The built in Reminders app on your iOS device has powerful location based reminder capabilities.  This means that you can set a reminder to automatically appear when you arrive or leave a location. This comes in real handy when you need to remember to “Get Milk” when you leave work or arrive at the grocery store.  Here is how to set this up.

Add and name addresses in your personal profile in contacts for location based reminders

1. Add locations to your personal contact in your address book. I have set up my most commonly visited stores along with my home and work address.

Tap on “other” and scroll to the bottom to “Add a Custom Label” so you can name all your locations

Give each location a title, like “Home” or “Work” or “Target by Ikea” by tapping on the blue text on the side of the new address where it says “other”. Alternatively, you can input an address directly into the location section of the reminders app for one time use.

Flip the “Remind Me At a Location” to activate geo fence

2. Once you have added a couple of locations you will now see these appear in your Reminders app whenever you add a new reminder and tap the arrow on the right to get more detail. Simply flip the toggle to “On” for “Remind Me At a Location”.

Select your address and touch “When I Leave” or “When I Arrive”

3. Next, select the address where you want the corresponding reminder to appear.

4. Finally, tap on “When I Leave” or “When I Arrive” so that the reminder will appear when you arrive at a location or as soon as you leave a location.

So, how does this work in the real world? Amazingly! Here is are two real life scenarios:

When your location is set, it appears with the navigation symbol and the name of the location. The reminder will automatically pop up near this set location.

Scenario 1: As I leave for work in the morning, I remember that I have $100 cash that I need to deposit in my bank ATM. So, I open up my reminders app and add a reminder that says “Deposit Cash”. Then I select the reminder to edit the details and flip the “Remind Me at a Location” toggle. I select my bank and then tap on “When I Arrive”. That’s it. Since my bank is on my way to and from work, as soon as I get close to the bank, a reminder will automatically appear on my screen saying “Deposit Cash”. Pretty handy!

Reminder all set to pop up when leaving work so you don’t forget to get milk

Scenario 2: During my day at work I realize that I need to buy milk on my way home. Since my day is so busy I know I will forget unless I set a reminder. So, I open up my Reminders app and add a reminder that says “Get Milk”. Then, I tap on the reminder to edit the details and flip the “Remind Me at a Location” toggle. I select my work address and tap on “When I Leave”. That’s it. Now, as soon as I leave my office, a reminder will automatically appear that tells me to “Get Milk”.

Ask Siri to remind you about certain tasks and include locations in your request.

This can all be simplified even more if you have an iOS device that has Siri (iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPad 3, iPad 4, and iPad Mini). Once you have followed step 1 above all you need to do is tell Siri to “Remind me to Get Milk when I leave work”.

Siri does all the rest for you creating a reminder and setting the location so that the reminder will pop up when you leave work.

Siri will automatically add the reminder to your default list with the location alert turned on