Planning
Plan your day
Use the daily planning feature to choose your tasks for the day, schedule them into time slots, and highlight what matters most.
What is daily planning?
Daily planning helps you decide what to focus on each day. You choose which tasks to tackle, put them into time-of-day slots, and optionally highlight the single most important one. It turns a long task list into a focused, manageable plan.
How to plan your day
On mobile
- Open the Today tab.
- Tap Plan your day. From 6:00 PM, on a day that already has tasks, the button just reads Plan.
- You will see your existing tasks that are due today or already scheduled. You can also browse and add other tasks from your lists.
- Your tasks are grouped into time-of-day slots. To move a task to another slot, long-press and drag it, or tap its Reschedule button.
- Tap Next to move on to choosing your highlight, then tap Finish.
On the web
- Open Today. To plan a later day, select it on the calendar strip first. While you're planning, the strip's past days can't be selected.
- Select Plan your day, or press P. From 6:00 PM, on a day that already has tasks, the button just reads Plan. On a later day, it reads Plan this day, and on a day with nothing in it yet, it's a card rather than a button. Past days have no planning button.
- The Open tasks card opens beside the day's board. It lists your open tasks that aren't on that day yet, with its own search box and sort, group and filter options. To hide it, select « at the top of the card. To bring it back, select Open tasks in the planning bar at the bottom of the page.
- Drag a task from the card onto a time-of-day slot, or select its + to add it under Any time. To move a task to another slot, drag it there. To take it off the day, drag it back onto the card.
- Open tasks that were due, planned or set to remind you in the last 7 days wait at the top of the board under Recently overdue. Tick one off, select Add to today to put it under Any time, or Later to pick another day. Add all to today brings them all in. When you're planning a later day, these read Add to this day and Add all to this day.
- Optionally, choose the day's highlight: drag a task onto the highlight slot at the top of the board, or select the star beside it.
- When you've finished, select Done in the planning bar at the bottom of the page, or press P. If the day has open tasks but no highlight, we ask which one matters most first. Esc leaves planning straight away.
Time-of-day slots
Each day has five time-of-day slots. You don't have to put every task in one: a task with no time of day and no reminder that day goes under Any time.
- Any time — No specific time; just needs doing that day.
- Morning — 6:00 AM to 12:00 PM.
- Afternoon — 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM.
- Evening — 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM.
- Night — 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM.
Adding tasks to your plan
You can add tasks to your plan in several ways:
On mobile
- Select existing tasks — Tap the + beside a time slot, or Add tasks on an empty day, to open your task list. Tap the + next to a task to include it in your plan. It turns into a tick, and tapping it again takes the task back out. Tapping the task itself opens its details.
- Create a new task — Tap the + beside a time slot, then tap Create new task at the top of the list. The new task is automatically scheduled for that day and time of day. The + only appears on today and future days.
Tasks you add with a time slot's +, whether you pick an existing task or create a new one, are scheduled for that day and time of day. Tasks you add with Add tasks on an empty day are scheduled for the day only, so they appear under Any time.
On the web
- Select existing tasks — While you plan, drag a task from the Open tasks card onto a time-of-day slot, or select its + to add it under Any time. To add a subtask on its own, select the arrow beside its parent task to show its subtasks.
- Create a new task — Select the + beside a time-of-day slot, whether or not you're planning. The new task opens in a panel on the right, already scheduled for that day and time of day.
Highlighting your most important task
Each day, you can mark one task as your highlight — the single most important thing you want to accomplish. Your highlighted task shows a yellow star next to its title on Today, and in your lists on the day it is planned for.
On mobile
To highlight a task, tap Next while planning to reach the Highlight your most important tasks step, then tap the star beside the task. Tap the star again to remove the highlight. If you move a highlighted task to another day, it loses its highlight.
On the web
While you plan, a highlight slot sits at the top of the board, above Recently overdue. To fill it, drag a task onto the slot, or select Choose and pick one of the day's tasks, or a recently overdue one, which then joins the day. Not sure how to pick? Select Why one? for three ways to choose: Urgent, Satisfying or Joyful.
Once it's set, the slot shows your highlight. Select Change to pick another, or × to clear it. The task stays in its time-of-day slot too. You can also select the star on any task card while you plan.
If you select Done on a day that has open tasks but no highlight, we ask which one matters most. Pick one, or select Not today to finish planning without one. We won't ask again that day.
After you plan, your highlight shows at the top of Today. Hover over it and we point out the task in the list below. Once the task is done, the card says so.
Dragging a highlighted task onto another day in the calendar strip, or back onto Open tasks, removes its highlight.
You can only highlight one task per day. If you highlight a different task, the previous one loses its highlight.
Reordering tasks
You can reorder tasks within a time slot or move them between slots. When you move a task to a different time-of-day slot, its start time is updated automatically.
On mobile
Long-press a task in the planning view to drag and drop it.
On the web
Drag a task with the mouse, whether or not you're planning. To move a task to another day, drag it up onto that day in the calendar strip. You can't drop it on a past day, and a message confirms the move, with Undo to put the task back.
Daily planning notification
By default, we send a notification to your phone at 8:00 AM each day to remind you to plan your day. On a morning when the Upcoming tasks notification has tasks to tell you about, you may get that one instead.
On mobile
You can turn the planning notification off in Settings → Notifications settings: switch off Daily planning under Planning.
On the web
The web app doesn't send this notification, but you can turn it off from the web app too: in Settings → Notifications, switch off Daily planning under Planning. Your phone picks up the change the next time you open the mobile app.
Planning streaks
Each day you finish planning counts towards your planning streak. We record your streak, and a place to see it in the app is coming. For how streaks are counted, see the Track your planning streaks article.
Weekly planning
On mobile
With Do Everything PRO, you can also plan your entire week ahead. Weekly planning works the same way as daily planning, but lets you schedule tasks across all seven days at once. For more, see the Plan your week article.
On the web
This isn’t in the web app yet.
