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Two made-up Wednesdays, start to finish.

Example day

Say it’s Wednesday, just after lunch. Over the past week, you’ve added four things: a reply to your landlord, a quarterly report due Friday, slides for a client due Monday, and time to sketch, which you keep meaning to get back to. You told Cupolet roughly what each one is worth to you, on a scale of 1 to 5. There’s also a team meeting at 15:00 that can’t move.

Say it’s Wednesday, just after lunch. Over the past week, you’ve added four things: an email to your lab TA, a problem set due Friday, a lab report due Monday, and guitar practice, which you keep meaning to get back to. You told Cupolet roughly what each one is worth to you, on a scale of 1 to 5. There’s also a seminar at 15:00 that can’t move.

The plan at 12:30

An area that’s behind its share moves up.

Cupolet ranks tasks by what they’re worth to you per minute they take, so a five-minute task you care little about can come before a two-hour one you care about more. Then it lifts the tasks in any area that has had less than its share of your time over the past two weeks, and lowers them in an area that has had more. The further from its share, the bigger the change, and it fades as the area evens out. Today’s fixed appointments count toward their area from the start of the day. No time is set aside in advance.

The reply to your landlord, rated lowest of the four, goes first because it takes five minutes. Then comes 45 minutes of sketching, ahead of the client slides you rated higher. You’ve asked for a tenth of your time to go to making things, and it has had half that. The order holds when making is at its full share. At twice its share, the slides move up to second and sketching waits until 16:00, after the meeting.

The email to your TA, rated lowest of the four, goes first because it takes five minutes. Then comes 45 minutes of guitar, ahead of the lab report you rated higher. You’ve asked for a tenth of your time to go to music, and it has had half that. With music at its full share, the order is the same. With twice its share, the lab report goes second and guitar waits until 16:00, after the seminar.

A deadline changes the order only when it needs the room.

Before placing each task, Cupolet checks that every deadline can still be met, and deadline work moves up only when doing something else first would leave it too little time. Until then it’s ranked like everything else.

You rated the quarterly report highest, but it takes two and a half hours, so per minute it’s worth the least. It goes last on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday alike, because all week there’s room to finish it before Friday. If you’d like deadline work first anyway, there’s a setting. With it on, the report takes 12:30 to 15:00 in one block, and sketching moves to Thursday.

You rated the problem set highest, but it takes two and a half hours, so per minute it’s worth the least. It goes last on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday alike, because all week there’s room to finish it before Friday. If you’d like deadline work first anyway, there’s a setting. With it on, the problem set takes 12:30 to 15:00 in one block, and guitar moves to Thursday.

It plans a little over a third of your free time, and splits what doesn’t fit.

Cupolet fills only part of the free time left in a day and leaves the rest as margin, because a plan that uses every free minute runs over. I set the margin from 6,300 simulated days. Without one, two days in three ran over, and with it, three in ten did. A task is split only if it’s an hour or longer, and you can mark any task as one sitting to keep it whole.

On Wednesday there are 600 free minutes after 12:30, and 220 of them are planned: the reply, sketching, the slides and 80 minutes of the report. The rest of it goes to Thursday at 07:30, with ten minutes added for getting back into it.

On Wednesday there are 600 free minutes after 12:30, and 220 of them are planned: the email, guitar, the lab report and 80 minutes of the problem set. The rest of it goes to Thursday at 07:30, with ten minutes added for getting back into it.

When the day changes

When you add something, you get an answer at once.

Say that at 13:30 you add a fixed appointment: taking your mom to the doctor, 16:00 to 17:30, right after the meeting. By then the slides, which should have started at 13:20, sit at 13:30 to 15:00. The report you had at 16:30, and the break before it, now overlap the appointment, so all three are flagged at once.

That’s your own change, so Cupolet answers it straight away with a new plan, even though the new plan finishes your work later than the old one did. The offer says what moves to another day: 6 minutes of the report, to tomorrow. The plan you had stays in place until you accept.

In the plan you accept, the slides keep 13:30 to 15:00, and the report moves to 18:00 to 19:15, after the appointment. With 90 fewer free minutes, today holds less work, so Thursday morning’s piece of the report grows to 07:30 to 09:00. When the appointment ends at 17:30, Cupolet keeps the plan you accepted and offers nothing new.

When you run late, the rest of the day moves later without asking.

When a task runs past its planned end, Cupolet gives it an allowance, its middle estimate of what’s left, as likely to be too long as too short. Everything after it moves later, in the same order and at the same lengths. Fixed and pinned blocks stay where they are, and anything the allowance runs into is flagged. On Wednesday the lab report runs past 14:50. A new app hasn’t yet seen how long your lab reports take, so it can’t rule out a long overrun, and at 14:50 the allowance is 230 minutes, to 18:40. That runs over the seminar at 15:00, so both are flagged, and the problem set moves from 16:30 to 19:10.

The allowance grows while the task keeps running, because, by the app’s estimate, a task that has already run long tends to run longer: at 15:00 it’s 240 minutes, to 19:00, and at 15:25 it’s 270, to 19:55, with the problem set at 20:25. It still fits before the end of the day, and Thursday’s piece doesn’t move.

While you’re working, a new plan waits unless a deadline is at stake. When you stop, one is offered only if reshuffling the rest of the day would clearly beat the plan you have. Here it wouldn’t, so when you stop at 15:25, the flags clear, the problem set goes back to 16:30, and nothing is offered.

I’ll send one email, when Cupolet is on the App Store. You’ll get a link to confirm your address first.

How your address is kept

The plan changes when you say so, or when it would clearly help.

Finishing early doesn’t pull the rest of the day forward. The plan you saw is still the plan, and you can tap the next task to start it now. When you finish a task and a reshuffle of the rest of the day would make a real difference, you’re asked. I tested a few hundred simulated days to set that bar. For someone who taps the next task whenever they’re free, reordering was worth almost nothing, so the bar is high. Anything you change yourself gets an answer straight away.

If the day runs out, you’re offered a plan that moves the rest to tomorrow.

When work no longer fits today, Cupolet says so at once and offers a plan that moves it to the next day. It stays on your list either way. If a deadline slips out of reach, Cupolet tells you, and says whether rearranging today would still save it or whether it can no longer be met.

I’ll send one email, when Cupolet is on the App Store. You’ll get a link to confirm your address first.

How your address is kept