Slate.
Days and views

A day you can finish.

Slate sorts every task into one of six views by what you told it, not by where it lives. Every image on this page is a real capture of Slate running on the fictional StrataForge Robotics tasks of Daniel Xu, Chief of Staff.

Illustration: a long corridor of identical tall arched windows, the sky in each a different hour of the day, a soft green lamp on a stone sill in the foreground.

Six smart views

They sit at the top of the sidebar, above your areas. The number beside Today is live: it updates over a WebSocket when anything changes.

Six smart views
InboxUnsorted tasks, the place a quick add lands when you name no project. Press n from anywhere to start typing.
TodayWhat you scheduled for today or earlier (by start date) and anything still in the Inbox. A due date alone does not put a task in Today.
UpcomingTasks with a start date in the future.
AnytimeTasks with no start date, in any list but the Inbox: the pool you pull from when Today is done.
SomedayThings to consider later. They stay out of Today and Upcoming until you move them.
LogbookWhat you finished, most recent first.
Slate's Today view: smart views and areas in a left sidebar, a quick add bar, colored tag chips, and a list of tasks, each with its project, its due date, and its tag.Slate's Today view: smart views and areas in a left sidebar, a quick add bar, colored tag chips, and a list of tasks, each with its project, its due date, and its tag.
Today, with tag chips to narrow the list. Enlarge to see the full screen.
Slate's Upcoming view, a list of tasks scheduled for later days with tag chips across the top.Slate's Upcoming view, a list of tasks scheduled for later days with tag chips across the top.
Upcoming: scheduled for a future date.
Slate's Inbox holding three unsorted tasks under a quick add bar, with a line that says to press n from anywhere to focus the bar.Slate's Inbox holding three unsorted tasks under a quick add bar, with a line that says to press n from anywhere to focus the bar.
Inbox: a drop-in for unsorted tasks.
Slate's Someday view with two tasks parked for later.Slate's Someday view with two tasks parked for later.
Someday: out of the way until you want them.
Slate's Logbook, recently completed tasks struck through with filled green check boxes.Slate's Logbook, recently completed tasks struck through with filled green check boxes.
Logbook: the record of what got done.

Quick Add reads a sentence

The bar at the top of every view takes a sentence. A parser on the server pulls out what it recognizes and shows it to you in a line that begins with Understood, so you can see whether it got it right before you move on.

It reads dates (today, tomorrow, in 3 days, next week, a weekday), a time of day (at 3pm), a repeat (every other Tuesday), tags with a hash (#safety), and a target with an at sign (@area//list). Whatever it does not recognize stays in the task's name.

  • Press n from anywhere in the app to focus the bar.
  • Times are stored as UTC and read in your own time zone: the web app sends your browser's zone with every request, so 3pm means 3 PM where you are, and Slate saves the zone on your profile for agents, which have no browser.
  • Offline, an add is queued on your device and replayed when you reconnect, without making a duplicate.
The Today view right after a task was added with Quick Add, with a line under the quick add bar reading Understood, a date and time chip, and a Safety tag chip.The Today view right after a task was added with Quick Add, with a line under the quick add bar reading Understood, a date and time chip, and a Safety tag chip.
After an add: the date, the time, and the tag it understood.

The command palette

Press Ctrl+K, or Cmd+K on a Mac. Type, and Slate searches your lists and tasks as you go, including finished ones. The first rows offer to create a task or a list from what you typed. The arrow keys move, Enter chooses, and Escape closes.

The command palette open with the word board typed, listing actions to create a task or a list, then matching lists, tasks, and completed tasks.The command palette open with the word board typed, listing actions to create a task or a list, then matching lists, tasks, and completed tasks.
Palette: search, jump, or create.

The task inspector

Click a task to open it. Besides its name and a description, a task has a start date (When), a due date, a deadline, a reminder with snooze buttons for 10 minutes, an hour, or tomorrow, a repeat, tags, and subtasks. Cmd or Ctrl+Enter saves and closes; Escape closes.

The Repeat menu offers None, Daily, Weekly on chosen weekdays, and Monthly. A repeating task makes its next occurrence when you check the current one off. The engine behind it follows the iCalendar rule format and can do more than the menu shows (intervals, ordinals such as the second Tuesday, a count, an end date); those rules come from Quick Add, the API, and the agent tools today.

The task inspector over a project page, with the title, a description, When, Due, Deadline, and Reminder fields, snooze buttons, a Repeat menu, a Tags row, three subtasks, and Cancel and Done buttons.The task inspector over a project page, with the title, a description, When, Due, Deadline, and Reminder fields, snooze buttons, a Repeat menu, a Tags row, three subtasks, and Cancel and Done buttons.
The inspector: dates, reminder, repeat, tags, and subtasks.

Areas, projects, lists, and tags

Areas group your work, such as Office of the CEO or Home. Under an area sit projects and lists, which are the same kind of thing and can nest. Archive one and it moves to Archived, where you can restore it. Tags are yours, colored, and counted on their own page.

A Slate project, December board meeting, with its tasks, drag handles, check boxes, and tag chips, finished tasks struck through, and buttons for Select, Add project/list, Export, and Print.A Slate project, December board meeting, with its tasks, drag handles, check boxes, and tag chips, finished tasks struck through, and buttons for Select, Add project/list, Export, and Print.
A project, with Select, Export, and Print.
The Tags page with a form to create a tag by name and color above a list of eight tags with usage counts and edit and delete buttons.The Tags page with a form to create a tag by name and color above a list of eight tags with usage counts and edit and delete buttons.
Tags, with usage counts.
The Archived Lists page with a search box and one archived list, October operations summary.The Archived Lists page with a search box and one archived list, October operations summary.
Archived: restore a list when you need it again.

Select, drag to reorder, and undo are on project and list pages. A project exports as CSV or JSON, and prints from the browser with the app chrome removed.

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Contact

Questions about this tool?

Write to Renkara Media Group and a person will answer.

Email fleet@renkara.com