Getting Started with ForwardLog™

Daily, monthly & future logs for iPhone, iPad and Mac.

Most to-do apps help you collect tasks. ForwardLog helps you decide which ones deserve your attention. It's built around a simple paper-journal habit: write things down quickly, keep a short list for today, a page for this month and a page for later, and every so often move what's left forward on purpose. That moving, called migration, is where the focus comes from. Each time an unfinished to-do comes up again, you decide whether it still matters, and the things that don't simply fall away.

1. Four pages, three time frames

Everything in ForwardLog lives on one of four pages in the sidebar. Each page is a time frame, so where an item sits tells you when you mean to deal with it.

There's also Trash, where deleted items wait for 30 days in case you change your mind.

2. Capture quickly

Capturing should take seconds, so you write things down instead of keeping them in your head. Type in the field at the top of any page and press Return. Each line is either:

• A to-do, shown with a circle: something to do. Plain text becomes a to-do; you can also start with *.
• A note, shown with a dash: something to remember, not to do. Start the line with -.

Keep entries short: a few words you'll understand later. Return in an item starts a new one below it, so you can log several in a row. Pasting a list (for example from Notes or an email) adds one item per line, and checkboxes like - [ ] and - [x] are understood.

Tick a to-do's circle when it's done. It moves to Completed, so Today only ever shows what's left.

3. The daily practice

A few minutes at the start and end of the day keep Today honest.

In the morning

• Open Today. Anything due today or tomorrow is already there (see dates).
• Look at This Month and pull in what you'll really do today. Aim for a short list: three to five things that matter.

During the day

• Capture as things come up: new to-dos and notes go straight onto Today, wherever you are, on whichever device. Everything syncs through your iCloud.
• Tick off what you finish.

In the evening

Look at what's left on Today and decide, item by item:

• Still for tomorrow? Leave it on Today.
• Not this week? Migrate it back to This Month, or to Future.
• No longer matters? Delete it. It's a decision, not a failure, and the to-do goes to Trash, not into the void.

4. The monthly practice

Once a month, step back. On the last day of the month, ForwardLog adds a reminder to Today: Review Future list for items due in the coming month. (You can turn it off in Settings.)

1. Review This Month. For each open item: still important? Keep it. Not this month? Migrate it to Future. Done with it? Delete it.
2. Review Future. Anything whose time has come, migrate forward to This Month, or straight to Today.
3. Glance at Completed. It's a record of what you actually did, often more than you remember.

Moving an item by hand is deliberately a small effort: if something isn't worth one tap to carry forward, it probably isn't worth doing. Over a few months, the lists get shorter and the things on them matter more.

5. How to migrate

Migrating moves a to-do or note to another page: forward is toward Today, back is toward Future.

From Future there are two places to go forward, so ForwardLog asks which: This Month or Today.

6. Dates, search, links and sharing

• Due dates from your words. Write "tomorrow", "Friday" or "Dec 25" in a to-do and it gets that due date. To-dos due tomorrow or sooner move to the top of Today by themselves, so nothing slips. You can also set or remove a date from the item's menu.
• Search everything. Search shows matching items from every page, grouped by page, and you can migrate them right from the results. If nothing matches, add your search as a new item on Today, This Month or Future. On the Mac, press ⌘F.
• Links. Web addresses you type become links. To link words, select them and press ⌘K (or use the link button above the keyboard).
• Share. Copy or share a page, or all of them, as a checklist for Notes, Mail or Messages, or as a Markdown file.

7. Habits that keep it working

• Keep Today small. A short list you finish beats a long one you carry.
• Write notes too. A one-line note about a call or an idea is often what makes a to-do make sense later.
• Migrate on purpose. Don't just move things along: ask "does this still matter?" each time.
• Delete without guilt. Trash keeps things for 30 days, and letting go of stale to-dos is how the list stays useful.
• Do the monthly review. Ten minutes at the end of the month is the habit that keeps everything else honest.

8. More you can do

None of these are part of the daily habit, but they're handy to know.

• Reorder a page. On the Mac, drag items up or down. On iPhone and iPad, tap Edit, then drag the handles.
• Undo and Redo. On iPhone and iPad, use the arrow buttons at the top of the page. On the Mac, press ⌘Z and ⇧⌘Z, or use the Edit menu.
• Turn a to-do into a note, or back. Choose Change to Note or Change to To-Do in the item's menu, or type - or * at the start of the item.
• Set a due date by hand. Choose Set Due Date… in the item's menu. Remove Due Date clears it.
• Choose what happens on its own. In Settings, you can turn off any of the three automatic helpers: finding dates in what you type, moving due to-dos to Today, and the monthly reminder.
• Get things back from Trash. Swipe right on an item or choose Put Back, and it returns to Today. On the Mac, you can also drag it onto any page. Delete Permanently and Empty Trash remove items for good.
• Change a link. An item's menu has Edit Link, Remove Link and Copy Address.
• Paste checklists. Lists from Notes or Markdown keep their meaning: - [ ] lines become to-dos, and - [x] lines go straight to Completed.
• Make the list bigger on the Mac. Use ⌘+ and ⌘− (View ▸ Zoom In and Zoom Out), and ⌘0 for actual size. The lists also follow the text size set in the Mac's Accessibility settings.

Questions or ideas? In the app, open Settings and choose Report a Problem or Suggest a Feature, or write to support@forwardlog.app. More help is on the support page.