straight into it.
One of several ways Beginary stays with you.
The widget is the quietest surface. These are the others.
A gentle return.
For the minutes after a task slips past its time. The widget notices quietly; Focus Moment offers a way back in.
Start from your wrist.
The same next task, one surface closer, for when reaching for the phone is a friction too many.
One question to begin.
Where a tap on the widget lands. One question about how the task feels, and then you're going.
The widget, in plain answers.
What does the Beginary widget show?
One task: the next one coming up, or the one still on the list if something has already gone past its time. It shows the task name, the time it is set for, and a gentle cue like "in 40 min" when the time is close. When there is nothing scheduled it says "Nothing scheduled" and "You're clear for now." It never shows a list, a count, or a backlog.
What happens when a task goes past its time?
The label changes from "Next up" to "Still on the list" and the time reads "was 1:00 PM" in a warm amber. Not red, not bold, and never a count of how late you are. The task is simply still there, described accurately, in a colour that does not raise your heart rate every time you unlock your phone.
Which sizes are supported?
Small and medium on the Home Screen, and two Lock Screen sizes: a rectangular one and a single-line inline one. The Home Screen sizes carry the app's full colour. The Lock Screen ones are rendered in monochrome, because iOS renders every Lock Screen widget that way regardless of what an app asks for.
Does the widget update on its own?
Yes. It refreshes at each task's scheduled time, so a task flips to "still on the list" without you opening the app, and again at midnight so a task labelled Tomorrow relabels itself to Today overnight. Tapping it opens Beginary to that task.
How do I add it?
iOS does not let an app place a widget for you, so Beginary includes a short guide instead: five numbered steps, one action each, with a picture of the real tile so you know what you are hunting for. The steps differ between iOS 17 and iOS 18, and the guide shows the ones that match your phone rather than one vague set that fits neither.
Why only one task?
Because a widget showing five things is a list, and a list on the Home Screen is something to avoid looking at. One task is a glance, not a decision. The widget's whole job is to answer "what is the next thing" without asking you to open an app, read a list, and choose, which is the sequence where starting usually gets lost.
The next thing, already visible.
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