Right now, Cue is just a simple list app.
You get as many lists as you want. Each one has tasks in it. You can check them off, rearrange them, or delete them. You can also rearrange the lists, or archive them.
That’s it. Nothing special.
Without a lot more little features or a few more big features, there really isn’t anything there to sell.
The many little features that could be added are found on the marketing pages of any of the popular todo apps out there: reminders, syncing, access from any device, labels, tags, due dates, notes, etc.
Some of those things are going to make sense for Cue, later on.
But the core vision for Cue is something different.
That difference is what will make it a product worth selling, worth marketing, worth paying for. Really, just worth using.
That vision is based on a few key principles:
1. Your planning app is used in three key modes: adding work, planning work, doing work.
When you are adding work, it’s like an inbox. You add stuff that comes into your head, into your email, stuff your family or boss asks you to do. It should be dead easy to add things that you need to deal with at some point in the future.
When you are planning work, you need to see all of the relevant information. This is where the tickler concept is so powerful. You need to see the last day’s plan, the day you are planning, your “inbox” of tasks that you haven’t planned out, your tickler of things you need to be reminded of for the day.
And when you are doing work, you need to get an at a glance view of your day. It should be easy to check stuff off, if you want. It should be easy to move tasks to another day, if you need to adjust. For certain things, reminders can be really useful, so you don’t forget something that is time sensitive.
2. The key to the “planning work” mode is seeing multiple lists at a time.
Having multiple lists in front of you makes it easier to see the big picture and make the right decisions. This is where you want to be able to move items between lists effortlessly. At the same time, you’ll be adding things as you think through the coming day or week or month.
3. The key to the “adding work” mode is easily adding the smallest ideas quickly, without losing your rhythm.
You shouldn’t need to think about them beyond just getting them into the system. That means no decisions about when they will be done, no tagging, coloring, adding reminders, etc. The one exception is if you are in the mood to dig deeper and record extra notes about the task that are in your head that you don’t want to forget.
One other direction this could lead is to have a simple future calendar view. It should be easy to look at some date in the future and see what you’ll likely have planned, so you can schedule an appointment or meeting without conflicts. This will obviously take more effort, but should still be as easy as possible.
4. The key to the “doing work” mode is remembering (or being reminded) to check your plan enough that you can act correctly by doing work or adjusting your plans.
This is where reminders come in. We’ll call them “cues” in Cue, of course. There are two types of cues. One is when there isn’t a time sensitive task, you just need to check in to make sure you’re on track. You got home from work and have some time before dinner and need to remember what you planned for the day. You may follow your plan or not, based on your energy level or other things that have come up, but you won’t make the right decision without remembering the original plan.
The other type of cue is that you have a dentist appointment or a work meeting, and need to remember that it’s happening, even if you’re deep into solving a separate problem. A reminder from outside is needed, because you’re thinking about something else.
5. All planning will happen based on natural cycles. The day, the week, the month, the year.
Natural cycles affect our body and our mind. They give our lives a rhythm. Planning, and then doing, are a part of that rhythm.
To me, these ideas represent a new kind of product. It’s not a calendar and it’s not a todo app, though there is some obvious overlap with both. It’s a single tool that replaces both. It works the way you do, and it fits into the rhythms of your life.
If I had to categorize it, I would call it a tickler app. At least at this point.
I’m not aware of any software tool that specifically aims to provide tickler functionality like this, so in a lot of ways it’s a new thing.
It’s Cue.