How auto-scheduling works

Every time you run the scheduler, it looks at your unscheduled tasks, scores and sorts them, then walks through your available time slots placing the highest-scoring task that fits into each one. Two things drive that score, and you control the balance between them in Settings.

Priority versus due date

Each task carries a priority of low, medium, high, or asap, and an optional due date. The Priority vs Due Date slider in Settings sets how much each one matters when tasks are ranked against each other, from a schedule that leans almost entirely on priority to one that leans almost entirely on urgency; the default splits it 70/30 in favour of priority. A task with no due date is scored on priority alone.

Buffer time and buffer days

Buffer time is the gap the scheduler leaves between two tasks so your day doesn't read as one task ending the exact second the next begins; the default is fifteen minutes. Buffer days work differently: they're the minimum lead time a task needs before its due date, and a task that can't get that much room raises a buffer violation you'll see flagged in the app rather than being silently squeezed in right at the deadline.

Long tasks get split

If a task is longer than your maximum slot duration (90 minutes by default), the scheduler breaks it into smaller chunks that fit inside the free time you actually have, rather than requiring one uninterrupted block big enough for the whole thing.

Locking protects a time slot

A task you've locked keeps its scheduled time through every future run; the scheduler treats that slot as taken and works around it instead of moving the task. See Managing Your Schedule for how to lock and unlock a task.

When a task can't be placed

Sometimes there just isn't room, for instance if a task depends on another one that itself couldn't be scheduled, or nothing free matches its duration and type. Rather than dropping the task silently, the app tells you which tasks were left unscheduled and why, so you can free up time or adjust the task rather than wondering where it went.