I Stopped Using My Notes App for My Shopping List, and Tried This Practical Alternative Instead

I must admit: I like going to the grocery store. If I could, I would spend an hour or more walking through every aisle and department, looking at everything available and grabbing whatever feels right in the moment. As lovely as this sounds (to me, at least), it’s not exactly practical. So, I rely on grocery lists to help me make the most of my time at the store.

However, I’ve never really found a grocery list method that’s worked for me. I have a whiteboard on my fridge where I keep track of what I need, plus assorted notes in my phone’s Notes app, but none of these have felt truly reliable, and I often find myself forgetting essential ingredients during each grocery run. So when I learned about this new way to organize your grocery list on your phone, I knew I had to try it for myself.

Instead of using the Notes app on your iPhone, a video on Instagram suggested setting up a grocery list through the Reminders app, as it automatically sorts the items on your list into sections like dairy, produce, or meats, which makes it ideal for grocery shopping. 

To create a new grocery list in the Reminders app, click the blue button on the top right. Name it whatever you like, but make sure to categorize it as “Groceries” under the “More options” section. Once you’ve done that, you can start adding items to it, which will be automatically sorted into categories like “produce” and “sauces.” You can also share your list with other iPhone users — I haven’t tried this yet, but it’s very helpful to know it’s an option.

The first time I tried the “Reminders app grocery list” trick, I was already on my way to the store. I had taken a photo of the list on my fridge whiteboard, and on my walk I added each item to the new list. Almost immediately, I was struck by how quickly everything got categorized: adding mustard instantly created a “Sauces & Condiments” list, typing “scallions” led to a “Produce” category, and so on. Almost everything was accurate, and anything that felt off was easy to fix. For example, I moved Lao Gan Ma chili crisp to the “Sauces & Condiments” section instead of its automatic category of “Oils,” and left a note to myself about how granola might have a better category than “Snacks & Candy,” but I wasn’t quite sure yet.

As I built my list, I could already tell this would be useful for me. Another hot tip: If you browse your settings, you can toggle the list to “show [your] completed [tasks],” so I can easily see when I’ve already grabbed something on my list. (This was precautionary; when you don’t enable this setting, whatever you check off disappears from your list, which I can already tell will make me second-guess if I even added it to begin with.)

Once I arrived at my local grocery store, I remembered some advice I read when initially learning about this grocery list hack: You can move the categories on your list to correspond with how the aisles are organized at your preferred store. So, as I shopped, I worked on my list, not just to see what I needed to buy, but also to learn how to better organize the list. This made the shopping process take a bit more time and focus, but it felt worth it, like I was setting my future self up for success so that next time I could have my list ordered aisle by aisle. 

My first time shopping with my new grocery list was a tad overwhelming, but also quite exciting; I could already see myself using this regularly. Plus, I realized I could save a list as a template. That’s great for if I want to save an ingredient list for specific recipes, so I’ll always have the list of ingredients I need on hand. By the second time I used it, I felt less overwhelmed navigating both the store and the list, and it was nice seeing the items I had previously added to my list but hadn’t bought yet. I already see a bright future with this list function, including all the ways I can add notes to the items, like logging sale prices, preferred brands, and how long an ingredient tends to last before it goes bad. Who knew an app that came with my phone could be such a convenient companion?