Plan your day on the timetable

Timetable is the grid your week is laid out on. Down the left of it sit your open tasks, your routines and the colours you paint time with, so the whole plan-the-day loop happens on one screen.

The grid runs from 8am to 10pm and stretches to fit anything outside that, so a 9:30pm appointment is never squashed off the bottom.

Block out a time

Click an empty stretch of the grid and a box opens there asking what you’ll do. Type it, press Enter, and the block is on the calendar.

For everything a block can carry, open it and use the full window instead:

1. Click the block to open Edit time block, or click an empty time and press the +.
2. Name it, such as Cold calling block.
3. Pick a colour from the pills.
4. Set Repeats, Start and End.
5. Add checklist items if the block has steps.

Repeats is Once, Weekly, Every day, 2-weekly or Monthly. The four buttons under the times set the length in one tap: 30m, 1h, 1h30 and 2h.

On a phone, New block opens a sheet on the day you’re looking at, with What will you do?, a start time you nudge by 30 minutes at a time, and a length of 30m, 1h or 2h.

Paint with colours

The colours come from the Time blocks card in the left rail. Five arrive with the app: Prospecting, Preparation, Me time, Learning and Study.

Tap a colour and the card heading changes to Painting and its name. Every tap on the grid after that paints a block in it. Escape stops.

＋ Add makes a colour of your own. Note that making one doesn’t arm the brush, so the next tap on the grid does nothing until you pick the colour deliberately.

Note

A block whose colour you later delete reads Uncategorised rather than quietly taking on another name.

Drag a task or a routine onto it

The rail lists up to 6 open tasks and your routines as chips. Anything already placed on the day you’re looking at drops off the list.

Drag a chip onto the grid, or tap it and then tap a time. Tapping puts a banner across the top naming the day it’s waiting for and the block it will make, which is 30 minutes.

All routines → opens the full routines page, because the rail caps at 8.

Let Plan my day fill the gaps

Plan reads your open tasks and packs them into the free time inside your working hours, highest scoring first.

1. Press Plan.
2. Set Work hours and Min chunk.
3. Turn the weekday letters on or off.
4. Read the proposal, day by day.
5. Press Place and the number of blocks.

Work hours starts at 9 to 6 and Min chunk at 30 minutes, with 15, 45 and 60 also on offer. Monday to Friday are on to begin with. The plan reaches 7 days ahead.

No-due too is off, so a task with no due date stays out of the plan and your Someday list stays free. Turn it on and those tasks are fair game.

Replan recalculates from now. It sweeps the auto-planned blocks you haven’t ticked off yet and packs around whatever has changed, and the window says how many it will replace. A block you placed by hand is never touched.

Two lines at the bottom tell you how it went. All tasks are scheduled on time. means everything fitted. A red line starting Won't fit this week: names the tasks it couldn’t place and how many minutes each still needs.

When there’s nothing to do, the window says Nothing to schedule. Open the info mark beside it for the three reasons that can be true.

Change what the grid shows

The button on the right of the toolbar names the view you’re in. Open it for the rest.

View is day, week or month. Days in view is 1d, 3d, 5d or 7d, and the info mark beside it explains that 3d follows the day you’ve selected and 5d means weekdays. Density is Compact, Normal or Roomy, which is how tall one hour draws. Time format swaps between 1:00pm and 13:00.

Hide tasks gives the calendar the whole width and Show tasks brings the rail back. Split puts tasks beside the schedule outside the planner, and AI opens a chat column on the right.

Show your real meetings

Connecting a calendar puts your bookings and Google Calendar events on the same grid, greyed out and read-only. Plan my day then schedules around them instead of over them.

Press Connect on the banner, or Connect Pick a Time in the calendar menu. An event you click opens its details with Join meeting when there’s a link, and Manage in Pick a Time or Open Google Calendar to change it at the source.

Switch account connects a different Pick a Time account.

FAQ

Can I edit a meeting that came from my calendar?

No. Synced events are read-only here. Change them in Pick a Time or in Google Calendar and the grid catches up.

Why did Plan my day skip a task I need done?

One of four reasons: it has no due date and No-due too is off, it’s waiting on another task, you’ve already given it a block by hand, or auto-scheduling is switched off on the task itself.

Where does a block I place from Plan go afterwards?

Onto the grid as an ordinary one-off block, linked to its task. Tick it off and the next Replan leaves it alone.

Does the timetable repeat every week?

Only the blocks you set to repeat. Once is the default in the window, so a block stays on the day you made it unless you say otherwise.