Tips & tricks

The bowl is for what you'll start soon, and it's small on purpose. Long-term goals don't belong in it, but you don't want to lose them either. The trick is one whale, parked in the net.

1. Tap +, type This year's goals (or This week's goals, or The garage), choose Whale, and toss it in. The steps sheet opens.
2. Write the goals as steps, one line each. Small is better: Call Mom on Sunday beats Be a better son.
3. Open Your slips (the list button), swipe the whale left, and choose Someday. It moves to the net.

The net shows the whale's steps too, so the list is always there to read and add to, but none of it is drawn until you decide. When you're ready to work on one, swipe the whale right into the bowl, pull it, start a step, and park it again after. Each step you catch pays 3 points, and the whale pays out its 12 when the last one lands.

Two whales fit in the bowl at a time, and the net holds as many as you like, so one whale per big thing works: a whale for the house, a whale for the year, a whale for the trip.

Some slips can't be finished in one go because something else has to happen first. Waiting on… is the app's pause button.

Say you pull Do the laundry. You start the load, and now there's nothing to do for forty minutes.

1. On the slip's card, tap More → Waiting on…. While the timer is running it's in the … menu at the top.
2. Type washer to finish. Tap Keep waiting.
3. The slip rests on the gravel with an hourglass. It won't come up again in ten minutes, and it doesn't count against the bowl. Pull something else.
4. When the washer beeps, drag the slip out and tap the hourglass on its card, or swipe it in the list. It's back in play: move the load, start the dryer, Waiting on dryer, and so on until it's folded and caught.

The same works for Mom to call back, the part to arrive, or the paint to dry. After a week of waiting the app offers a small follow-up slip, so nothing stays in someone else's court forever.

The fastest points in the app don't need a slip caught. The first three friends you send the App Store link to are worth 50 points each, 150 in all: a tetra and an outfit on day one, or a head start on the octopus.

1. Open Fish & rewards (the fish button at the top right).
2. Tap the Share Fish Bowl Tasks card, right under the points. It's in Settings too.
3. Pick a friend in the share sheet and send the link by Messages, Mail, or wherever.

The 50 points land as soon as the share sheet finishes. Do it three times and the card goes away; you've collected the lot. The friend doesn't have to install anything, and nothing about them is sent anywhere.

A slip's notes show on its card when it comes up, so put the list there: the packing list, the shopping, the number to call, the link. When the bowl hands you Pack for the weekend, the chargers and the sunscreen are right under the name, and nothing needs looking up.

Add them under Add notes & more when you toss the slip in, or tap the slip in Your slips later. A note can be several lines.

When five things are rattling around, don't toss them in one at a time. Open +, type the first, and press Return instead of Toss it in. The slip goes in and the keyboard stays up for the next one. Return, Return, Return, then close the sheet.

They all go in as minnows unless you change the size on the way. The first slip of the day earns a point on its own.

You emptied the dishwasher without pulling the slip. Pull it now, or find it in Your slips and swipe right for Done, or tap Already done on its card. It's caught, the points land, and the bowl has a spot again. The points are for the thing getting done, not for using the timer.

Five minutes is usually right. On the days it isn't:

• Two minutes. Under Stuck? Help me start, Two minutes sets the clock to two and starts it before you can argue. Two minutes of a thing is almost always more than zero, and the clock keeps counting after it dings if you're in the zone.
• None. The last minutes chip. The clock only counts up, for the days a countdown feels like pressure. Stop when you stop. You can add a countdown later from No timer · set one under the clock.
• Shrink it. Also under Help me start: write the tiniest first step. It's kept on the slip, so next time the slip comes up it says what the first move is.

Letting the bowl choose is the point, but some days you know what's next.

• Press and hold the bowl. Every slip floats up to the surface so you can read them all. Let go and they sink.
• Drag a slip up out of the water. Its card comes up as if the bowl had chosen it. Let go underwater and it drifts back.
• In Your slips, swipe right. A short swipe shows Draw and Done; a swipe all the way draws it. Or tap the slip and use Draw this one now at the bottom.

Tap the points at the top of the home screen. Caught is everything you've caught, day by day, and it has a search box. "Did I pay the electric bill?" is a four-letter search away. Tap a catch to see its card again and send it to someone.

The weeks album, at the top of Your slips, is the same thing by the week: the bowl's picture every Sunday with its count.

• "Hey Siri, add a minnow to Fish Bowl." Siri asks what the task is, reads it back, and opens the slip. Fish and whale work too; add a slip to Fish Bowl asks the size as well. Say the size in the phrase and the task when asked: Siri can't hear the task inside the phrase itself.
• "Hey Siri, draw one from Fish Bowl." Opens the app and draws a slip.
• "Fish Bowl, I'm starting" starts the timer on the slip you're on. "I need a break" and "I'm back" pause and resume. "I'm done" catches it.
• "I'm stuck in Fish Bowl." One way in, read aloud, and the I'm stuck screen opens.
• "How's my Fish Bowl?" How many slips, and how the fish are doing.

While the timer runs, the … menu has Listen: turn it on and just say "I'm starting", "I need a break", "I'm back", "I'm stuck" or "I'm done", no Hey Siri. Only while that screen is open.

Every Sunday the bowl gets its picture taken. You see last week's count, carry the leftover slips forward, choose if anything rests, and pick up 20 points for closing the week. It's the same 20 for a quiet week and a busy one: it's for showing up, not for the count. Don't skip it.

• Tap a fish and it does a trick. Near the surface, it jumps.
• Tap the chest, the snail, the seaweed. The chest opens, the snail hides, the weeds sway, the ship floats up and sinks again. Every decoration does a little something.
• Swipe the whole bowl sideways to move between your bowl and your aquariums. The dots under the glass show where you are.
• Shuffle my bowl, under Your bowl in Fish & rewards, rearranges the bowl from what you already own: a look, a few decorations in and the rest resting, which fish are in and what they wear. Nothing is bought, and the switches put anything back.
• Show off my bowl, next to it, makes six seconds of video with a fish doing its move and one leaping. Save it to Photos or share it. Slips show as paper with no words.
• Fish size, also under Your bowl: Small, Regular, Big or Huge. This phone's own choice.
• Resting is free. A fish or decoration you rest in Fish & rewards is still yours; put it back any time. Clean the bowl, in Settings, rests everything at once and loses nothing.