Can one potluck sheet cover several days of meals?

Yes — that is what the dates are for. Every sign-up row carries its own day and time, so Friday dinner, Saturday breakfast and Sunday brunch live on one sheet at one address instead of three separate links you have to keep explaining. Switching the sheet to its agenda view then reads the whole run back day by day.

Should the day go in the section heading or on the row?

On the row, if the event runs across days. A day typed into a section heading is just a word — nothing can group by it, sort by it or put it in a calendar. A date attached to the row is data: it drives the agenda view, the day headers and the calendar feed, which leaves your sections free to mean something else, like courses or jobs.

Does a dated sign-up row show up in a real calendar?

It can. Every list offers a subscribe address under the gear menu, and any calendar app that takes a subscription URL will show the dated rows as events. A claimed row appears with the claimer's name, an unclaimed one appears as “OPEN — cornbread”, so the gaps in the sheet turn up in the organiser's own calendar.

What happens to a dated row once the day has passed?

Nothing is deleted or hidden. The row stays where it is, and in the agenda view that day's heading simply dims so your eye skips it. Nothing on a list ever moves on its own — a row leaves only when a person deletes it.

Do the people signing up have to deal with the dates at all?

No. They see the day sitting on the row as a small chip and tap Sign up next to whichever one they're taking. Attaching dates is the organiser's job, done once while building the sheet; claiming is still one tap and an optional line about what you're bringing.

A potluck sign-up sheet with dates on it

Last updated September 9, 2026

One dinner is easy to run off a plain list. A reunion weekend, a retreat, a three-day family gathering or a week of meals is where a potluck sheet starts to buckle: “chili” means nothing until somebody says which night, and the usual fixes — a heading that says FRIDAY in capitals, or three separate sheets — either drift out of order or turn into three links you spend the week re-sending.

On anonylist the day goes on the row. Each need carries its own date and time, the sheet still fills in one tap, and a single toggle reads the whole thing back as a schedule. This guide is how to build one.

Opens instantly. No account, no email.

Type the day, don’t pick it

There is no date picker anywhere in this app, on purpose. You write the day the way you’d write it in a text message, and the app offers to make it official.

Add a sign-up row — the + Sign-up button under the add box, or the quiet + Sign-up link at the end of a section — and type the need with its day in it: chili for 20 friday 6pm. A small chip appears offering “friday” → Fri, Sep 11 · 6pm — attach date. Tap it and the date is attached to that row. Ignore it, or tap the ×, and nothing happens: a row only ever gets a date because a person confirmed one, so a misread costs you a dismissed chip rather than a wrong day on somebody else’s dish.

It reads the shapes people actually write: friday 6pm, sat 9am, sept 12, 9/12, the 12th, weds 26th, next saturday, in two weeks. A time is only read when it’s riding the day — “dish duty 7:30” on its own is left alone, because that’s just as likely to be a note to yourself.

Once attached, the date lifts out of the sentence and becomes a chip pinned to the right-hand end of the row — and if you typed the day at the end, those words go with it: chili for 20 friday 6pm becomes chili for 20 wearing a chip. A day in the middle of a sentence stays where it is, because taking it would wreck the row.

A potluck sheet on a phone titled “Reunion weekend — food”: a note about the kitchen, a Meals section reading 3/6 filled where every row carries a date chip — Chili for 20 on Fri, Sep 11 · 6pm claimed by Priya, Cornbread still open, Egg bake on Sat, Sep 12 · 9am claimed by Marcus — and a Jobs section below reading 1/2 filled. — Six meals across three days on one sheet. Each row carries its own day; the sections are free to mean something else.

Let your sections mean something other than the day

This is the part that changes once dates are on the rows. When a heading was the only way to say “Saturday”, sections had to be days. Now the day is on the row, so the headings can carry the split that actually helps you read the sheet — Meals and Jobs, or Mains, Sides and Puddings, or one section per household.

Each section keeps its own counter — 3/6 filled, turning green with a check when every need under it has a name — so you can tell at a glance whether the food is covered separately from whether the cleaning-up is.

A day typed into a heading is only a word. A date attached to a row is something the app can use: it drives the agenda view, the day headers, and the calendar feed below. That’s the whole argument for putting it on the row.

Read the weekend back as a schedule

As soon as one row has a date, an Agenda button appears in the header. Tap it and the same sheet regroups under day headings — Today, Tomorrow, then the dates by name — with the timed rows in time order and anything undated collected under No date at the bottom. Sections drop out of this view, because the day is doing the organising.

The same sheet in agenda view on a phone: headings for FRI, SEP 11 with the ice run and chili, SAT, SEP 12 with the egg bake, cold cuts, grill mains and dish duty in time order, SUN, SEP 13 with the fruit plate, and a NO DATE heading holding the kitchen note. — The same rows, one tap later. Nothing was re-entered — the agenda is derived from the dates, so it can’t disagree with the sheet.

Nothing has moved on the sheet itself; the toggle switches back to List and everything is where you left it. Dragging is off while you’re in agenda view for the same reason — the order there is worked out from the dates, so there’s nothing to drag it into.

A day that has already gone by dims its heading rather than disappearing. Nothing on a list ever removes itself, which is the honest version of “what happens to last Friday”: it sits there, faded, until somebody deletes it.

Claiming still takes one tap

None of this changes what the people you sent the link to do. They open it — no account, no app, no “continue with Google” — pick a name for themselves the first time, and tap Sign up next to the row they’re taking. Their name lands on it live, on everyone’s screen, and a small box opens for the detail that makes a potluck work: double batch, one pan mild, bringing it in a cooler, can’t get there until 7.

People sign up spouses and kids, so the sheet lets them: tap a name to type a different one over it, or the × to clear it. Clearing somebody else’s claim asks you to confirm first, because their note goes with it.

Put the whole sheet in your calendar

Dated rows are also available as a calendar subscription. Open the gear menu, find Calendar feed, and you get an address plus one-tap links for Google and Apple Calendar. Subscribe, and the sheet’s rows appear as events in whatever you already look at every morning.

The useful part for whoever’s running it: a claimed row shows up under its claimer’s name — Chili for 20 — Priya, with the claim note as the event description — and an unclaimed one shows up as OPEN — Cornbread. The holes in your sheet turn up in your own calendar, three days out, without you going and looking.

Two honest limits. Times are floating: 6pm means 6pm where the potluck is, with no timezone conversion, which is right for a gathering and wrong for a conference call across three countries. And a list with a password on it refuses the feed outright — a calendar app has no way to answer a password prompt, so the feed declines rather than quietly handing the list to anything that asks.

What the dates deliberately don’t do

They don’t remind anybody. There are no notifications, no emails and no nagging — a sign-up sheet with no accounts has nowhere to send them, and the calendar subscription above is the honest way to get an alert if you want one.

They don’t repeat, either: a weekly rota is rows you edit, not a recurrence rule. And nothing is ever guessed after the fact — the app never scans your rows later and decides one of them meant Tuesday. A date exists because somebody tapped a chip.

When the sheet is going somewhere public

Everything above is the free product, and for a family weekend it’s the whole answer: anyone holding the link can claim a row, fix a wrong name and add a dish, which is exactly what a clipboard on the kitchen table does. That openness is also the tradeoff to think about before the link goes into a newsletter or onto a church noticeboard, where the question stops being “can people sign up” and becomes “can people wreck it”.

That’s what anonylist pro is for: a sheet you own, where visitors can claim rows and write their notes but can’t delete anything, plus a readable address you can print on a flyer. Same sheet, same one-tap claiming — you just get the say over what everyone else may do to it.

Questions

Can one potluck sheet cover several days of meals?: Yes — that is what the dates are for. Every sign-up row carries its own day and time, so Friday dinner, Saturday breakfast and Sunday brunch live on one sheet at one address instead of three separate links you have to keep explaining. Switching the sheet to its agenda view then reads the whole run back day by day.
Should the day go in the section heading or on the row?: On the row, if the event runs across days. A day typed into a section heading is just a word — nothing can group by it, sort by it or put it in a calendar. A date attached to the row is data: it drives the agenda view, the day headers and the calendar feed, which leaves your sections free to mean something else, like courses or jobs.
Does a dated sign-up row show up in a real calendar?: It can. Every list offers a subscribe address under the gear menu, and any calendar app that takes a subscription URL will show the dated rows as events. A claimed row appears with the claimer’s name, an unclaimed one appears as “OPEN — cornbread”, so the gaps in the sheet turn up in the organiser’s own calendar.
What happens to a dated row once the day has passed?: Nothing is deleted or hidden. The row stays where it is, and in the agenda view that day’s heading simply dims so your eye skips it. Nothing on a list ever moves on its own — a row leaves only when a person deletes it.
Do the people signing up have to deal with the dates at all?: No. They see the day sitting on the row as a small chip and tap Sign up next to whichever one they’re taking. Attaching dates is the organiser’s job, done once while building the sheet; claiming is still one tap and an optional line about what you’re bringing.