How list-making apps could save your relationship

Managing tasks used to burden one partner more than the other, but apps such as Trello and Wunderlist are helping share the admin of daily life

It's the middle of the workday when a mobile notification pops up on my phone: "Luke created 'Rocking chairs' in 'Inbox'," it reads. It's from the Trello app, which means it's not urgent and it doesn't really disturb my work - I know if my partner wanted my immediate attention he'd text. For us, a Trello note is a placeholder for something to talk about later.

My partner, Luke Abrams, and I use the list-making app as our common digital memory. It is where everything we need to do, buy, talk about, or remember, goes. And it updates on both our computers and phones in real time. That afternoon I add a few more notes myself - cat food, printer paper - to a list aptly called 'Shopping'.