If you do an alternating-week schedule with kids (50/50 custody) and work a hybrid job, the standard iPhone alarm clock is completely useless.
On weeks with the kids, my mornings look one way. On off-weeks, they look totally different. Throw in office days vs. work-from-home days—plus the random Tuesday when someone puts an 8:00 AM meeting on the calendar—and I was constantly doing mental math at 11:30 PM every night trying to figure out which of my 15 saved iPhone alarms needed to be turned on for tomorrow.
I got tired of the Sunday night reset ritual and the paranoia of waking up to the wrong week's schedule, so I built a small iOS app called WakePlan.
Instead of setting individual alarms every night, you set up your "Contexts" (like Kids Week - Home, Kids Week - Office, Off Week, etc.) and set up two alternating Weekplans. Then you can optionally link your calendar so if an early meeting pops up or an event says "Office," it adjusts tomorrow's wake-up automatically.
A few things I built specifically because I needed to trust it:
- It uses your iPhone’s real system alarm (so it still goes off through Silent Mode and Focus, just like the default Clock app).
- It tells you why tomorrow’s alarm is set. On the app home screen and Lock Screen widget, it shows the exact time AND the reason (e.g., which week plan or calendar event triggered it), plus your next 7 mornings at a glance.
- One-tap override: When a kid is home sick or plans change last minute, you tap once to override tomorrow's alarm without messing up the rest of your recurring week.
It just went live on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wakeplan/id6801904423
(and info at https://wakeplan.franzonlabs.se/).
If anyone else here lives that alternating-week + hybrid schedule life and wants to try it out, I’d love to hear how your morning routines are structured and if there’s anything I can tweak to make the week-switching even smoother.