What an automated scheduler does for a todo list
An automated scheduler turns a todo list into timed blocks: it uses the gaps around busy hours, orders the work, splits long tasks, and leaves pinned tasks alone.
It uses the gaps you already have
The benefit people want from an automated scheduler is not a smarter to-do title. It is a week that shows where the work can sit. Fits Today starts from available hours, then removes recurring busy blocks and one-off events. A default weekday includes a day job from 8 to 5. Tasks are allowed in the hours you marked as open, which on weekdays runs later than the job and starts earlier.
You can change both. If Thursday evening is for family, that time should be busy or outside your available hours. The scheduler will not invent a free hour. It only fills the ones you left.
It has an order, and the order is visible
Left alone, a todo list is a pile. A scheduler needs a sequence. Fits Today scores flexible tasks from priority first: ASAP, high, medium, then low. A deadline adds pressure as the date gets closer, and a hard deadline adds more. If you have used Plan my day, that ranking nudges what should be in focus today. Ties go to the earlier deadline, then the older task.
You can see the result on Today and on the week, not as a secret score. Blocks sit on a timeline. Work that will miss a deadline shows up in Needs attention instead of hiding in the middle of the list.
Long tasks can split. Some work must not.
A two-hour task is useless if your only openings are forty minutes. When a task is splittable, Fits Today fills those gaps and refuses to leave a scrap smaller than the minimum chunk. A task that has to happen in one sitting waits for a long enough opening, or it stays unscheduled if the horizon never offers one.
Pinned tasks and blocks already in progress stay put. That matters. An automated scheduler that reshuffles a meeting you already started is not helping. Urgent flexible work moves around the fixed parts. It does not move the fixed parts.
It runs again, because the day will change
A plan that is calculated once on Monday morning is a poster. Fits Today runs the scheduler after changes, and again on load when the last run is stale, so unfinished work rolls forward. If a slot passes and the task is still open, that slip is visible to the review later.
You can undo a mistaken change with Command-Z. If the plan is wrong, fix the task and let the week reflow, instead of dragging every block back into place.
Keep reading
All guides →How to manage tasks when the workday is already full
A way to keep a task list when a day job already owns the middle of the day: free hours, pinned work, and a week that moves when something urgent shows up.
Read the guide →Break a big task into steps you can schedule
A large task sits on the list until it has ordered steps with times. Fits Today can split one into steps that schedule in sequence, each waiting until the previous step is done.
Read the guide →