Schedule View

The Schedule view shows a time-based timeline of how your planned tasks unfold over time. It distinguishes between scheduled tasks (shown at specific times) and regular tasks (flowing around fixed events), helping you see how work fits into your day.

What the Schedule Shows

The Schedule automatically generates a timeline from your tasks using the time estimates you've assigned. It shows the upcoming 30 days and displays:

• Scheduled tasks — Tasks with a specific due time, shown at that time
• Regular tasks — Tasks without a fixed time that "flow" around scheduled events
• Recurring task projections — Instances of repeating tasks (see 4.13-Repeating-Tasks)
• Tasks planned for specific days — Tasks you've assigned to certain days
• Task deadlines — The day by which a task must be finished
• Calendar events — Events from external calendars you've connected

Deadlines and planned dates have different meanings. A planned date says when you intend to work on a task; a deadline says when it must be finished. A task can have either or both, and the Schedule does not treat the days between them as occupied time.

In every Schedule view, a warning-colored flag badge marks tasks whose deadline falls on that day. The small number beside the flag shows how many deadlines there are; hover over or focus the badge to see the task names.

The Schedule panel also has a "From previous days" row when unfinished tasks are left over from earlier days. Open it and drag a task onto the timeline to give it a time.

Scheduled Vs Regular Tasks

The Schedule treats tasks in two ways:

• Scheduled tasks — Have a specific date and time. They appear at that time on the timeline.
• Regular tasks — Have no specific time. They flow around scheduled tasks, using your time estimates to show how they might fit into the day.

If you set work start and end times in settings, regular tasks are only shown within that range—they never appear outside your configured work day.

When planned work no longer fits into the available time for a day, the Schedule marks the affected task and shows an over-budget indicator in the day header. Hover over the indicator to see how many tasks are affected.

Keeping Regular Tasks in a Tray

If you would rather decide yourself when each task happens, set Tasks without a time to Kept in a tray in the Schedule settings (3.02-Settings-and-Preferences). The day and week views then stop placing regular tasks on the timeline. Each day lists them in a tray below its date instead, and the timeline shows only scheduled tasks and calendar events.

• The first line of a tray shows how much time its tasks need. With work start and end times set, it also shows how much of the day is still free, or by how much the day is over. Tasks without an estimate count as zero.
• A day shows up to three tasks (two on a phone). +N more opens the full list for every day; Show less closes it.
• Drag a task from the tray onto the timeline to give it a time. Drag a task onto a tray or a day's date to move it to that day without a time.
• Click a task to open it. With a task focused, the Schedule shortcut opens the schedule dialog for that day. On touch devices, the clock button beside a task does the same.
• Recurring tasks that are due on a day but not created yet are listed in a muted style and cannot be dragged.
• Where the columns are narrow, such as the week view on a phone, a day shows only the number of tasks and its free time. Tap it to open that day.

A day that is over keeps all its tasks; nothing moves to the next day. The month view is not affected by this setting.

How Tasks Are Ordered

Tasks are ordered by start time. When two or more tasks share the same start time, the app orders them by type (scheduled tasks first, then regular tasks).

Blocked Time and Long-Running Tasks

Blocked periods are times a regular task cannot flow into. Scheduled tasks, calendar events, recurring task projections with a start time, your lunch break, and the hours outside your work start and end times all block time. When a regular task would run through a blocked period, it is shown as split: one segment up to the block, then a continued segment after it. If less than 10 minutes would fit before the block, the task starts after the block instead. That keeps the timeline readable and shows when work resumes.

Some things do not block time:

• All-day calendar events are not placed on the timeline. They are listed in the day's column in the 4.03-Planner-View.
• Events from a hidden calendar disappear from the Schedule and stop blocking time. With two or more calendars connected, the Calendar visibility button in the Schedule header hides or shows each one.
• A scheduled task without an estimate marks its start time only; give it an estimate to reserve the time.

All segments belong to the same task, so clicking any of them opens it. Only the first segment can be dragged, since that is where the task starts.

Tasks that run past midnight are continued on the next day, so you see the full span of the work. Continuations skip the weekend days of your date/time locale (Saturday and Sunday where the platform cannot tell), while work you scheduled on a weekend day stays there.

Colors

The colored left edge of a task is the color of its project, so you can see at a glance which project fills the day. Calendar events use the color of their calendar.

Moving Tasks on Touch

On a touch device, press and hold a task before dragging it to a new time. A plain swipe always scrolls the timeline, so a day filled with calendar events stays scrollable. Dragging the bottom edge of a task to change its estimate is a mouse-only shortcut; on touch, tap the task and edit the estimate in the task detail panel.

What You See

The Schedule shows a range of days (the upcoming 30 days). How many days are visible at once depends on the view mode and your screen size: the day view shows a single day, while the week and month views show fewer days on narrow screens and more on wide ones. On a phone-sized screen the Schedule opens in the day view until you pick another view; your choice is remembered on that device.

Planning Vs Scheduling

Planning (in the Planner view) assigns tasks to days without specific times. Scheduling (in the Schedule view) assigns both a date and a specific time:

• When you schedule a task with time, it gets a due date and time
• Scheduled tasks stay in their Planner day, listed below the untimed tasks with their time
• Tasks scheduled for today automatically appear in the Today View
• You can reschedule tasks or move them to the backlog when needed

For how a planned day, a scheduled time and a deadline show up in Today, Planner and Schedule, see the comparison table in 4.03-Planner-View. To drag a task from a task list onto a one-day timeline, see 2.05-Manage-Scheduled-Tasks.

Related

• 4.12-Scheduled-Tasks — How scheduled tasks appear on the timeline and in other views
• 4.13-Repeating-Tasks — How repeating tasks and their projections appear on the Schedule
• 4.08-Time-Estimates — How estimates power the Schedule timeline
• 4.03-Planner-View — Day-level planning, and how Today, Planner and Schedule differ
• 4.01-The-Today-View — Today's task list
• 4.02-Inbox-View — The default project for uncategorized tasks
• 2.05-Manage-Scheduled-Tasks — How to set due dates and times
• 3.02-Settings-and-Preferences — Work start/end times, lunch breaks, and other Schedule settings
• 3.03-Keyboard-Shortcuts — Shortcuts such as "Go to Schedule"