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Plain-English walkthrough of the shared apps (Notion, Todoist, Google Calendar, iCloud, LibreChat) my wife and I are using to handle household coordination together. Written for a non-technical partner; explains what each tool is, how sharing works, and what she needs to do to set up.

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1 + # Our shared tools — a quick guide
2 +
3 + Hey love — here's a short walkthrough of the apps we're going to use together. The goal is to spend less time planning and more time living, and to let AI help us with the boring coordination stuff (trips, budgets, household tasks, paperwork).
4 +
5 + Each section explains: what the app is, what we use it for, how sharing works, and what you'll need to do. There's nothing scary here — most of these you already use, or are new but Mac/iPhone-friendly.
6 +
7 + I'll handle all the billing and any tricky setup. You won't need a credit card for anything in this doc.
8 +
9 + ---
10 +
11 + ## At a glance
12 +
13 + | App | What it is | How we share | What you need to do |
14 + |---|---|---|---|
15 + | **Notion** | Shared notes & planning | One shared workspace, both members | Create account, accept invite, install iOS app |
16 + | **Todoist** | Shared to-do lists | Shared projects with assignments | Create account, accept invite, install iOS app |
17 + | **Google Calendar** | Calendars | Already cross-shared | Nothing new — we're already set |
18 + | **Apple iCloud** | Shared file folders | iCloud folder sharing | Nothing until your Mac arrives |
19 + | **LibreChat** | Our family AI (coming soon) | Shared website, separate logins | Bookmark + login I'll set up for you |
20 +
21 + ---
22 +
23 + ## Notion — our shared brain
24 +
25 + **What it is:** Think of Notion as a flexible notebook + wiki + light project tool. Like OneNote, but designed so a computer (and AI) can actually read and write to it. We can have nested pages, simple lists, calendars, even small databases — all without it feeling complicated.
26 +
27 + **What we'll use it for:**
28 + - **Trip planning** — research, savings plans, packing lists, itineraries
29 + - **Budget summaries** — month-by-month "where did our money go" pages
30 + - **Recipes** — the ones we actually cook, organized by occasion
31 + - **Immigration case status** — what's pending, what's filed, what's next
32 + - **Reference & "look this up later"** — articles, contractor info, pediatrician notes, anything we want to find again
33 +
34 + **How sharing works:** ONE shared workspace called "Barr" (or whatever we name it), where we're both full members. You'll see it in Notion's sidebar alongside any personal Notion workspaces you create for your own stuff. Anything either of us creates in this shared workspace is visible to the other.
35 +
36 + **What you'll need to do:**
37 + 1. Sign up at [notion.com](https://www.notion.com) with your gmail.
38 + 2. Accept the email invite from me to join our shared workspace.
39 + 3. Install the Notion iOS app on your phone, sign in with the same account.
40 + 4. (Optional) The desktop Mac app is nice once your MacBook arrives — but the website at notion.com works fine on any browser.
41 +
42 + **Tip:** You can keep your own personal Notion workspace separately for things that are just yours (private journaling, your own work notes, etc.). The two are completely separate — switch between them in Notion's top-left corner.
43 +
44 + **You'll get used to the feel of it before we add the AI piece.** We're starting with Notion as just a notes app for a few weeks — that way it's familiar by the time we connect Claude to it.
45 +
46 + ---
47 +
48 + ## Todoist — our shared to-do list
49 +
50 + **What it is:** A task app, very similar in feel to iPhone Reminders, but with one big difference — we can have shared lists where I can assign you something with a due date, and vice versa. It works on phone, Mac, watch, web. It also talks to Siri ("hey Siri, remind me to pick up the prescription tomorrow at 5" → Todoist).
51 +
52 + **What we'll use it for:**
53 + - **Joint household tasks** — bills, errands, household chores, repairs
54 + - **Trip prep checklists** — Claude will create these automatically when we plan a trip
55 + - **Recurring stuff** — rent, subscriptions, kid school deadlines, anniversary reminders
56 + - **"I need you to do X by Y"** — the boring stuff we used to text each other about
57 +
58 + **How sharing works:** We each have our own Todoist account, but we'll have **shared projects** (like "Joint" with sub-projects for Home, Bills, Errands, Travel, Immigration). Both of us see those projects in our own Todoist app. We can assign tasks to each other and see who's responsible for what.
59 +
60 + **What you'll need to do:**
61 + 1. Sign up at [todoist.com](https://www.todoist.com) with your gmail.
62 + 2. Upgrade to Pro (I'll cover this). Pro is needed because shared projects require it.
63 + 3. Accept the invite from me to the "Joint" project.
64 + 4. Install the Todoist iOS app, sign in.
65 + 5. Get used to adding things via Siri ("hey Siri, add 'pick up dry cleaning' to Todoist Joint due Friday").
66 +
67 + **Why not iPhone Reminders?** Reminders is great for personal stuff and we can both keep using it for our own private to-dos. But its "shared list" feature can't be controlled by AI — Claude can't add or read it reliably. Todoist is built for that. Same easy quick-add feel, just upgraded.
68 +
69 + ---
70 +
71 + ## Google Calendar — already shared
72 +
73 + **What it is:** Your existing Google Calendar — nothing new.
74 +
75 + **What we'll use it for:** Mutual visibility into each other's schedules, plus a place where Claude can check our availability when planning trips, dinners, doctor appointments, etc.
76 +
77 + **How sharing works:** We've already cross-shared our calendars through Google. My calendar shows up in your Calendar app, yours in mine. Done.
78 +
79 + **What you'll need to do:** Nothing new on the calendar front. Later, when we set up the AI part (LibreChat), I'll connect Claude to your Google account so it can read your calendar — that's a one-time "click Allow" on a Google permissions screen.
80 +
81 + ---
82 +
83 + ## Apple iCloud — shared file folders
84 +
85 + **What it is:** Your iPhone's built-in file storage, which can sync to a Mac. We'll use the "shared folder" feature so we both have access to certain folders (like our immigration paperwork) on both of our devices.
86 +
87 + **What we'll use it for:**
88 + - **Immigration paperwork** — 7 years of files we want to organize properly
89 + - **Trip documents** — passport scans, travel insurance docs, hotel confirmations
90 + - **Tax records** — yearly folders we can both reach
91 + - **Home stuff** — lease, mortgage, contractor receipts
92 +
93 + **How sharing works:** From my Mac, I'll share specific folders with your Apple ID (using Finder's "Share Folder" option). Once shared, those folders appear in your iCloud Drive on your Mac and in the Files app on your iPhone. We can both edit, both add files.
94 +
95 + **What you'll need to do:** Nothing now. When your MacBook arrives, I'll set up the folder sharing and walk you through what's where. The iPhone Files app handles browsing/searching shared folders just like personal ones.
96 +
97 + **The AI side (later):** the AI can also help with file management — searching, renaming, summarizing 7 years of paperwork. That's a "sit at your Mac" task, not a phone task. Phone-side, you can drag-drop a single file into LibreChat to ask "what's this about?" — but bulk file work happens on a Mac.
98 +
99 + ---
100 +
101 + ## LibreChat — our family AI (coming soon)
102 +
103 + **What it is:** A website I'll host at `chat.peterbarr.io` that's basically our own private Claude. Think of it as ChatGPT but for our family — connected to all the apps above, knows about our finances, and configured for the kinds of planning we actually need.
104 +
105 + **What we'll use it for:**
106 + - **Trip planning** — "we want to go to Portugal next October, save up for it, plan it out" → it reads our finances, drafts a savings plan, writes the plan to Notion, creates Todoist tasks for milestones
107 + - **Monthly budget review** — automatic on the 1st: "here's where the money went, here's what to think about"
108 + - **Household dispatcher** — turns "things in our inboxes/calendars" into assigned to-dos
109 + - **Immigration paperwork helper** — search, summarize, draft cover letters
110 + - **Random "help me think"** — same as ChatGPT
111 +
112 + **How sharing works:** We each have our own login (your username and password I'll create for you). The AI is the same; it knows what's shared (our calendar, our Notion, our finances) and what's individual (your email is your email; my email is my email — they don't bleed across). We can both ask it things and we'll both see results in our shared apps.
113 +
114 + **What you'll need to do:**
115 + 1. Bookmark `chat.peterbarr.io` on your work browser, your personal browser, and your phone.
116 + 2. I'll give you a username and password.
117 + 3. Set up two-factor authentication (a code from an app on your phone) — same as Gmail does.
118 + 4. That's it. Open the site, log in, ask things.
119 +
120 + **This works on any device with a browser.** Including your locked-down work computer — that's actually the main reason we're doing this. You can ask Claude to help while you're at work without needing to install anything.
121 +
122 + **This part comes after your MacBook arrives.** Until then, I'm getting all the foundations ready (Notion, Todoist, finances) so when LibreChat is up, the demo on day one is "watch us plan a real trip in five minutes."
123 +
124 + ---
125 +
126 + ## What you don't need to worry about
127 +
128 + A few things we *also* have running, but they're behind the scenes — you don't interact with them directly:
129 +
130 + - **Our finance data** — there's a private database on a server I run that holds our transaction history (synced from Copilot Money). The AI can read it for budget questions. You don't have to log into anything; it just works when you ask Claude about money stuff.
131 + - **MCP servers, OAuth, agents, deployment** — these are technical glue that connects the apps to the AI. I handle all of it. From your side it's "I asked Claude to do X, and it happened in Notion/Todoist/etc."
132 +
133 + If anything ever feels broken or weird, just tell me. Don't fight with it.
134 +
135 + ---
136 +
137 + ## What it costs (just so you know)
138 +
139 + | Item | Cost | Who pays |
140 + |---|---|---|
141 + | Notion (shared workspace, 2 members) | ~$20/mo | Me |
142 + | Todoist Pro × 2 | ~$10/mo | Me |
143 + | Google Calendar / iCloud / your existing Apple ID | $0 new | n/a |
144 + | LibreChat (Anthropic API tokens) | ~$10-30/mo | Me |
145 + | **Total marginal** | **~$40-60/mo** | **Me** |
146 +
147 + Your only "subscription" decision: if you ever want a personal Claude Desktop app on your Mac for stuff that's just for you (separate from our shared LibreChat), that'd be an extra $20/mo Anthropic Pro. Optional, not needed for any of the above.
148 +
149 + ---
150 +
151 + ## When this all goes live
152 +
153 + Rough timeline (life-permitting; no hard dates):
154 +
155 + 1. **Now → mid-May:** I get Notion + Todoist set up and invite you. You start using them as plain apps so you're familiar with them.
156 + 2. **Mid-May:** I get the finance database and LibreChat running on the server.
157 + 3. **Late May (when your MacBook arrives):** we set up your Mac, hook up the file-sharing, install Claude on your Mac (optional), and walk through LibreChat together.
158 + 4. **From there:** we start using it for real life. Plan our next trip together as the first demo.
159 +
160 + If anything in here is unclear or sounds like overkill, tell me — I can simplify.
161 +
162 + — Peter
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