Tags

Tags are Finalist's highlighters. Give a task a tag and a ribbon of that color runs under its title, the way you'd underline a line in a paper planner with a marker. A small set of colors you actually remember beats an elaborate system: maybe "quick" for under-5-minute tasks, "deep" for focused work, "errands" for out-of-the-house stops. Five to seven tags is plenty.

Creating tags

Manage your tags in the Tags sheet under the main app menu: name them, pick a color, and drag to reorder (that order carries into every tag list in the app). You don't have to plan ahead, though. Every tags menu ends with New Tag..., so you can invent a tag the moment you need it. It applies right away with a random color; recolor it in the Tags sheet whenever you like.

What can be tagged

Everything on your day, each through its long-press menu:

• Tasks: long-press a task and open Tags, or tap the tag icon in the task editor.
• Habits: the same long-press menu, or the Tags row in the habit editor. The tag belongs to the habit itself, so it shows the color on every day the habit appears.
• Notes: long-press a note in any list, or use the Tag pill in the note editor.
• Journal entries: through the entry's editor.
• Reminders and calendar events: these live outside Finalist, so the tag is stored on Finalist's side (and synced with everything else); the reminder or event itself is never touched. Tagging a recurring event tags the whole series.
• Tasks in connected markdown files: matched by name. A task carrying #meal-prep in the file counts as your "Meal Prep" tag (spaces read as hyphens), and toggling a tag in Finalist writes or removes the #tag on that line, so the file stays the source of truth. Hashtags that don't match one of your tags stay ordinary text.

Where tags show up

On the Daily page, tagged tasks and habits carry a color ribbon under their title; a task with several tags weaves them into one striped ribbon. Turn on Highlight tagged tasks in Settings if you prefer the original full-row brushstroke instead. The Broadsheet design speaks its own dialect: tagged rows underline the title in the tag's ink, and a tagged journal letter inks its drop cap. Notes show their tag colors in note lists next to the date, and journal entries list theirs beneath the entry.

The Tags section: focus the day on one color

Your day can carry a Tags section (arrange or hide it in Customize, like any section). It only appears on days where something is tagged. Daybook shows the day's tags as chips with an open/total count; Broadsheet prints them as a small legend with dotted leaders, like a map key.

Tap a tag to focus the day on it: everything not carrying that tag is hidden, so the page reads as just that color's plan. Tap the same tag again to bring the whole day back. The focus is per-day, so flipping to tomorrow always shows the full page.

A tag's own swimlanes

Long-press a tag in the Tags section and choose Show Swimlanes to see everything carrying that tag laid out over time: its tasks, reminders, events, and matched markdown tasks. Wherever the task timeline appears, grouping by tag draws each lane in the tag's real color, in your Tags-sheet order.

Tags and habits: the day-of pattern

A habit repeats, but the work around it changes daily. Tag the habit once ("meal prep", green), then give today's one-off tasks the same tag ("buy onions"). They share a color on the page, the Tags section counts them together, and focusing the tag shows the habit and its day's errands as one plan, without touching the habit itself.

Browsing by tag

The Lists tab gathers your tags into a tappable cloud, and you can pin a tag to the sidebar as its own tab. Search can narrow to a tag, too.

Related: Lists · Your Daily Page · Habits