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 — a blank board is a blank board.
So here is what other people put on theirs. Four worked setups first, then a set of smaller patterns you can lift one at a time. None of this is the right way to use DayMap. It's just what has worked for somebody.
If you're after what a button does rather than what to do with it, that's the guide.
Four boards
A one-person business
Areas: Client Work · Business · Personal
- Call back about the quote
- Reorder parts
- Insurance renewal?
- Final invoice
- Mount the mailbox
- Glass door
- Order the reader
- Billing
- Camera install
- Quarterly VAT
- Chase two invoices
One column per client, and the work for that client stays under it — including the subtasks nobody else needs to see. Admin holds the running of the business itself, which otherwise gets scattered across every client column and forgotten.
Monday's three bearings are one per client, never four. The fourth is what turns a plan back into a list.
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
- Hiring
- Write the posting
- Budget review
A column per person is the pattern 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.
This quarter is the work that isn't anybody's yet — the things you'd otherwise carry in your head between reviews.
A household
Areas: Home · Family
- Dentist — book
- Passport expires when?
- Filters — every 6 months
- Smoke alarms — yearly
- Gutters — every spring
- Parents' evening
- Sports kit
- 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.
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.
Smaller ideas — take one, leave the rest
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.
Three, not ten
Daily Bearings cap at three. The cap is the feature — ten priorities is a list, not priorities. If a fourth genuinely matters more, something has to drop, and being made to say which is the useful part.
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 calendar full of things due today that you have no intention of touching.
The landing strip
Don't file things as they arrive — you'll stop capturing them. Everything goes to the Inbox, and the Inbox gets emptied once, later, on purpose.
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.
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. Fastest way in when something arrives mid-conversation.
A someday shelf
One project, never scheduled, never reviewed in a hurry. It's not a graveyard — it's what lets this week be honest about its size.
The Friday hour
Open Upcoming, look at the next two weeks, 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 stop
Two minutes at the end of the day, and the only part of DayMap that isn't a task. Not to grade yourself — to notice what actually moved.
One project, not five
If four of your columns each hold two tasks, they aren't four projects. Fold them into one. A board you can read at a glance is worth more than a board that's technically correct.
Areas as seasons
Areas don't have to be permanent. Move, Wedding, Q4 — make one, work out of it for two months, delete it. Deleting an area leaves its projects alone.
Lists that aren't work
Books to read, films to watch, restaurants to try, gifts. They don't need dates and they don't need to be anywhere else — a project with no schedule is a perfectly good list.
Using DayMap in a way we haven't thought of?
Tell us — support@daymapapp.com. The best ideas on this page came from people writing in, and we'll add yours with your first name on it if you're happy for us to.