Plan and close a day with Daily OS
Daily OS turns a spoken or typed check-in into a plan for one day. It does not replace tasks or time records: tasks describe the work, the day plan describes intent, and recorded sessions describe what actually happened.
The examples follow Director Aurora through a deliberately busy day at Intergalactic Penguin Logistics. The planner protects a Project Waddle launch review, moves sardine negotiations, and keeps a zero-gravity fish-feeder demo clear. Your penguin situation may vary.
Before your first check-in
Open Settings → Daily OS. Choose the inference profile that should plan your days and enter the name Daily OS should use when addressing you. The privacy notice identifies the selected provider and whether processing is on this device or remote.
Then open Settings → Categories and enable Day planning only for the categories the planner may use. An intentional allow-list keeps unrelated tasks out of planning and prevents Daily OS from changing work outside those categories.
1. Say what the day needs
Open Daily OS, choose the date, and select Speak a check-in. Mention:
- fixed commitments and deadlines;
- the outcomes that matter;
- rough durations and available capacity;
- breaks, energy constraints, and work that should not happen too late;
- anything already in progress or likely to carry over.
Choose Type instead when speaking is inconvenient. After recognition, review the complete transcript and correct names, numbers, or other mistakes in place.
Choose Re-record to start over or Review to continue. You cannot build the day until the matching pass completes.
2. Reconcile speech with real work
Reconcile is the safety check between what the assistant heard and what Lotti will change:
- Matched points to an existing task. Confirm that it is the task you meant.
- New is a phrase that can become work for today.
- Update proposes a change to an existing task.
- Confidence and time-anchor labels show where review is most useful.
Daily OS also surfaces work that is in progress, overdue, due today, or recently missed. Decide what belongs today instead of importing the entire backlog.
3. Judge the draft
Choose Build my day after the reconciliation decisions look right. The result opens on Agenda. The capacity card answers “does this fit?” before the numbered list answers “what matters?” Task-backed rows keep their real category, status, estimate, and cover thumbnail.
Use the quick adjustments when the shape is wrong:
- Too much asks for a smaller plan.
- Move lighter moves demanding work away from low-energy periods.
- Add buffer creates breathing room.
- Refine opens a free-form voice or text adjustment.
Choose Looks good only when the draft is genuinely acceptable.
4. Review every proposed refinement
Refine never silently rewrites the schedule. Describe the change, then inspect each added, moved, or dropped block with its old and proposed time and the planner's reason. Accept or reject proposals individually, choose Revert to discard the pending set, or keep talking to request another pass.
Only accepted proposals become part of the draft. Looks good exits the review once the plan says what you intend.
5. Lock in the day
The Lock it in page gives the complete draft one final reading: order, duration, outcomes, and remaining capacity. Hold the confirmation control for a second to move the plan from drafted to committed. Keyboard users can focus the control and press Enter or Space; assistive-technology activation confirms it directly.
Committing locks in the plan's bones, not your ability to adapt. You can still use Refine afterward, but proposed changes remain reviewable.
6. Compare the plan with reality
Switch from Agenda to Day for the calendar projection. On desktop, Plan and Actual share one time axis. On a phone, swipe horizontally between the planned and recorded lanes. Planned blocks use a lighter treatment and recorded sessions are filled, so drift stays visible without rewriting history.
Start and stop time recording from the linked task as usual. Daily OS reads those records as reality; it does not manufacture completed work from the plan.
7. Move, resize, or edit a block
Choose the four-arrow Arrange action above the timeline. Drag a block body to move it, or drag its top or bottom handle to change its start or end. Changes snap to 15-minute increments and stay inside the selected day. Use Undo in the confirmation message when the old slot was better.
The pencil action opens the block editor. A task-linked block keeps its task-owned title and category read-only; choose Open task to change those at the source. Its scheduled start and end remain editable from Daily OS.
Standalone plan blocks can edit their own title and category because no task owns that metadata.
8. Close out the day
After a committed day, choose Wrap up. Shutdown separates decisions that should not be conflated:
- What you did lists completed work with actual tracked duration.
- Carries forward lets you schedule unfinished work for tomorrow, pick a date, or drop it.
- Metrics summarize focus time, flow sessions, context switches, and energy.
- A one-line reflection feeds the next draft.
- What I've learned lets you confirm or forget durable planner knowledge.
- For tomorrow preserves the concise handoff note.
Choose Save & close to leave the review without declaring the day closed, or Close the day when the carryover and learning decisions are ready.
The ownership rule
- Tasks describe the work and own task metadata.
- The day plan describes intent and owns scheduled blocks.
- Time records describe reality.
- Planner knowledge records reviewed preferences for future days.
- The assistant proposes; you decide.