Customize Your Daily
Rearrange or hide any section of your day, build multi-column layouts on big screens, save whole arrangements as Sets, and pick between the Daybook and Broadsheet designs.
Your day page should look like your day. Maybe mornings start with the journal, maybe you never use habits, maybe your iPad wants three columns. The Layout editor makes the Daily tab yours, and it's all synced through iCloud.
The Layout editor
Open it from Customize Layout in the app menu, or from the layout button at the bottom of the Daily page. On iPhone and iPad it takes over the screen. On a Mac it opens in its own Customize Layout window, so the day you're rearranging stays visible beside it (macOS).
The editor has two boards. Layout is where you arrange the page; Sets is where you keep whole arrangements to stamp back on later.
On the Layout board every section of your day appears with a drag handle and a visibility toggle: Journal, Highlights, Tags, Weather Forecast, All Day, Outstanding, Scheduled (with its Morning, Afternoon, and Evening subsections), To Dos, Reminders, Habits, Task Input, World Clock, Pinned Lists, and Notes. Drag to reorder, tap to show or hide.
A vertical rule down the right edge stands in for the margin furniture while you work. Tap it, or the slider button above it, for the Calendar Bookmarks, time strip, and event pill toggles.
Sections that have options carry their own slider button. The Scheduled section's set is the largest: Day Sections, Calendar Events, Journal Entries (place journal entries on the timeline, on by default), Countdown Indicator, and the Outstanding lookback window. With Calendar Events on, two more toggles appear. Related Entries nests a journal entry under the timed event or task it overlaps instead of putting it on the timeline; see the journal on the Daily tab for how the two differ. Event Duration Arrows draws a timed event's span down the time margin (start time, a small arrow in the calendar's color, then the end time) instead of printing just the start. Both are off by default.
Under the sections, a Tabs row decides which tabs the app itself shows: Planner, Journal, Lists, and Notes, each underlined when it's one you'll keep. Daily is always there and stays locked. Tab changes land when you finish rather than as you tap, so the tab bar doesn't shuffle underneath you mid-edit. (iPhone only. On a wide pane every tab shows regardless, so the row would be misleading.)
Tap Done when the page looks right (iPhone and iPad). The Mac window has no Done: changes apply as you make them, so close the window when you're finished (macOS).
Spreads on iPad and Mac
On a big screen the Layout board becomes a visual page-plan: a full-width Header band, side-by-side Columns in the middle, and a full-width Footer. Drag a section into the header or footer to run it across the page. Drop it on the middle of a column to stack it there, or on a column's left or right edge to peel off a new one, up to three. Sections you drag out collect under Hidden below the board, and a tap brings one back.
Journal on the left, agenda in the middle, forecast and clocks on the right, if that's your kind of morning.
Your iPhone and iPad layouts are independent, so a three-column spread on the iPad never squeezes your phone.
Saving a layout as a Set
The Sets board holds the design switcher and every arrangement you've saved, starting with Default, the out-of-the-box layout.
To keep what's currently on the page, go to the Layout board and tap + NEW SET (on a Mac, New Set… in the toolbar), then give it a name. It lands on the Sets shelf. Long-press a saved set to delete it, or right-click on a Mac.
A set carries section behavior along with the arrangement, so applying one restores the options you'd chosen as well as the order and visibility. Whenever you apply a set, your outgoing setup is kept as a Previous card on the shelf, so trying a different arrangement is never a one-way door.
A limit on the day's tasks
If you like planning a short, honest list (six things, in the spirit of the Ivy Lee method, or a top three), give the To Dos section an item limit. In the Layout editor, tap the To Dos section's option and pick a limit; the Tasks header then shows a running tally like "4 / 6". The tally counts whatever is on that list, checked off or not: your tasks, and any reminders or habits that appear there when they don't have sections of their own.
Finalist never blocks you from adding more: anything past the limit tucks itself below the fold, and the note at the end of the list counts what's waiting. Tap the note to peek below the fold, and tap it again to close. To trade a task out of today's page, drag it just below the note: it moves to the back of the queue and the next waiting item takes its place. Punting or deleting a visible task surfaces the next one too. Checked-off tasks keep their place on the page, so the limit still means six planned, not six left.
Two designs: Daybook and Broadsheet
The Daily tab has two looks, switchable from the Sets board in the Layout editor or from Themes:
- Daybook is the classic Finalist: stacked sections with the notebook margin rule. Your everyday planner.
- Broadsheet sets your day like a newspaper: a masthead, horizontal rules, condensed type, and its own multi-column spread. It really shines on iPad and Mac, where the typography gets room to breathe.
Same day, same data, different paper.
Your hours, your segments
Morning doesn't start at 6am for everyone. With day segments on, you can set your own Morning, Afternoon, and Evening start times, in the Layout editor or in Settings under Calendar & Events.
Each segment header also carries a weather forecast and an Add button for quick task entry at that time of day. Prefer plain headers? Turn off "Show Weather and Add button for each day section" in Settings under Calendar & Events.
Related: Your Daily Page · World Clock · Calendar Bookmarks