How It Works

Core Features

The operating system for your goals. Eight integrated components working together to bring clarity and control to every aspect of your life.

Focuses

The pillars of your life. Define what matters most and see how your daily effort aligns with your deepest priorities.

Define Your Pillars

Create Focuses that represent the core areas of your life. Each becomes a lens through which you view and organize your work.

  • Custom colors for instant recognition
  • Icons to match your aesthetic
  • Unlimited Focuses per account

Optional Alignment

Connect tasks to Focuses when it's helpful. See which life areas are getting attention and which might need more.

  • Tag tasks with one click
  • Keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+1-0)
  • Visual highlighting on dashboard

Effort Visualization

Your dashboard footer shows effort distribution across Focuses. Hover to highlight all related tasks instantly.

  • Daily effort breakdown
  • Historical tracking in Journal
  • Identify imbalances at a glance

Example Focuses for a balanced life

Health Family Work Learning Finances

The Connecting Thread

Focuses link everything together. Connect Checklists, Reminders, Notes, and Stories to see how your daily actions serve your bigger picture.

Primary Checklists

Nine intelligent lists that span from this hour to this year. Tasks automatically migrate toward the present as time passes.

Your entire year organized into three temporal zones. Items flow automatically from long-term planning through to immediate action.

Immediate — What's Happening Now

Hourly

Both types

Tasks that demand attention right now. Items with due times automatically appear here at the top of each hour. Resets hourly.

Auto-populates Time-triggered

Daily

Recurring only

Your essential daily routines and habits. Customize time slots from 15 minutes to 2 hours. Resets every midnight.

Time slots Daily reset

Today

Non-recurring

One-time tasks due today. Future items automatically migrate here. Unfinished tasks carry over to tomorrow.

Time slots Auto carry-over
Imminent — What's Coming Soon

Tomorrow

Non-recurring

Preview of tomorrow's tasks. Overmorrow items migrate here at day's end for advance planning.

Time slots Receives from Overmorrow

Overmorrow

Non-recurring

The day after tomorrow. Perfect for scheduling tasks that need a bit of lead time but shouldn't wait.

Time slots Receives from Weekly

Weekly

Both types

Recurring and one-time weekly tasks. Recurring items reset Sunday night. Non-recurring migrate after 5 days.

Recurring Non-recurring
Periodic — Your Long-Term Vision

Monthly

Both types

Monthly commitments and goals. Non-recurring items migrate to Weekly after approximately 3 weeks.

End-of-month reset ~3 week migration

Quarterly

Both types

90-day objectives and reviews. Recurring items reset at quarter's end. Non-recurring migrate to Monthly after ~2 months.

Quarter reset ~2 month migration

Yearly

Both types

Annual goals and aspirations. Your north star for the year. Non-recurring items migrate to Quarterly after 3 quarters.

New Year reset Long-term vision

Automatic Migration Flow

Yearly
Quarterly
Monthly
Weekly
Overmorrow
Tomorrow
Today
Hourly

Set It and Forget It

Create a task in any checklist and let the system handle the rest. Non-recurring items automatically flow toward the present, appearing in your Today list exactly when they need attention.

Checklist Items

The building blocks of your system. Tasks that track, migrate, and adapt to your needs automatically.

Time-Slotted Items

For Daily, Today, Tomorrow, and Overmorrow checklists. Schedule tasks into specific time blocks.

08:00
Morning standup meeting
Recurring daily
14:00
Pick up kids from school
One-time task

Periodic Items

For Weekly through Yearly checklists. Organized into Recurring and Non-Recurring sections.

Monthly budget review
Recurring monthly
Annual vacation planning
Non-recurring • Migrates to Quarterly
Quarterly learning goals
Recurring quarterly

Automatic Migration

Non-recurring items automatically progress through checklists, moving closer to Today as time passes.

Scheduled Resets

Recurring items reset on their schedule—hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly.

Drag & Drop

Manually move items between checklists or time slots as priorities shift throughout your day.

Focus Color-Coding

Items display their Focus color on the checkbox border, showing alignment at a glance.

Carry-Over System

Unfinished Today and Hourly items automatically carry forward, ensuring nothing gets forgotten.

The Foundation

Every completed item builds your history. Track progress in your Journal, see patterns emerge, and understand how you spend your time.

Custom Lists

Your personal knowledge repositories. Build reusable checklists for processes, projects, and workflows that don't fit time-based scheduling.

Cognitive Offloading

Capture processes once, reference them forever. Free your mind from remembering every detail of complex workflows.

Nested Hierarchies

Create checklists within checklists for complex projects. Organize multi-step processes with clear structure.

Reset & Reuse

Items stay checked until you reset them. Perfect for repeatable workflows you run again and again.

Two Checklist Types

Inspired by The Checklist Manifesto, create lists that match how you work.

Do-Confirm

Complete tasks from memory, then run through the checklist to confirm nothing was missed. Ideal for experienced practitioners.

Read-Do

Read each step aloud as you perform it. Perfect for unfamiliar procedures or when precision is critical.

Connect to Your Daily Outlook

Assign Custom List items to any Primary Checklist as Effort Items. They appear alongside your regular tasks, behaving just like innate checklist items—letting you tie project work directly into your daily, weekly, or monthly flow.

Home & Life

  • Weekly cleaning routine
  • Travel packing list
  • Meal preparation steps
  • Home maintenance schedule

Work & Projects

  • Client onboarding process
  • Code deployment checklist
  • Content creation workflow
  • Meeting preparation guide

Focus-Organized

Each Custom List belongs to a Focus, creating organized knowledge bases for every area of your life. View all related lists together.

Reminders

Your universal inbox. Capture ideas from anywhere and convert them into scheduled actions when you're ready.

Capture

Ideas enter from native Reminders apps (Apple Reminders, Google Tasks) or direct creation inside Focuser.

Process

Mark as finished when done, or drag to a Primary Checklist on your dashboard to schedule it.

Clear

Finished reminders move to a hidden list. Click "Clear" to permanently complete them, or unfinish to bring them back.

To Primary Checklists

  • Drag & drop from dashboard sidebar
  • Converts to a scheduled checklist item
  • Auto-migrates toward present

Reference for Custom Lists

  • Use as a reference for knowledge bases
  • Manually create list item from idea
  • Mark reminder finished when done

Processing Gateway

Nothing gets lost. Reminders ensure every idea has a place to land and a path to becoming actionable when the time is right.

Notes

Your flexible thinking space. Capture ideas with rich text formatting and organize them by Focus.

Quick Capture

Create notes instantly with keyboard shortcuts. Get ideas down before they fade with minimal friction.

Rich Text Editor

Full Trix editor support with bold, italic, headings, lists, links, and more. Format your thoughts exactly as you need.

Focus Association

Assign notes to Focuses to organize by life area. Search by keyword to find what you need.

Thinking Companion

Notes are your scratch pad for ideas—use them to capture thoughts, draft plans, and preserve insights until they're ready to become something more.

Stories

Your daily narrative. Capture moments as they happen instead of trying to remember everything at day's end.

Quick Posts

Dashboard sidebar

  • Always accessible while working
  • Minimal friction for quick thoughts
  • Perfect for brief moments
  • Real-time preservation

Detailed Stories

Ctrl + S for focused writing

  • Full-screen modal for deep work
  • Rich formatting options
  • Ideal for longer reflections
  • Keyboard shortcut convenience

Morning Context

Default message sets the day's tone with prompts and context.

Continuous Flow

Add stories throughout the day as experiences happen naturally.

Unified View

All stories collected in a single daily narrative in your Journal.

Living Narrative

Stories transform journaling from a retrospective chore into an ongoing practice. Capture life as it happens, creating an authentic record.

Journal

Your complete historical record. Three integrated views that preserve the full story of your days, activities, and focus distribution.

Past Days' Events

Visual timeline of completed checklist items with chronological flow.

  • Step-through of completions
  • Time-based activity tracking
  • Focus association highlights

Chronicle

Complete daily narratives from all your stories collected together.

  • All stories from each day
  • Continuous narratives
  • Reflections and experiences

Focus Metrics

Time allocation analytics showing how effort distributes across Focuses.

  • Daily focus distribution
  • Balance tracking over time
  • Historical trend analysis

Search

Find specific days by date or content

Navigate

Step through days sequentially

Calendar

Visual month overview with indicators

Trends

View patterns across time periods

Complete History

The Journal is where everything comes together. Checklist completions, stories, and focus metrics unified in a personal archive that grows richer each day.

Ready to take control?

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