How to Use Minima Do on Your First Day

Minima Do has one button that matters. Almost everything you do in the app starts there, so the quickest way to learn it is to spend a normal day with it.

This guide walks through that day in the order you'd probably hit things: signing in, a quick to-do dump in the morning, a meeting around midday, a few minutes of journaling at night. Live gets its own section, because it's for a different kind of moment.

Signing In

You can sign in with Apple, with Google, or with a code sent to your email. There are no passwords to make up or forget.

If you used an older version of Minima Do, sign in with the same Apple, Google or email account you used before. Your old to-dos, memos and notes come along.

Before your first recording, the app asks your permission to process what you say with AI. More on what that means near the end.

One Button, Four Options

Tap the record button and four options stack up above it:

• To-do. Talk, and Minima Do splits what you said into separate to-dos. Any days you mention become due dates. A to-do dump can run up to 3.5 minutes.
• Meeting. Record up to two hours. When it ends you get a title, a summary and the action items.
• Journal. Think out loud for up to two hours. You get back a clean, titled entry that only you can see.
• Live. For a conversation that's happening right now. It listens and suggests short cards you can use while you talk.

You pick one before you start talking. That's the one choice you make up front.

Morning, a To-Do Dump

Say the coffee is brewing and your head is already busy. Tap record and choose To-do. The screen nudges you to say each thing you need to do, so do exactly that.

Say something like:

"Call the dentist Friday. Buy milk and bread. Send Sam the deck tomorrow. Renew the car insurance."

Tap stop. A moment later those things are on your list as separate to-dos, and the dentist call and the deck have due dates (Friday and tomorrow).

From there the list works the way you'd expect:

• Tick the circle to finish a to-do. Finished ones fold away under Done.
• Tap a row to edit it, if something came out wrong or you want to change the date.
• Swipe to delete.

It's worth checking the list for a few seconds after each dump, at least for the first week. You'll quickly learn how the app hears you.

The Type-to-Add Row

Some things are faster to type than to say. "Buy batteries" is one of them.

Above your open to-dos there's a row for typing. Type the thing, and it goes straight onto the list. Use whichever is quicker in the moment. Plenty of days will be mostly typing with one big spoken dump at the start.

Reminders

If a to-do has a time on it, Minima Do sends you a reminder notification. When you haven't set a separate reminder, it arrives an hour before the time.

This only works if you allow notifications for the app. If you said no when it first asked, you can turn them back on in the iPhone Settings app.

Midday, a Meeting

Before the meeting starts, tap record and choose Meeting. Tell the people in the room that you are recording. It's the decent thing to do, and it saves an awkward moment later.

Then just have the meeting. You can record up to two hours. When it ends, tap stop and give the app a moment. You get back a title, a summary of what was said and the action items that came out of it. The summary text is selectable, so you can copy a line into an email or a chat.

One detail on iPhone: the to-dos that come out of meetings stay out of your main to-do list, unless you turn on "Show meeting to-dos" on the To-dos page. That keeps your own list from filling up with every action item from every meeting. Turn it on if you'd rather see everything in one place.

Evening, a Journal Entry

Late in the day, pick Journal and talk. There's no format to follow. You might say something like:

"Long day. The meeting went better than I expected, Sam was really on it. I'm still annoyed about the budget thing though. And I want to get back to running, maybe Saturday mornings."

What you get back is a clean, titled entry that reads like you sat down and wrote it, minus the false starts. Journal entries are private. Only you can see them. If you want the text somewhere else, each entry has a Copy button.

You can go on for up to two hours, though most evenings a few minutes is plenty.

Live, When a Call Matters

Live is part of Minima Do Pro, and it's for a different moment than the other three. You use it during a conversation: a tricky call, a pitch, an interview.

While it listens, short cards drop in. Each one is tagged, so you can tell at a glance what it's for. SAY THIS is a point you could make. ASK THIS is a question worth asking. CAPTURE is something to do after the call.

When you tap Stop, Minima Do asks which cards to keep, and you can edit the title. Kept action cards become to-dos on your list, so the follow-ups from the call are waiting for you. Anything you don't keep is gone.

There's no need to try Live on day one. Save it for the next conversation where you'd like a little help.

Two Small Things Worth Setting Up

Known words. If you work with people whose names get misspelled, or you use product names and jargon, add them as known words. On iPhone you'll find them in Profile or in the sidebar. From the next recording on, your transcripts and summaries spell those words your way. Older recordings stay as they were.

Widgets. With Pro you can add Home Screen widgets for your open to-dos, your latest meetings and journal entries, and a quick record button. The record button widget is the one to try first, since it puts the button right on your Home Screen.

What Happens to What You Say

Meeting audio is deleted once it has been transcribed. To-do, journal and Live audio is never stored at all. There are no ads, no tracking, and your data is never sold.

Speech to text is done by ElevenLabs, and the writing up is done by Anthropic's Claude. The app asks you before any of that happens.

What It Costs

Minima Do is one subscription, Minima Do Pro, at $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year in the US. The App Store shows you the price for your country. There's no free tier.

New subscribers can start with a free week when their Apple Account is eligible. That's enough time to try a few dumps, record a real meeting and see whether the journal sticks.

Your First Ten Seconds

If you'd like to try it, get Minima Do on the App Store. Then tap the button, choose To-do, and say the first three things on your mind. That's the whole first step.