Meeting and deadline reminder calls with ChatGPT

A calendar notification is easy to swipe away. A phone that actually rings, in a warm voice reading out "stand-up in ten minutes, the client demo doc is not shared yet", is much harder to ignore. That is what ReminderIt does, and once you connect it to ChatGPT you can arrange those calls in plain conversation.

This post covers two work patterns: a single nudge before a specific meeting, and a standing call that repeats on your working days. Both are set with the same ReminderIt tools; the only difference is whether you ask for a one-off or a recurring schedule.

Connect ReminderIt to ChatGPT once

In ChatGPT's connector settings, add a custom connector pointing at https://mcp.reminderit.com. You approve access on a single OAuth screen, so there is no API key to paste. From then on ChatGPT can call the ReminderIt tools inside your own account.

Behind the scenes that consent creates a per-client key you can revoke whenever you like at reminderit.com/api-keys. Nothing is scheduled until you actually ask for it in chat.

One-off nudges before a specific meeting

For a meeting that happens once, you want a call at a fixed date and time. Tell ChatGPT the moment and your time zone, and it will use create_reminder with type 'once' and a run_at timestamp. ReminderIt schedules all calls against IANA time zones such as Europe/London or America/New_York, so always name the zone rather than a vague offset.

A good habit is to ask for the nudge a little before the event, not at the event: "Call me at 13:50 Europe/London today" for a 14:00 meeting gives you a minute to walk to the room or open the deck.

Recurring calls for standing commitments

Weekly stand-ups, a Monday planning block or an end-of-day wrap-up are recurring, so you want a cron schedule instead of a single timestamp. The expression 0 9 * * 1-5 means 09:00 on weekdays; 30 16 * * 5 means 16:30 every Friday. ChatGPT translates your description into the cron string and passes it to create_reminder.

Because the schedule lives in ReminderIt, the calls keep coming without ChatGPT being open. You only return to chat when something changes.

A worked example

Prompt: "Set two work reminders on my account, both America/New_York. One recurring call every weekday at 8:45am saying 'daily stand-up at 9, post your update in the channel first'. And a one-off call this Thursday at 3:50pm saying 'board deck is due at 4, send the final PDF'."

ChatGPT calls create_reminder twice. The first uses a cron expression 45 8 * * 1-5 for the stand-up. The second uses type 'once' with a run_at of Thursday 15:50 in your zone for the deadline. Ask it to run list_upcoming afterwards and it will read both back so you can confirm the times before you rely on them.

If a time looks wrong, you do not delete anything: ask ChatGPT to update_reminder with the corrected time. If you just want to hear how the call sounds, ask it to run test_call and your phone rings straight away.

Keep meeting reminders one-way and clean

The scheduled call itself is one-way: ReminderIt reads the reminder aloud and that is it, so keep the wording to what you need to hear in five seconds. You do not act on the call during the call.

If a call is missed, ReminderIt can fall back to a WhatsApp message so the deadline still reaches you. Later, if you manage reminders over WhatsApp, you can mark one done or snooze it there; a snooze rings you again about ten minutes on.