iPhone

The app does everything the web app does. Nothing here needs a computer. What follows is what the phone adds on top of that, plus the two things that are honestly different.

Everything, not a viewer

The whole thing in your pocket, not a read-only companion.

Motion's own mobile app is view-only, and it's the thing its users complain about most. If you can only change the plan at a desk, the plan is stale by Tuesday lunchtime, because the day goes sideways while you're away from the desk. Every screen here changes something: set up a repeat, rewrite a schedule, connect a calendar, fix a length you got wrong this morning.

How to use it

The tabs are Today, Inbox, Tasks and Settings. Today has two views — the agenda, and the day drawn to scale — and the button in the top right swaps between them. Tasks carries a toggle for All tasks and Repeating. Settings opens Calendars, Hours and Templates above the preferences.

The honest version

Built and tested screen by screen against a seeded server, and running on one real iPhone. Nobody has leaned on it for a full week yet.

The day, drawn to scale

See how packed Thursday is, not just what's next.

In a list, a fifteen-minute task and a three-hour meeting are the same height, so it tells you what's next and nothing about whether the day has room. Drawn to scale, you can see where the gaps are and what's stacked on what.

Short blocks. A ten-minute task is about eleven pixels, and two of them back to back are an unreadable smear. Two rules fix it, on the web and the iPhone alike:

Nothing is drawn thinner than one line of text. A short block is given the height it needs to be read and tapped. The start edge is always exact, and on the web the coloured rail inside the block is drawn at the task's true length, so you can still see it's ten minutes and not half an hour.
A run too tight to stack takes half the column each, alternating left and right. Two blocks side by side can overlap vertically all they like — both keep their title, both keep their real time, both are half a column wide instead of a sliver you can't hit, and a cluster obviously looks like a cluster. Earlier is on the left, so a pair still reads in order.

Three or more starting within a title's height of each other is the one case left over: the third would land back on the first, so it is nudged down far enough to clear it and gets a thin leader line back to the time it really starts.

How to use it

On Today, tap the calendar button in the top right. The arrows either side of the date move a day at a time, or swipe; Today brings you back. The line under the date says what the day adds up to — "7h 35m of work · 1 meeting". Tap any block to open it.

The honest version

in a seven-day week a half column is about 70 pixels, so a title in a tight cluster truncates to a few words. The day view is where a packed afternoon is meant to be read; the week is for its shape.

Works offline

Mark something done on the subway; it syncs when you surface.

Your edits queue up on the phone and go out in order, so the app behaves the same with a signal and without one. The only difference is how long an edit waits before the plan rebuilds.

The honest version

One thing needs a connection. While you're building a repeat, the real next dates only show when we can work them out — offline it says so rather than guessing.

Local notifications

"Time to start X" — the thing Motion is famously bad at on mobile.

It's the only part of the phone app that changes what you do, rather than showing a plan you have to remember to open. Nothing leaves your phone either — it already has the plan, so it sets its own reminders. No push service, no server that has to stay awake.

How to use it

Settings → Remind me when work starts. iOS asks once, and the footer then tells you how many reminders are actually queued. The same yes puts the Inbox count on the app icon (see below). Tap one and you land on that task, with Done and Enough for today right there.

The honest version

Only work inside the next two weeks gets one — past that there's a day but no clock time to fire at. Reminders get redone every time the schedule changes, so you never get one for work that has moved. If you turn down the iOS prompt, only iOS Settings can undo it; the app can't ask twice. And nobody has watched one of these fire in ordinary use yet.

The Inbox count on the app icon

The little red number on the icon is how many thoughts are waiting.

The Inbox only works if you actually come back and go through it. The count on the icon is the nudge you see every time you unlock your phone, without opening anything.

How to use it

Say yes when iOS asks about notifications: when you start a free trial, or when you turn on Settings → Remind me when work starts. It's the same number as the Inbox tab. Anything you've hit Later on isn't counted. Don't want it? iOS Settings → Notifications → YWGSD → Badges.

The honest version

The phone updates the number when it hears from YWGSD: when you open the app, and every so often in the background, whenever iOS allows. So something you jot down on the web can take a few hours to show up on the icon. With Background App Refresh off, or the phone in Low Power Mode, it only changes when you open the app. Nobody has watched it on a real phone yet.

Shortcuts and the Home Screen

Put any screen — or a blank task — one tap from your Home Screen.

Capture already gets in from the Home Screen, the Share Sheet, the Action Button and Siri through a Shortcut. The same door opens everything else, so "add a task" or "review the inbox" can be one button rather than three taps of hunting.

How to use it

In the Shortcuts app, add Open URL with one of these: ywgsd://task/new, ywgsd://inbox/review, ywgsd://day, ywgsd://recurring/new, ywgsd://capture. Name it, then add it to the Home Screen or the Action Button.

The honest version

A link we don't recognise does nothing at all, rather than dumping you on some default screen. You get no feedback beyond the app appearing where you left it.

Today widget

The next thing on your Lock Screen and Home Screen, without opening anything.

The whole promise is that you don't have to decide what to do next — and that only pays off if the answer is somewhere you already look. The Lock Screen is the cheapest glance there is: no unlocking, no hunting for the app, no waiting for a refresh. The big Home Screen size shows the rest of the day too, which is about as close as a widget gets to being the product itself.

How to use it

Four sizes, added the usual way.

Lock Screen — long-press the Lock Screen → Customise → tap the area under the clock → pick YWGSD. Shows NOW or NEXT, the time, and the title.
Home Screen — long-press → + → search YWGSD → Today → choose a size. Small shows one thing. Medium shows it and what follows. Large shows up to seven, then +3 more today, with the day's load and how old the plan is along the bottom — as of 9 minutes ago (3:11 PM), or as of 1.4 hours ago (1:45 PM) once it has been sitting a while.

The label above the title says Now while a block is underway and Next when it hasn't started. Work past its deadline is drawn in amber with an amber rail — except on the Lock Screen, which iOS paints in a single colour, so there it gets a warning triangle. A block that has a day but not an hour yet reads No time yet. With nothing left it says Nothing left today.

Your meetings are on it too, in grey, between the work. One that's free (in your calendar, or because you chose Mark free — let work go here on the phone or Free this time up on the web) shows with a fainter rail and free after its time (All day · free for a whole-day one), since work may be booked right over it. The small size and the Lock Screen have room for one thing, so they pass over free events and show the work instead; if a free event is all that's left today, they show that. Calendars you've switched off on the Calendars screen never appear.

Tapping is safe. Tap a task and you land on that task's own actions sheet — the screen with Done, Enough and Pin to a time on it, and Edit and Cancel task under More. Tap anywhere else and you land on the day drawn to scale.

The honest version

Nothing on the widget changes anything, and that's on purpose. Motion's widget marks a task complete when you tap a block, with no confirmation and no undo, so the first you hear of it is noticing days later that work has quietly gone missing. A widget is the worst place in an app for a destructive action: the target is small, the tap is half deliberate, and there's nowhere to show you what happened. So ours gets you to the button in one tap and never presses it for you. A build check keeps it that way — nobody can give the widget a button by accident.

The other limit is freshness. The widget reads the last plan the app saw and never talks to the server, because iOS wakes it for a few hundred milliseconds with no session and no way to handle a sign-in. So if you haven't opened YWGSD for two days, you're looking at a two-day-old day. It admits that rather than hiding it: past a day the load line reads Open to refresh, the large size always prints the time the plan was worked out, and the date in the corner is the date the plan was built — so a widget still showing yesterday gives itself away.

It can't take input either. There's no quick-add, because a widget can't put a text field on screen; capture comes in from the Home Screen, the Share Sheet, the Action Button and Siri through a Shortcut instead. And iOS decides when a widget may redraw, so the times on it can lag by minutes even when the app is bang up to date.

"Jot it down" (Siri, Spotlight, Action Button)

Say it, type it in Spotlight, or press the Action Button — it lands in your inbox without the app opening.

Capture only counts if it's faster than forgetting. This is the one that needs no setup at all: no token, no Shortcut to build, nothing to configure. iOS finds it because the app is installed and you're signed in.

How to use it

Four ways, and they're all there already.

Siri — "Jot this down in Get Stuff Done". Nobody says "Y-W-G-S-D" out loud, so the app also answers to Get Stuff Done and You Will Get Stuff Done, and every phrase works with any of the three names: "Jot this down in …", "Jot something down in …", "Add to …", "Remember this in …". It asks What should I add?, you answer, and it replies Added to your inbox.
Spotlight — swipe down, type Jot it down.
The Action Button — Settings → Action Button → Shortcut → Jot it down, under YWGSD. Nothing to build; it's already in the list.
A Home Screen icon — in the Shortcuts app, find Jot it down under YWGSD, share it, and choose Add to Home Screen.

The Share Sheet is the one exception — an App Shortcut doesn't appear there automatically. For that, make a Shortcut in the Shortcuts app that runs Jot it down, open its settings, and turn on Show in Share Sheet. One minute, once.

The honest version

Siri, Spotlight, the Shortcuts app and the Action Button all work the moment the app is installed — you don't even have to have opened it. The Share Sheet is the exception above, and needs a one-time Shortcut. The spoken names "Get Stuff Done" and "You Will Get Stuff Done" come from INAlternativeAppNames and haven't been tried on a real iPhone yet; the simulator can't prove Siri.

You do have to be signed in on that phone. It borrows the app's session, which is exactly why there's no token to paste. Signed out, it says so rather than quietly dropping the thought.

If the phone is offline, or we can't be reached, the thought is saved on the phone and sent the next time YWGSD opens — and it says that, not "Added to your inbox". Tell someone their note is safe and let them find nothing later, and they'll stop trusting the inbox entirely. Nothing is ever lost to a failed capture.

Delete my account

Leave, completely, from inside the app.

A product that will take your money but won't let you leave is a trust problem long before it's a compliance one. Apple requires it of any app with a signup anyway.

How to use it

On the phone, Settings → Account → Delete my account. On the web, Settings → Delete my account. Both ask you to type your own email address, then Delete everything. An email to that address confirms it's done, and says what happened to the subscription.

The honest version

It deletes the account and everything attached to it — tasks, schedules, templates, repeating rules, captured thoughts, calendar connections and history — on every device, immediately and permanently. No grace period, no archive, no copy kept, so there's nothing to restore if you change your mind. It ends a running website subscription first, on the spot, with no refund for the time that's left — refund your first payment before deleting if you're still inside the 7 days. If Stripe won't cancel the subscription, nothing gets deleted and it says so, because being charged for an account that's gone is the worse failure.

An App Store subscription is different: deleting doesn't stop it. Only Apple can cancel it, so the phone's delete screen says so and puts Manage subscription above the button. Cancel there first, or Apple keeps charging for an account that no longer exists.

It also hands your Google permission back, so the app drops off your Google account without you going there. That's best-effort: if Google can't be reached at that moment the deletion still goes through, and you can remove the leftover entry yourself. Microsoft and iCloud can't be revoked by us at all — Microsoft gives apps no way to do it, and an iCloud app password can only be deleted by you — so for those, deletion destroys our sealed copy of the credential and the privacy policy says where to finish the job.

Typing your address is on purpose. You'd answer a confirmation dialog without reading it. Typing your own email is the bit that makes you read the sentence above it.

First run

Set up your hours and your calendar, then try the four rules on three things that are really on your mind, and watch where they land.

An empty calendar can't explain what this does, and the two answers it needs first — your clock and your hours — are the ones that make every later answer right. After that, the fastest way to understand YWGSD is to use it once: put three real thoughts in, give them lengths, and see the actual day and time each one got around your actual meetings. That's the whole product in about a minute.

How to use it

It turns up on its own the first time you open YWGSD on a new account, on whichever surface you open first — before you've picked a plan, because the plans come at the end of it. The first screen has Skip setup; the setup screens have Finish now; the screens where you try the loop have Skip this bit, which jumps to That was easy, wasn't it?.

You Will Get Stuff Done — the four rules by their full names (Jot it down in three seconds, Tap through them later, in one go, Nothing disappears, Don't re-plan. Let it rebuild.), and the promise: you don't have to worry about scheduling and rescheduling, and nothing falls by the wayside. Set me up starts it.
What's your time zone? — pre-filled from the device. Use this time zone.
When do you usually get work done? — which days YWGSD may put tasks on, and a note that more sets of hours can be added in Settings later. These are my days.
And between what times? — the hours. As you set them the screen says Work will only ever land Mon–Fri, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM, rewritten from whatever you picked. Save these hours.
Connect your calendars — Add Google Calendar on the web, Connect a calendar on the phone, which offers Google, Outlook and iCloud. Then Next.
Try it. What needs doing? — three boxes for three things on your mind. Add to my Inbox puts them in the real Inbox.
Now give them the once-over — what a once-over is, before you're asked to do one: two questions each, then we find the time. Start the once-over.
How long, and how important? — both questions, on the three things you just typed. Schedule them turns them into tasks.
That was easy, wasn't it? — Daily or Weekly (both Recommended, Weekly pre-picked), or Not now. Book my once-over puts Inbox once-over on your calendar; with Not now the button reads Next.
You're set up — your hours, your calendars, how many things are scheduled and your once-over cadence, read back in your own numbers, plus Send me product emails, unticked.

Then Take me to my calendar on the web, Take me to my day on the phone. On an account without a plan, that's where the plans appear instead.

The honest version

It runs once per account, not per device, so setting up on the web means the phone won't ask again. Skip it and you're on the defaults — the zone your device reports, and Monday to Friday 09:00 to 17:00 — and it's all in Settings afterwards.

The three things you type are real: they go in your Inbox and, once they have a length and a priority, onto your calendar. Delete them like any other task if they were only for trying it out. Leave the boxes empty and the once-over still gets explained, it just doesn't get tried.

The review time is only saved if you get past step 9. Finish now or Skip setup leave it off, because the app shouldn't put work on your calendar you weren't offered. It's a choice, never a default: an account that picks Not now stays at Never.

On the phone, the lengths step needs a connection: a thought that hasn't reached the server yet can't be scheduled, and the screen says so rather than pretending.

Connecting a calendar at step 5 saves your setup before handing you to Google, so you don't get asked any of it twice. The second set of hours never becomes the default — the default is what every task inherits when you don't pick one, and inheriting "evenings only" would quietly shove ordinary work out of the working day.

Before thisPaying for it