How do I keep track of summer camp sign-up deadlines?
Keep one list with a line per camp: the weeks you want, the date sign-up opens, the date it closes, and anything it asks you to send. Put the opening date on your calendar with an alert that morning, and the closing date with an alert a few days ahead.
Connect Gmail, or forward school emails from any inbox to your Daywell address.
What to do
- Decide the weeks you need first. Before you read any camp's page, write down which weeks need care, from your own work calendar. A camp that does not cover those weeks is not on the list.
- Make one line per camp. Camp name, child, the weeks, cost, and two dates if the camp gives them: when sign-up opens and when it closes. One date missing is a question to the camp, not a gap in the list.
- Find out where the camp will tell you. Check the camp's own page for a way to get its emails, and sign up for them with the email you actually read. Look through the flyers that came home and the messages from other parents.
- Put both dates on a calendar with alerts. The opening date, with an alert that morning. The closing date, with an alert three days ahead. Set once, on a calendar both parents can see.
- After you sign up, add what the camp asks for. Add each form, payment date and first-day item as its own line with a date and the child's name, like "Maya: camp form, due [date]". Save the confirmation email under one label. In Gmail, make a filter for your school, daycare and activity senders and have it label them "School". Choose Skip the Inbox (Archive it) only if you'll open that label every day.
- Cross off the camps you did not choose. Mark them "no" so the list only holds what is still to do.
How Daywell helps
Daywell, the family prep assistant, does that reading and list-making for you. Connect Gmail once, read-only. Daywell looks at email and picks out the messages from school, daycare and activities. You get one list of what's coming up, which child it's for, and what to bring, sign or pay, like "Maya: field trip form, sign by Wednesday". On the iPhone and Android apps, one quiet reminder comes each morning, at a time you pick. Invite a partner and you both see the same list.
Questions parents ask
A camp sent a flyer or a PDF. How do I add it?
Take a photo or a screenshot, or save the PDF, then share it to Daywell from your phone, or add it in Daywell on the web. Daywell reads it and lists what it asks for.
The camp only gave one date. What do I do?
Ask the camp: when does sign-up open, and when does it close? Write both down.
I use Outlook or another email, not Gmail. Can I still use Daywell?
Yes. From any inbox, forward school emails to your own Daywell address, one at a time or automatically.
Does Daywell read all of my email?
No. It looks only at who each email is from and its subject, and skips what Gmail files under Promotions, Social and Forums. It opens the ones it judges to be from school, daycare or activities. If it can't tell from the sender and subject, it opens that one too rather than risk missing it. The privacy policy explains what is kept and for how long.
How do I get Daywell?
It's in invite-only early access. Join the waitlist on getdaywell.com and we'll send one email when your spot opens. It's free while in early access.
Sources
- Gmail Help: Create rules to filter your emails
- Google Workspace Learning Center: Tips to optimize your Gmail inbox
- Daywell privacy policy
Checked by James Boone, Daywell, 2 Nov 2026