Welcome to Finalist
What Finalist is, the one-day-at-a-time philosophy, and where to begin.
Finalist is a daily planner for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro, built for people who finish things. It brings the calm focus of a paper day planner to your devices: one day at a time, everything you need on that page, and nothing you don't.
A kinder way to plan
Most task apps show you everything: endless lists stretching into the future, still anchored by tasks overdue from months ago. I built Finalist around a simpler idea, rooted in the real world: the daily list written on a notepad. There's no rigid framework to learn and no methodology homework. Just today's page, ready for your attention.
Three things follow from this that make Finalist different:
- You see one day at a time. When you open the app, you see today. Just today. Swipe to tomorrow when you're ready, like turning a page.
- Nothing piles up automatically. At midnight, unfinished tasks don't silently stack onto tomorrow. You decide what gets punted forward and what stays behind.
- Everything lives on one page. Your tasks, calendar events, reminders, habits, weather, and a line from your journal: the whole day together, with no app-switching.
When you limit your view to today, overwhelming projects become manageable steps. It's why paper planners work, and why Finalist works too. If you want the thinking behind this, One Day at a Time is a good read, though you don't need it to start.
Begin here
- Setting Up: connect your calendars and reminders, and learn what each permission actually unlocks. All of them are optional.
- Your First Day: add a few tasks, check one off, and punt one to tomorrow. Ten minutes, and you'll have felt the whole idea.
- The Five Kinds of Things: tasks, reminders, events, habits, and notes, and when to use each. The one concept worth learning early.
Related: Setting Up · Your First Day