Pharmacy List: See It When You Arrive at the Pharmacy

Why the pharmacy list is easy to forget

Most trips to the pharmacy are quick stops on the way somewhere else. You remember the sun cream on a sunny morning, the plasters after a grazed knee, the toothpaste when the tube is nearly flat. By the time you're standing at the counter, half of it has slipped away, and the other half is in a message you can't find.

The things themselves are ordinary. What makes the list hard is timing: you think of an item at home, and you need it somewhere else, days later.

What usually goes on a household pharmacy list

Keep the list to everyday things the household buys over and over. A typical one might include:

• plasters and cotton pads
• toothpaste, toothbrush heads, dental floss
• sun cream and after-sun
• hand cream and lip balm
• baby wipes and a new dummy
• anything your pharmacist or doctor has asked you to pick up

Anything about medicines themselves (what to take, how much, whether it suits someone) is a question for your pharmacist or doctor. The list is simply there so you remember to ask and to buy.

Keep one running list, not a new one each time

The simplest habit is one errand called “Pharmacy” that stays open all week. Whenever someone notices something running low, it goes on the list straight away, one item per line. When you've been to the pharmacy, tick off what you bought; what's left waits for the next trip.

If the same few things come up every month, write them once in a note and create a fresh errand from it when it's time. The note stays for next time.

How to get your pharmacy list when you arrive

In Family Errands, a place is part of an errand, like its date or its checklist. For the full walkthrough of place reminders, see our guide to a location-based reminder; here are the steps for the pharmacy.

1. Create the errand

   Add a new errand without a date (Anytime), for example “Pharmacy”, and put each thing you need on its checklist, one per line — it stays active every day until it's completed.

2. Pick the pharmacy as its place

   Choose a saved place, or set a one-off point if it's a pharmacy you rarely visit.

3. Choose On arrival

   The reminder should appear when you get there, not when you leave.

4. Save the errand

   When you arrive at the pharmacy, the notification shows the list of what to buy.

Tip. Save your usual pharmacy as a place with a name, colour and icon, so next time you pick it from the list instead of finding it on the map again.

On Android, you can also set a location schedule, so the app checks your places only on the days and hours you choose.

Share the list so whoever passes by can pick things up

The pharmacy is often on someone's way: near the school, next to the office, by the station. Share the “Pharmacy” errand with your partner or other family members, and everyone sees the same list. Whatever one person adds at home shows up on the other phones, and whoever buys something ticks it off.

A place reminder only tells you that you've arrived; the app does not show where other family members are. What's shared is the list.

If someone else is going this week and the errand is yours, you can also hand it over to them: it becomes theirs and leaves your list.

When a pharmacy trip has a date

Some pharmacy errands are tied to a day rather than a place, such as collecting something the pharmacist has set aside. Make that a separate errand with its own date and a time reminder — an errand with a place has no time reminders. If you're helping a parent with appointments and collections, our elderly parent care guide shows how a family can share those errands.

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