A little inspiration . . .
Ideas for using DayMap
DayMap doesn't tell you how to organize your life. That's the point, and it's also the hard part: an empty Planner is an empty Planner.
So here is what people put in theirs. Four worked setups first, then smaller ideas you can take one at a time. None of this is the right way to use DayMap. It's what has worked for somebody.
If you're after what a button does rather than what to do with it, that's the DayMap Guide.
Four setups
A one-person business
Areas: Clients · Business · Personal- Call back about the quote
- Reorder parts
- Insurance renewal?
- 1Final invoice
- Mount the mailbox
- Glass door
- Order the reader
- 2Camera install
- Billing
- Quarterly taxes
- 3Chase two invoices
One column per client, and the work for that client stays under it, subtasks included. Admin holds the running of the business itself, which otherwise gets scattered across every client column and forgotten.
Monday's 3 Daily Bearings are one per client, never four. A fourth is what turns a plan back into a list. The quarterly taxes are due Friday and scheduled Thursday, which is the difference the red deadline mark is there to keep.
Every new client starts with the same six steps. Build them once, then Save as Template and start each new client from New from Template.Pro
Leading a team
Areas: Team · Org · Personal- Ask Dana about the budget
- Read the Q3 draft
- Raise: hiring plan
- Follow up on training
- 1:1↻ every 2 weeks
- Handover notes
- 1:1↻ every 2 weeks
- Book the room
- Agenda
- Ask for topics
A column per person is the idea that surprises people most. Everything you need to raise with Dana lives under Dana, so the 1:1 doesn't start with "now what was it I meant to ask you". The meeting itself is a repeating task in the same column.
Offsite is shared with the two people planning it. They see the project and its tasks, and when any of you ticks one off it's done for everyone. Your areas stay yours; they file it wherever suits them.Pro
A household
Areas: Home · Family- Dentist: book
- Passport expires when?
- Air filters↻ 6 months
- Smoke alarms↻ yearly
- Gutters↻ every April
- Parent-teacher conference
- Soccer gear
- Repaint the hallway
- That trip
Almost everything in The house repeats, which is the whole reason it's worth writing down. Filters every six months, alarms every year, gutters every spring: set the interval once and stop carrying it around. Share the project with whoever you live with, and whoever changes the filter ticks it off for both of you.Pro
Someday is a column you never schedule anything from. It exists so those things stop competing with this week.
Starting from a pile
Coming from Reminders, Notes, or a very long list- 200 things, unsorted
- What's actually next?
- What's a project?
- What's someday?
- Six things
- Everything else
Paste the lot into the Inbox. DayMap takes a multi-line paste and makes a task of each line, and indented lines become subtasks.
Then don't organize it. Pull out the six things that are actually this week, put them in a project, and drag them onto days. Everything left is Someday until it isn't. A pile you've sorted into twelve tidy projects is still a pile; six scheduled tasks is a week.
Take one, leave the rest
Getting things in
The landing strip
Don't file things as they arrive, or you'll stop capturing them. Everything goes to the Inbox, and the Inbox gets emptied once, later, on purpose.
Capture from wherever you are
On the Mac, Quick Add has its own keyboard shortcut and works from any app. On iPhone and Apple Watch, say it: Siri adds it to your Inbox, and the watch takes it by voice. Sort it later.
Type the day
End a task with a day and it schedules itself: Email Tom back on Tuesday becomes a task called "Email Tom back", on Tuesday. The fastest way in when something comes up mid-conversation.
A pile is fine
Paste a whole list at once: one task per line, indented lines as subtasks. See Starting from a pile above for what to do next.
Planning the day
Three, not ten
The 3 Daily Bearings stop at three, and the limit is the feature. Ten priorities is a list. If a fourth really matters more, something has to drop, and being made to say which is the useful part.
Start with OverlookPro
The first time DayMap opens each day, Overlook shows the day at a glance: your Bearings, what's at a set time (calendar events included), what's due or overdue, and what was carried over. Choose your three there, or just press Start the Day.
The difference that saves you
A deadline is when it's due. A scheduled date is when you'll do it. Your taxes are due the 15th; you're doing them on the 8th.
Keeping those apart is what stops a Scheduler full of things due today that you have no intention of touching.
Let yesterday roll forward
Turn on Carry unfinished work to today and anything left undone moves onto today when the day starts. DayMap says what it moved, and one Undo puts it all back.
Meetings beside the work
With Show my calendar events in DayMap on, your calendar sits in the Scheduler with your tasks. Events have no checkbox, so one never looks like something to tick off. A day with four meetings has room for two tasks, not six.
The Friday hour
Open Next 7 Days or Upcoming, look at what's ahead, and move what's obviously not happening. Then empty the Inbox. An hour on Friday buys back the whole of Monday morning.
Waypoint as the full stopPro
Two minutes at the end of the day, and the only part of DayMap that isn't a task. Not to grade yourself, but to notice what actually moved forward.
Things that repeat
Every six months, not "sometime"
Water filters, smoke alarms, the car, the annual review. Anything you currently remember by feeling vaguely guilty is a repeating task with an interval.
The second Tuesday
Some things repeat by weekday rather than by date: the board meeting, the standing call, billing on the last Friday. Set the task to Monthly and pick the position instead of the day number, and it lands correctly every month.
One day off a repeating task
Open one day of a repeating task from the calendar and change its date: that day moves and the rest of the series stays put. Skip This Day takes one day off entirely.
Checklists you reusePro
Packing for a trip, onboarding a client, closing the month. Build the project once with its subtasks, Save as Template, and start the next one from New from Template.
A board you can read
A column per person
If you meet the same people regularly, make each one a project. Everything you need to raise with them collects in one place, and it's all in front of you when you sit down.
One project, not five
If four of your columns each hold two tasks, they aren't four projects. Fold them into one. A Planner you can read at a glance is worth more than one that's technically correct.
One project at a time
On Mac and iPad, Hoist Project folds every other column away so one project has the board to itself. The project version of Focus.
A someday shelf
One project, never scheduled, never reviewed in a hurry. It isn't a graveyard. It's what lets this week be honest about its size.
Finish, then archive
When a project is done, Archive Project takes it off the board and its tasks off your days, without deleting anything. The Archive brings it back.
The project that belongs in more than one areaPro
Correspondence, the calls, emails and messages you owe each day, doesn't belong only to Work or only to Family. File it in one area, then open Areas… and tick the others, and it appears in each of them. Same for errands and admin.
Areas as seasons
Areas don't have to be permanent. Move, Wedding, Q4: make one, work out of it for two months, then delete it. Deleting an area never deletes its projects; DayMap offers to archive them.
Lists that aren't work
Books to read, movies to watch, restaurants to try, gift ideas. They don't need dates, and a project with no schedule is a perfectly good list.
With other people
Share one project, not your whole dayPro
Share a project and the people you invite see it and its tasks, and can change them unless you share it view-only. Everything else stays yours: your other projects and your areas. Everyone in a shared project needs DayMap Pro.
Done for one is done for both
In a shared project, whoever ticks a task off ticks it off for everyone, on every day of a repeating task too. Nobody asks "did you already do this?"
Using DayMap in a way we haven't thought of?
Tell us at support@daymapapp.com. The best ideas on this page came from people writing in, and we'll add yours, with your first name if you're happy for us to.
Pro marks ideas that use DayMap Pro. Everything else works in the free version.