How Quietkeep works

Everything the app can do, what each screen is for, and where to look when something is not where you expected.

Three depths, and you are meant to stop at whichever one answers your question. In a minute is the whole idea. When you want to is how to do a thing. Every screen is the complete list, for when something is on your screen and you do not know what it is. The reasoning behind any of it — the research, the sources, the things that turned out not to be true — is in Why it works this way.

In a minute

Put anything down. Quietkeep holds it and brings it back on its own. You never have to remember to look.

That is the whole product. Everything else is how it does it.

Five things worth knowing, and then you can stop reading:

• Nothing you write down can go quiet. Every single thing is on a surface, under a clock, on the Menu, or inside something that has a clock. There is no fourth option, and the app refuses to store anything that would have one.
• There is no overdue. A date that passed is not a failure, it is a thing that needs a new plan, and it says so in those words. Nothing counts your misses, nothing tracks a streak, and no screen goes red.
• You are offered one thing at a time. Not a list to get through — one thing, with a short line saying why it is that one, and a way to say not this as often as you like. Saying not this records nothing.
• Filing is optional, always. Nothing needs a place, a person, a project or a goal. The app works with none of them. They make it better at answering questions when you have them, and cost you nothing when you do not.
• It is yours and it is here. No account, no server, no telemetry. Nothing you write leaves the device unless you export it yourself.

When you want to

Put something down

Type it in the box at the top and press Hold it. That is the whole capture. It does not ask you anything — no project, no date, no category. Something written down is offered as work in the words you wrote it in, from the moment it exists.

More room gives you a bigger box for something longer.

Decide what a captured thing is

Sort what you put down takes them one at a time. When you have put a few things down at once it asks a quick question first — Hot or cold? — which is a feel about the handful in front of you and nothing more: hot ones get offered before cold ones, and cold removes nothing and hides nothing. Choose where it goes takes you past that question to the sorting one for that item; Not this one moves to the next item.

Then the sorting question itself, with nine plain choices: Do now, Next action, Waiting for, Someday, Reference, Trash, put it somewhere, say where it can be done, or not this one. Each choice says what it means underneath.

You never have to do this. Unsorted things are still offered — last, behind anything with a real reason to be asking — so the pile costs you a few taps of not this, never a wall.

Get something done

Next up offers one thing and says why it is that one: a date arrived, something it was waiting on finished, a place it lives came round, or simply that you put it down and have not touched it.

• Done finishes it.
• Not this moves past it, as often as you like, recording nothing.
• Start smaller turns a thing you cannot begin into the first physical step.
• This one is heavy says it is costing more than it looks.
• That is enough for now ends the session without ending anything else.
• Just one thing strips the screen to the single offer and nothing else.

Narrow what you are offered

Open What's the situation? — the button under the capture box. Three questions, and each one narrows both what you are offered and what the list shows:

• Where you are. Anything with no place turns up wherever you are, so this can never empty the screen. A place put on a project reaches everything inside it, so one answer covers a lot. If something in the list is not really a place — a person, a topic, a label that came in from somewhere else — Not a place takes it out of the question. That matters more than tidiness: once a thing carries any place it stops turning up everywhere, so a label that is not a place quietly hides whatever carries it. The same act is on an item's own panel under Where can this be done?, as Something here is not a place — which is where a place typed by mistake usually needs to come out.
• How long you have. Anything you never estimated fits every answer. At the long end it stops narrowing and points at the Menu instead, because a free afternoon is rarely short of time — it is short of the thing you want to do.
• Who is with you. Anything with nobody named on it still shows.

Things that run without you, and things that are simply waiting

Mark a repeating thing It runs itself and it stops being something you do and becomes something you are trusting. The app keeps one question about it: when did you last check it still does? That matters because an arrangement that stops makes no noise — no error, no reminder — and the first sign is running out.

Two boxes sit under that, and the second is the useful one.

Where does it stand? is for the things that are not simply on or off — a post out to advert, a job filled temporarily until a date, something you cannot start until somebody else moves. You write it in your own words. There is no list to pick from, because the app does not know your world and will not pretend to.

What would change it? is the condition you are watching for. Writing it down is the point: a change out in the world gives you nothing to walk past, so the only way to keep hold of it is to keep checking — and checking costs you attention all day, against whatever else you are doing. Put it here and you can stop carrying it.

Nothing watches for it. The app cannot see your world and will never tell you the thing has happened. It holds what you wrote so you do not have to.

Running without you — a button that appears once you have marked anything — lists all of it, most-pressing first, including the ones that are perfectly fine. A list that only ever showed problems would be a wall of them. There is nothing to tick off there; you confirm a thing on its own panel, where the question is asked.

When three are not all of them

Review shows at most three things and says how many there are — 15 things need a look. These 3 first. That line is a button. Press it and you get all fifteen: the same rows, the same words, the same way into each one.

The screen keeps showing three on purpose. A wall of them is the pile this app exists to stand between you and. But the three are the top of an order — structural breaks first, then decisions waiting, then rhythm — so without a way through, the kinds further down were not merely later, they were out of reach.

When the three are all there is, the line still says so and does nothing when pressed. There is nowhere to go.

Name a meeting, and open the room

The same sheet has Recognize this one? at the bottom. Give what you have set a name and it comes back in one tap — the Tuesday standup, a free weekend, a call with one person. Who is in the room? (it said Who is in it? until 3.23.7) above it names the people; more than one makes it a meeting. It is a different question from Who is in front of you now further up the same sheet: that one narrows what you are offered right now, and this one does not narrow anything — it belongs to the situation you save.

A saved situation that names somebody gains See what is in the room. Open it and you get, for each person who will be there, what is still outstanding with them — everything they are named on, in either direction — and underneath, the parts of your tree and the lines that work sits under.

In the room is somewhere you look, not a filter. Nothing is hidden from any other screen while it is open, and closing it changes nothing. It is the same kind of thing as standing on a line: a way of seeing what crosses a subject, rather than a mode you have to remember to leave.

A person who has been let go stops being named by the situations that named them, and the situation still works. Somebody with nothing outstanding stays in the room and says so — walking in knowing that is worth as much as walking in with a list.

They compose: answer two and you get both. Nothing is ever taken away — the line under the button says what has been narrowed, and everything still comes back.

If you answer one and almost nothing changes, that is worth knowing rather than guessing at: the report described below counts how much of what you are holding any of these three questions can actually reach.

Recognize this one? names what you have just set so it returns in one tap. That is for the meeting you have every Tuesday, or the shape of a free weekend.

Find something

The search box above the list opens what it finds and changes nothing. It keeps no record of what you looked for.

See everything you are holding

What you are holding is the complete list, and the line above it — nothing here has gone quiet — is the standing proof that nothing was lost.

The list itself is folded away until you ask for it. Every one of them opens it, in place, without leaving the screen; the quiet line underneath names the groups it holds. It is shut to begin with because on a full store it is longer than everything else put together.

• Your projects, areas and goals shows the tree, on request — every project, area and goal with what sits under it, and each row saying which it is. It is never the screen you land on.
• Looking at narrows the list to one branch without hiding anything from the offer, the proof line or search.

You say which of those a place is when you make it, and you can change your mind afterwards. Making a new place while you are filing something offers the choice in the same breath as the name; if you took the default and later want it to be an ongoing area rather than a project with an end, open the place and use This is a to say so. Nothing moves and nothing is lost — only what the place calls itself, and what the review will ask about it.

See what you have named

Where the attention is lists your roles, your time, and The places you have — every place you have named and how many things it reaches, counting everything inside a project that carries one. It is a readout: nothing on it can be changed from there.

For projects and what sits inside what, Your projects, areas and goals is the tree.

Check that everything is somewhere

Under the line that says nothing has gone quiet is a second one: everything accounted for, and how many things are in front of you right now. Open Where everything is and it shows each of the app's own groups — ready now, coming up, later, on the Menu, not sorted yet, needs a new plan — with how many things are in each. Those counts add up to everything you are holding. If they ever do not add up, it says so instead of reassuring you.

At the foot is the part that makes it worth reading: things the app has worked out are worth a look — a goal with nothing feeding it, something whose home is gone — which do not turn up on any other screen by themselves. Each is a door onto the thing itself.

It never says which of your things matters most. It says where they all are, so that reading all of them stops being the only way to be sure.

See the days ahead

The days ahead, on the front page, is every dated thing you have sorted, day by day — today first, then each day something is waiting on. A date you set before sorting the thing is kept and does not appear here yet; nor does one on something you have finished, or put on the Menu, which is the same rule the calendar goes by. The door itself only appears once something it can show carries a date. Each row says which date is talking: due, starts, comes back, or answer owed — and an answer owed names who is waiting, when you have said so. The list reads the store every time it opens, so when a date moves, the day it sits under moves with it. A date that already went by sits under today, marked needs a new plan, because the past is not a place here. Tap a row to open the thing itself.

It is the same list Send to my calendar sends out — the same things, on the same days, always. The calendar copy is for being reminded while the app is closed; this is for looking, and it is never stale. The door appears once something carries a date.

Say a thing belongs somewhere

On a thing's own panel: give it a place where it can be done, a person it involves, a role it is for, or put it under something. None of it is required and you can undo any of it.

A place on a project reaches everything inside it. So if you want work things to stop appearing at home, say it once on the project rather than on every item.

Say you are waiting on somebody, or that they are waiting on you

With other people shows both directions. It never says how long you have kept anybody waiting — there is no field to hold that, deliberately.

Do something because you want to

The Menu is the list where nothing is asking. No clocks, no pressure, no dates. You put things there yourself and they wait for you.

Come back after a while away

Welcome back says what came round while you were gone. If a lot of dates passed you can move them all to the Menu in one go — nothing deleted, nothing marked done, all of it retrievable.

Get it out

Your data exports everything as one file, and imports one back. An import always starts a fresh store and never merges. Nothing you write is ever lost to an update.

When the import finishes, the app comes back on Welcome back — the same screen you get after a spell away — saying everything is here, that nothing is filed, and how many things are waiting to be sorted. It appears once, on the device you imported on.

Anything already finished stays behind. Work you completed in the other app is not brought in — that history belongs to the app it happened in, and the file still has it. The summary says how many before you press the button.

Anything you had flagged comes in hot — this app has no priority and no ranking by importance, so what you marked is kept as interest instead. It says so when it does.

Bringing work in from another planner keeps more than the words. Projects and what sits inside them come across, along with dates and notes — and the tags you wrote come across as places, in the words you wrote them in, so a store that had a context system arrives with it rather than flat. Anything saying how long a thing takes comes too. Flags do not: this app has no priority field, and the summary says so rather than dropping it quietly.

People come too, when a line names them. Three tags, one direction each: @owes(Sam) brings a thing in as something Sam owes you, with the waiting open from the moment it arrives; @promised(Sam) marks it I said I would; and @holds(Sam) records that Sam holds the rest of it — the pointer for a thing that was settled in conversation and mostly lives in someone else's head. Each writes the same link the item's own sheet writes, and a name that matches somebody already in your planner lands on them rather than making a second person. Several names go in one tag, separated by commas.

The rest of what the app can do

Things you can do, behind Elsewhere in the app (it said Everything else until 3.9.2), holds the things that do not belong on any screen you use daily:

• Send to my calendar puts one item in your own calendar as an event. The app never sends anything by itself and has no reminders of its own — the calendar is what reaches you.
• Show the walkthrough again replays the six screens you saw the first time. Nothing is lost by watching it twice and it changes nothing.
• Print today is one page: what is next, what else is ready, what is with other people, and what is coming.
• Telling someone where things are writes up what has changed since you last told anyone, plus what is still outstanding, and you choose what goes in it. Show me first, then Copy it, Save as Markdown, Save as a spreadsheet or Print it.
• Getting things in from somewhere else explains the way in from other apps. Safari gives web apps no share sheet, so it is a Shortcut that opens this address — a browser limit rather than a choice made here.

And two sets of invented work, for trying the app on something:

• Add some sample work puts a small, tidy set into the store you already have. It is yours to sort out afterwards; nothing takes it back out.
• Make a set to try things on is different in kind. It writes a file of about fifteen hundred invented things — one of every kind the app has, and most of them unsorted, which is what a real store actually looks like — and changes nothing until you import it. Importing it replaces what is on the device, so take a copy under Your data first. That is the way back.

When something is wrong

The app can write out what it knows about itself. Open the ⓘ and find If something is wrong, then Show me the report — or tap the version stamp at the bottom of any screen, which goes to the same place.

It contains nothing you wrote. No titles, no names, no notes, no journal text — counts and states only. You can read the whole thing before you decide to send it, and nothing goes anywhere on its own. Copy it or Save it as a file when you want to hand it on.

It opens with what is actually wrong, if anything is, in plain sentences — work no copy holds yet, a version that has not finished installing, storage the browser has not agreed to keep. Then the shape of the store, so somebody helping can see the size and kind of what you are holding without seeing any of it.

One section is worth knowing about even when nothing is wrong. What the situation can narrow says how much of what you are holding is reached by a place, names somebody, or carries a time estimate — and how many projects and other containers already carry a place. Those numbers explain something that otherwise looks broken: if almost nothing is labeled, answering where are you changes almost nothing, because anything unlabeled turns up wherever you are. That is the design and not a fault, and the section says so. It also points at where a little filing goes furthest, since a place on a container reaches everything inside it.

If a problem really needs the actual data, the export under Your data is a complete copy — send that instead, and only if you want to.

Every screen

The complete list, so nothing you meet is a mystery. Most of these appear only when there is a reason.

The work surface

• Where do you want to be? — the screen you land on, and the one you come back up to. A list of doors, each opening a single job and saying what is behind it. A door only appears when there is something behind it, so the list is short on a quiet day and never asks you to remember to go and look somewhere. Inside a job, that job is the whole screen: one way back, in the same place every time, and a + for putting a thought down without leaving what you are doing.
• Next up — the one thing offered, with why.
• Sort what you put down — captured things, one at a time: Hot or cold? when there are a few, then nine plain choices.
• Sort a batch — the same one-card run pointed at a range you name rather than at everything you have captured: one import, everything under one project, or whatever matches a word you type. It is behind On this page and is never where the app puts you. Act on all of these does the whole batch in one go, after telling you exactly how many and what it will write; a copy is saved first and it can be undone.
• Needs a new plan — a date went by. Not a failure and not a backlog. Each card offers five ways forward, one of which is Take the date off — nothing has changed except the date, so it stays yours and comes back on its own. When more than one date has gone by, a line above the cards settles all of them in one go, either way, and says how many that is. Nothing is marked done and nothing is deleted; the one-at-a-time choices stay where they are.
• Working on — a timer is running on something.
• Coming up for air — a check after a long stretch on one thing.
• That was a session. — the close of one, without a verdict.
• Carrying — the weights you said you were carrying.
• With other people — what they owe you, and what you said you would do.
• Worth a look — things that are structurally odd: nothing feeding a goal, a project with no next action, an area gone quiet.
• Chosen for today — what you picked for today, if you picked.
• Upkeep — things that come back on a rhythm rather than on a date.
• Welcome back — what happened while you were away.
• What you are holding — everything, with the tree and the lens.

Behind a button

• Everything worth a look — the whole of what review has found, when the three on the screen are not all of it.
• Running without you — everything you have said runs on its own, when you last checked each was still true, and where any of it stands.
• What's the situation? — where you are, how long you have, who is in front of you, and the situations you have named.
• In the room — what a named meeting is about: what is outstanding with each person in it, and what that work sits under.
• What comes back, and when — every held thing and the date it returns.
• Where the attention is — what each role is carrying, where your time actually went, and The places you have with how much each one reaches.
• What you're working toward — your goals, areas and outcomes, empty ones included.
• Your projects, areas and goals — the tree, as an inspection, never a workspace.
• The Menu — the list where nothing is asking.
• What's here, and what you can open — every block on the page, as a route to it.
• Something on your mind that isn't a task? — for the thing that is bothering you and is not work.
• How you are, and anything weighing on you — capacity and weights.

The panels

Opening any item gives you everything about it in one panel — its words, its date, its place, its people, its role, where it sits, its first step, its notes. It is titled with the thing itself rather than with a name of its own, which is why it is not in the list below.

The named ones:

• Every one of them — the fold that opens the complete list, at the bottom of What you are holding.
• Elsewhere in the app — the way to everything below.
• How it works · Help · Your data · Things you can do · Settings · Colors — the destinations behind Elsewhere in the app.
• Quietkeep — the ⓘ: what this is, what it is not, how to install it, what changed, and the license.
• If something is wrong — inside the ⓘ: the report the app writes about itself, which contains counts and states and nothing you wrote.
• Stopping for now — ending a timer without ending the thing.

What it will never do

Stated because a promise is only worth what it refuses.

• No streaks, no scores, no completion percentage. Nothing accumulates and nothing can be broken.
• No red. Nothing on any screen escalates in color to make you act.
• No counting what you did not do. No misses, no late tally, no per-person record of how long you kept somebody waiting.
• No guessing. The app never infers a place, a person or a project from your behavior. It asks, once, or it does without.
• No setup. There is no wizard, no template to choose, and no screen asking you to get organized before you can use it.
• Nothing leaves the device unless you export it yourself.

Why it works this way

Every choice above came from research on memory, attention and motivation, and each finding is tagged by how well established it actually is — including the ones that are contested, and the ones that turned out not to replicate.

That is in Planning for Humans, with the sources named.