when real stuff gets done
The work that matters happens in the spaces between meetings, classes, errands, and sleep. Not in the meetings themselves. In the gaps.
7:30 in the morning
The work starts.
The gap you named morning writing is waiting. Three tasks sit beneath it. You start on the first one.
Nothing else is asking for your attention. The other gaps are still in the day, but they've quieted down. No badges, no inbox count, no second list pulling your eye. The only thing in front of you is the work you decided yesterday belonged here.
Plan, then do
Two gestures. That's the whole loop.
You plan when you have headspace for it. Sunday evening. First thing in the morning. The fifteen minutes after a meeting ends early. DayGaps gives planning its own surface: the calendar, the sidebar, your projects, your inbox, all at once.
Then the gap arrives and the app changes posture. Sidebars step back. Other gaps fade. What's in front of you is one slice of time and a few tasks beneath it. Doing the work feels like doing the work.
However your day is shaped
A gap can be anything you want it to be.
Some days are meeting-fractured. Six events, three short gaps between them, a long stretch in the morning before anyone is asking for you. Before 11am call. Afternoon writing. Evening proposal.
Other days are wide open. Three hours of work-shaped time stretching out before you, with only meals and a walk to anchor it. Morning deep work. After lunch. Evening reading.
Either way, the gaps become the units. You name them. You decide what goes in each. The app holds the shape.
Quiet by design
Every pixel earns its place.
The colors don't call attention to themselves. Completed work fades to muted strikethrough instead of disappearing. When you focus a gap, the rest of the day eases back. The header is a small pill mark that asks nothing of you.
These are not absences. They are decisions. Every choice the app makes is pointed at the same thing: keeping you in the work and out of the app. DayGaps gets quieter the more you use it.
And on your phone
The same gaps follow you off the desk.
The iPhone app reads the same folder as the Mac. Open it between meetings or on the walk to lunch. The Today view is right there, the inbox is one tap away, and the gestures match the way the day actually changes.
Tap to mark a task done. Swipe right to move it to a different gap. Swipe left to reschedule it for another day. The vocabulary is the same in Today, in This Week, and inside a project. See the phone in more detail.
Plain files. Yours forever.
YAML and Markdown in your own folder.
Every project is a YAML file. Every day is a YAML file. Your notebook is Markdown. There is no proprietary database, no cloud account, no migration story when DayGaps
eventually goes away. You can read your data with cat. You can edit it in Vim. You can hand the schema to your AI assistant and ask it to reorganize a project for you. The app is meant to be operated with an AI, not despite one.
date: 2026-05-15 gaps: - time: "07:30" label: Morning focus - time: "10:00" label: Before lab meeting - time: "15:00" label: Afternoon writing - time: "21:00" label: Evening proposal
DayGaps is a task manager for Mac and iPhone, in private alpha.
Native apps. Universal binary on the Mac (macOS 14+). iPhone via TestFlight (iOS 17+).
Join the private beta See how it fits a day Read the philosophy