Getting the most out of Lyralog

Appointments and plans

Give a day, and a time if there is one. A day named once is a one-time plan. You get a morning summary (8 AM, or the time you choose) and an alert at the time.

• ✦Only things still to come become reminders. “Went to the gym today” never alerts.
• ✦“On Tuesday” is the coming Tuesday, once; said on a Tuesday, it’s next week’s. For every week, say “every” (see Routines).
• ✦A week with no day (“spin class this week”) goes on your TODO list, due in 7 days. Name a day to make it an appointment.
• ✦Say whose it is (“Lori’s dentist appointment”) and it’s labelled with their name. It’s on your schedule too, since you’re probably driving; ask for Lori’s schedule to see only hers.

Routines and family timetables

Things that happen on set days or every few hours. Say that it repeats, with “every”, “each”, “weekly”, “daily” or a plural day (“on Mondays”), then the days and the time. A whole week’s timetable can go in one entry, for everyone in the family: each activity gets its own days, labelled with whose it is.

• ✦Without words that say it repeats, the days are one-time plans: “Monday gymnastics, Tuesday chess” is next Monday and Tuesday only.
• ✦Use the same name each time (“Lori”), and ask about one person to see only their schedule.
• ✦Your schedule on Ask is the same list as your reminders, so what you see in the notification center is what Lyra tells you.
• ✦A schedule always starts today: “this week” is today and the 6 days after, and a weekday on its own (“on Wednesday”) is the coming one. Something done every few hours shows once a day (“Drink water every 2 hours from 8 AM to 8 PM”).

Changing your schedule

Cancel or stop something that’s already on your schedule by logging it. Unless you say it’s for good, only the next one is skipped.

• ✦“Anymore”, “altogether”, “no longer”, “for good” or “from now on” end it for good. Without them, just the next one is skipped.
• ✦Changed your mind? Delete the entry that made the change (Log tab → Recent), and your schedule is back as it was.

Birthdays, anniversaries and deadlines

Birthdays and anniversaries come back every year. For a deadline, ask to be reminded ahead of time and say how far ahead.

• ✦Give the year (“born on 1/1/1980”, “bought it on 3/1/2021”) and Lyra can tell you how old someone or something is, or how long it’s been. Without the year, she knows the day but not the age.

TODO list

Anything you still have to do, without a fixed time, goes on your TODO list. Log that you did it and it’s ticked off; you can also tick it in the notification center.

• ✦“This week” with no day makes a TODO due in 7 days, with a reminder that morning (also “this weekend”, “next week”, “this month”). After that it stays on the list as overdue until it’s done.

Moments, people and places

Anything worth remembering: who you saw, where you went, what you ate, what you bought, what someone said. Lyra finds it later by meaning, so you don’t need to remember the exact words.

• ✦Names help. “Lunch with Priya” is easier to find later than “lunch with a friend”.

Topics: a journal under a name

Start an entry with “topic” and a name, and it goes into a journal of its own: a story you’re writing, a trip you’re planning, an idea. Topic entries are kept apart. Nothing in them counts as spending, a habit or a reminder, and only questions that name the topic read them. Ask for everything on a topic and you get each entry as you wrote it, oldest first.

• ✦By voice, say “Topic”, the name, then pause before the entry. Lyra finds where the name ends, and names you’ve used before are always recognized.
• ✦When you ask, say “topic”, “under” or “everything on” with its name, so Lyra knows to look in that journal. Right after Lyra lists your topics, just name one.
• ✦“Topic: Tampa 2026 - Spent $100 on dinner” isn’t counted in your spending. To count it, log it again as an ordinary entry.

Mood and energy

Rate how you feel on a 1 to 10 scale and Lyralog keeps it as a number you can chart over time.

• ✦Words like “tired” or “great” are remembered, but only a number like “mood 7” can be charted.

Sleep

Log hours slept and how it went. Each night becomes a point on a sleep chart.

Symptoms and medications

Note what hurts, how much, and what you took. Severity like “pain 7/10” is saved as a number, so you can see whether it’s getting better.

• ✦Health entries are never used by Lyra’s games (“Madlib me”, “Toast me”).

Workouts

Sets, reps, distance, time, laps. Whatever you track, Lyralog keeps the numbers.

Habits and streaks

Running, meditating, reading, drinking water, flossing, coffee, smoking: log it when you do it, with an amount if you like. Ask how often, how much, or how long your streak is.

• ✦Log habits on the day you do them. A streak counts days in a row with at least one entry.
• ✦Say amounts with units (“20 minutes”, “3 glasses”) to get totals as well as counts.

Goals

Set a target in an entry, for a day, week, month or year, or a limit you want to stay under. Lyralog checks your habit entries against it.

• ✦To change a goal, log the new one (“New goal: 10 glasses of water a day”).

Spending, income and investing

Mention the amount and what it was for. Groceries, dining out, bills, rent, fuel, gifts, travel and more are categorized for you; savings, 401(k) and 529 contributions count as invested, not spent.

• ✦Include the currency symbol or code if you use more than one currency.
• ✦Buying several things at once? Give each its own amount: “$40 for gas and $12 for a car wash”.

Receipts and gas pumps, from a photo

Turn on Settings → Photo Entries, then tap the camera next to Save and snap a receipt or the gas pump’s screen. Type or say a note in the entry box first and it goes with the photo: it can say when it was and which car. You check what was read before it’s saved. Every item on a receipt is kept, so you can ask about one later.

• ✦Hold your phone upright, with the receipt’s text reading across the screen. A receipt photographed sideways isn’t logged.
• ✦Get the whole receipt in the photo, from the store’s name down to the total, flat and in good light.
• ✦A long receipt? Add up to 3 photos of it, top to bottom.
• ✦If a receipt can’t be read properly (blurry, sideways, or its prices don’t add up to the total), nothing is logged and you’re asked for a better picture.
• ✦Refund and return receipts count as money back, and come off what you spent.
• ✦Say which car the first time (“for my Kia SUV”); after that, “the Kia” is enough.
• ✦The photo is read once to get the details and is never stored. Only what you save is kept.

Subscriptions and bills that repeat

Say how often a charge repeats and Lyralog counts it toward your yearly costs and reminds you on the day it renews, until you log that you cancelled it.

What a year of your life costs

Once you have a few months of spending logged, Lyralog can work out what you need per year or per month to keep living the way you do.

• ✦The more of your regular bills you log (rent, insurance, subscriptions), the closer the estimate.

How long things last

Log the day you open, replace or refill something: a toothpaste tube, a bag of coffee, a water filter, light bulbs. Lyralog works out how long one lasts and when you’ll need the next.

• ✦It counts the day you start using one, not the day you buy it. “Bought 2 tubes of toothpaste” only records the money.

Home and car maintenance

Oil changes, tire rotations, filter changes, gutter cleaning. Lyralog knows the usual interval (or uses yours) and reminds you when the next one is due.

• ✦Sizes, model numbers and mileage are kept, so the next time you’re at the store you can just ask.

What happened, and when

Questions about a day, a weekday or a stretch of time read the entries from exactly those days, in order.

Follow-up questions

Keep talking: Lyra remembers the last few questions in the conversation, so a short follow-up works. She shows what she understood it as, so you can check. Tap the pencil at the top of the Ask tab to start a new chat.

• ✦“Are you sure?” or “Check again” makes Lyra look through more of your entries, and she says whether she found anything more.
• ✦A conversation starts over after 30 minutes or on a new day, so “yesterday” always means what you think.

Charts

Ask for a chart, graph, plot, trend or breakdown and Lyra draws one from your numbers: by day, week or month, or split by category or tag.

• ✦Charts need numbers. Log “slept 7 hours”, not “slept well”, if you want to see it on a chart.

By voice (iPhone)

Tap the mic and ask out loud; “Hey Lyra” at the start is optional. Speech is turned into text on your phone and the audio never leaves it. Turn on the speaker button to hear answers read aloud.

• ✦On the Log tab, the mic works the same way for entries. Turn on Settings → Voice Entry → Save Automatically to save as soon as you tap stop, with 3 seconds to cancel.

Try it on sample data

New here, with nothing logged yet? Tick “Ask the sample data” on the Ask tab and ask about a year of someone else’s made-up entries. Tap “See the sample entries” to read what was logged.

Widget ideas

A widget is a question you’d ask every day. Each one reads the last 90 days unless it names another span.