Setting up your circle in about ten minutes

Most people set Marlow up on a Sunday afternoon, with the clinic letters on the kitchen table and their parent in the next room. Done in the right order it takes about ten minutes. Done in the wrong order it takes forty, most of that spent getting up to find a phone number.

Two things before you start. Marlow is iPhone only right now, for you and for your parent, and it has to be on both phones. Put it on hers before you sit down. The everyday app is free: no card, no trial clock. If somebody in the family is on Android, it isn’t ready for them yet, and the FAQ says so plainly.

Get the paper together first

Start with the appointments. Every one you know about for the next month or so: the letters on the counter, the dentist’s card, the physical therapy schedule on the fridge, the one your mother mentioned in passing and nobody wrote down. Ask her. She knows about one you don’t.

Then the places. You won’t be typing full addresses. You type the first few letters of the clinic’s name and pick it from a list, and Marlow keeps the real address, so the driver can open directions in whichever maps app they use. What you need to know is which building. “The hospital” has four entrances. Marlow also works out when your mother needs to be ready from the length of the drive, so the right place matters more than it would on a paper calendar.

Then the people. You invite each of them by sending a link, so have a way to reach them. Think wider than siblings. The neighbor who already does the Thursday pharmacy run belongs in the circle. So does the grandson at college who can’t drive but wants to know what’s going on.

Start the circle, or find out who did

If nobody has yet, sign in and create one. Name it for the person it’s about. “Mom” works if there’s one. “Ruth” works better if your sister is also helping with her mother-in-law and will end up in two circles.

Whoever creates the circle is its organizer. The organizer decides who’s in the circle and manages your parent’s settings: her language, how big her text is, how far ahead her screen looks. Everything else is open to everyone. Anyone in the circle can add an appointment, move one, or take a ride.

So if your daughter set the family up, she’s the organizer and the invitations are hers to send. You can still enter the whole month yourself, tonight, without asking anyone.

Invite people with a link

Send each person a link. They open it on their iPhone and they’re in. There’s no approval step and nothing to configure per person. There’s no limit on how many people, and there never will be a charge for adding someone.

Do this before the schedule is finished, not after. An empty circle with four people in it is more use than a full one with only you, because the first time you add an appointment that needs a driver, somebody other than you can take it. If you’re wondering whether to include someone who’ll never drive, they’ll hear about the same things everyone else does. Who gets notified about what goes through that.

Add the first appointments

Start with the next two weeks. For each one: when it is, where it is, whether it needs a ride, and whether it needs a ride back as well. Most do. The ride back is its own ride in Marlow, so your brother can do the drop and the neighbor can do the pickup.

Then the repeating ones. Dialysis three mornings a week, physical therapy every Tuesday and Thursday: enter it once and say it repeats. If one week moves because the clinic called, move that week and only that week moves. If the same person always does it, put them on the series as the standing driver, and nobody gets asked about it twice a week.

Leave the driver open where you don’t know. The appointment shows orange and marked as needing a driver until somebody in the circle taps to take it, and then it turns green with their name on it. That orange is the question the circle exists to answer.

If you have the clinic’s letter in front of you, there’s a shortcut on the Plus plan: take a photo of it and Marlow fills in the date, time and place for you to check over. The photo never leaves your phone.

Pair your parent’s phone

This is the step people expect to be hard. It’s the easiest. Your parent’s phone doesn’t get an account: no email address, no password, nothing to remember. Open Marlow on your phone, show her the square code on your screen, and point her phone at it. If the camera’s awkward, there’s a ten-character code she can type instead. The code stops working once it’s been used, and you can unpair the phone from your side whenever you like.

Then, from your side, set three things for her. Her language: English, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi or French, whatever she thinks in, even if her English is fine at the store. Her text size, if her eyes aren’t what they were. The text starts big and follows her phone’s own text-size setting, and you can push it larger still. And how far ahead her screen shows, from just today up to a week. For a lot of parents, today is plenty.

Do this one with her in the room. Not because she needs to do anything. Because saying out loud what the screen will do saves a phone call on Thursday.

What to tell her the screen does

Keep it to three sentences. It shows what’s on today, in order, and when to be ready. The name on it is who’s coming. She doesn’t have to touch it, and nothing she taps can change anything, which is enforced on our end rather than by hiding buttons.

A few things worth mentioning so they don’t surprise her. There’s a line under the greeting with the weather, and a note if it’s raining or cold enough for a coat. If her wifi drops, the screen keeps the last good copy of today rather than going blank, and says how old it is. If a ride hasn’t been taken yet, her screen says the ride is being arranged. That’s true, and it’s not hers to solve. And while a ride is happening, a card sits on her lock screen with who’s driving and when to be ready, and nothing about the appointment itself, because a lock screen is public.

The senior side page shows the screen. Six things people find late covers the home screen widget, which is worth adding while you still have her phone in your hand. From here on, a new letter is a thirty-second job.