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Overview

In order to use Plancake, you only need to sign up and activate your account.
After logging in, you will be presented with your overview page. Here, at a glance, you can see whether there are things that need to be done as soon as possible. Moreover it may display important messages from the Stuff (i.e. new features).

There is a live clock on the right hand side of the page. Plancake automatically detects your timezone and adjust the time accordingly. If the time is wrong, just click on the wrong? link to fix it.

There are two main entities that make up your account: lists and tasks.
A list is an aggregation of tasks (or points) that share something in common. 'Stuff to do in Japan' can be the title of one of your lists. 'go to Tokyo Disneyland', 'eat sushi', 'buy a kimono for Tom' are all tasks that may go in that list.

Plancake does not send any reminder for tasks. That is because using Plancake should become part of your daily routine, like checking your email box. Plancake is not your boss who tells you what to do. Plancake is your help to choose the best thing to do at any time. And in order to accomplish that, you need the bigger picture in front of you.

Lists, lists, lists...

There are two types of lists in Plancake:

• System lists They are created automatically when you sign up and are very important for managing your tasks effectively. Thus you can neither edit nor delete them. They are:
  • Inbox - All tasks in here should be read and organized in your system as soon as possible. It is similar to your email Inbox and you should empty it at least once a day. It is just a temporary storage for your tasks waiting to be organized.
    You can feed it directly within your account or via your Plancake email box (see further down for details) or via the API (see further down for details).
    As keeping your Inbox clear is so important, you will see a counter next to the 'Inbox' link if you have any task in it. If you can't see the counter, you don't need to check your Inbox.
  • Todo - Put here all the stuff you need to do, using contexts (see further down) for easy retrieval.
• User generated lists You can create and manage them as needed. They probably will be checklists or specific todo lists.

Your daily routine should be:

• check your Inbox throughout the day and aim to keep it empty (obviously you can also put tasks in it!). To accomplish this task you can perform one of these actions:
  • delete items if they are not actually relevant
  • do the tasks straightaway if they take less than 2 minutes
  • move them to the right list (probably the Todo list)
• check you Calendar (see further down) and do all the tasks due on the day. At the end, you will be relaxed because you know you have done everything you needed to do for that day.
• check tomorrow's tasks quickly, just in case you need to do some preparation
• if (and only if) you have any time left you want to spend getting things done, go to your Todo list and choose what to do using contexts (see further down).

This workflow works as long as you give a task a due date only if the task has really got a due date (otherwise just add it in the Todo list without a due date). If you don't do so you will have your Calendar plenty with tasks you don't really need to do that day and you will feel frustrated because probably you will not have enough time to do all of them and you will move them on the next day, probably for days.

Usually a list displays both the tasks with and without due date. The Todo list is the only exception as it displays only tasks without due date. We decided so because we wanted the Todo list to be like the Next Actions list of the GTD method where you can easily filter tasks by context. Don't forget you will find all the tasks with a due date on your Calendar anyway.

Calendar

Plancake Calendar is quite different from the calendars you normally see.

The Calendar is not a list, in the sense you can't add tasks to it. Instead it is an aggregated view of all the tasks with a due date from every list, sorted by due date.

The Calendar does not show all the repetitions of recurrent tasks. That is, if you add the task 'Do jogging' and set a repetition of 'every day', the calendar doesn't show it every day but just on the closest date (that is today in this example).

From here, you can add tasks in any list by using the New task button or you can edit tasks the normal way.

Contexts

As we said, contexts are very useful when deciding what to do in your Todo list that may contain tens of items. To filter the list and focus on specific tasks, just use the filter on the right hand side.

They are a very powerful tool. We can think of contexts as tags with the purpose of limiting what we can do. The tool we have at hand (mobile phone, computer) and the environment we are in (at home, at your office) heavily limit the tasks we can perform at a given time.

Plancake comes with some default tags but you can add more from your Settings area.

You can add contexts directly when typing your task description by writing the context with this prefix: %% .

When it comes to filter your tasks by context, you can use two links on the right-hand side of your account:

• filter all lists by context
• filter this page by context

You can use either of them (depending on what you want to do) or both of them to be able to filter tasks by two contexts: you will first filter all the lists by context A, and then filter the resulting page by context B.

Managing your lists

You can manage all your lists on the left column of the page. There you can create a new list by clicking the New button. You can also edit, delete or reorder each of your lists by clicking the edit icon appearing when the mouse is over the list name.
When you create a new list, you are automatically redirected to the list page where you can start adding tasks straightaway.

You can perform similar actions with headers; you create them by the same button you use for lists. Headers are a way of grouping similar lists together for you to find the list you are looking for easily.
An example of header can be 'Events', grouping together the lists 'Holiday to Japan', 'Monday office meeting' and 'My brother's wedding' or the header 'Plancake' with the lists 'bugs', 'big ideas', 'competitors' (as shown in the picture).

Once you click on a list, on the right hand side there is a navigation with some actions you can perform on the list itself, such as view a printer-friendly version of the page or see the completed tasks. The latter one is very useful if you need to undo some task marked as done by mistake or to keep an history of what you have done. Tasks are sorted by complition date and you can restore them by unticking them. If you do so, tasks will regain the original position they had in the list.

Managing tasks

Once you select a list, you can manage all the tasks (actions) for that list.

You can add new tasks by using the form at the top of the page. Write the description in the box and then click the 'Add' button or just hit ENTER on your keyboard.
By clicking the options link, you can:

• set the task description as header. A header (as similarly as for lists) is not a task but it groups together tasks having something in common. It is useful for organizing your tasks and creating dependencies
• set a due date (a deadline for the task).
  In order to set a due date for the task, you can click the calendar widget or insert the date manually (i.e.: 24-09-2009 or 09-24-2009 or 2009-09-24, depending on your date format setting). In addition you can use these shortcuts:
  • tomorrow (or tom)
  • today (or tod)
  • next Monday (or Tuesday, ....)
  • next Mon (or Tue, ....)
  • next mon (or tue, ....)
  • in 1 day
  • in X days (where X is a number)
  • in 1 week
  • in X weeks (where X is a number)
  • in 1 month
  • in X months (where X is a number)
  • in 1 year
  • in X years (where X is a number)
• specify a repetition expression (i.e.: every Sunday, every 15th of the month).
  
• insert the task in a different list rather than the current one
• add some notes

Tick the box on the left in order to mark a task as done. When you mark a recurrent task as done, it won't be removed from the list and its due date will be updated.

When a task contains a note, you will see a little 'note' icon. You can see the content of the note by clicking that icon. Click the icon again to hide the note.

Point your mouse on the little green icon indicating a recurrent task in order to know the repetition expression you set.

You can append the due date shortcuts also directly at the end of the task descriptions after typing %% followed by a space like this:

If you both use a shortcut in the description and fill the due date field, the system will use the shortcut to set the due date of the task.

It is clear you can add tasks with or without due date. The tasks with due date are listed first on the page. The background of the items with a due date is in different colors for overdue tasks, tasks to do today and tasks to do tomorrow. Obviously you can remove the due date from a task or, viceversa, add it.
You can reorder only tasks (and headers) without due date because the tasks with due date have to be sorted by due date.
To reorder items, just select start reordering after clicking on the edit icon of one of the items.

You can insert a new task just below an existing one. That saves you a reordering operation. Then, you can edit the new task to add details to it.

Click on the task in order to edit it.

You can still use the due date shortcuts while editing a task.

You can add a task to the list A even if you are viewing the list B. You can select the list where to add the task to by clicking the options link.

Adding tasks via email (Email-to-Inbox component)

A Plancake email address is created for every user when they register.
To find your Plancake email address go to your Settings page. That address is made up by five parts:

• the text: inbox_
• your email address, everything before the @ sign
• an underscore
• a secret random PIN of 4 letters
• the domain: @plancake.com

An example is:
inbox_niki_5436@plancake.com

That email address is not very easy to remember but you can simply save it in your email client.

You can send emails to your Plancake email address. The subject of that email will be added to your Inbox as a task.

If you are on the move or away from your Plancake, you can just send an email having the task you want to remember as subject. Then, when you log in into your Plancake account you will be able to organize that task.
And you can even use the shortcuts for due date and contexts in the subject of the email!

Yon can even add a note to your task by using the body of the email. Everything that is wrapped by the %% magic strings will be used as a note for your task. See this example:

%%
The map is located under Adam's bed. The name of the hotel should be written on
the envelope underneath the book.
%%

The delimiters are very important. If you forget them, no note will be added to the task.

Anybody who knows your Plancake address can add tasks to your Inbox. That can be good if you want your wife/husband to do so. But be careful not to publicly disclose your Plancake email address otherwise strangers could add tasks to your Inbox.

Keyboard Shortcuts

You can use Plancake even without mouse. That should make your actions faster.

• ESC close any popup window
• CTRL+left act on lists - any further shortcut will have effect on lists
• CTRL+right act on tasks
• CTRL+up select up
• CTRL+down select down

Once you have highlighted a task or list, you can use these letters:

• n new item
• e edit item
• d delete item
• g go to list - you will load the selected list (only for lists)
• b add task below
• c mark task as complete
• r start reordering

Please notice you always need to hold the CTRL key to access the shortcuts.

General notes

You may object you don't have a computer always with you, then you can't add tasks to your Plancake.
That is not true in fact you can:

• send yourself an email to your Plancake email address. The task will be added to your Inbox
• keep a little paper in your wallet where you can write about ideas/tasks. Once you are home, you can organize that on your Plancake. In this case that paper is one of your inboxes
• use Plancake mobile version (coming soon) if your handheld device is connected to the Internet
• if you are a developer, you can use the API (coming soon) to design a new method for adding tasks (using Twitter, Facebook, ...). In that case, please let us know!

Reviewing your Plancake on a regular basis is vital. You should:

• go through the name of all your lists otherwise you will forget about some of them on the long run
• read all the tasks without due date on your Todo list once a week. That is because some tasks may need to be done in few days, then you need to add a due date to them.

Anytime a window pops up, you can just press ESC on your keyboard or re-click the link to close it.

Remember that you can always submit a form by hitting the 'Enter' key rather than clicking on the submit button.

Use the fullscreen view on your browser to get a better overview of your lists and tasks. Usually you do that by hitting a key (by hitting it twice you go back to the standard view). On Firefox the key is F11. Try that now!

Should you have any problem, don't hesitate to post on our Support Forum.