The tool, up close.

This is an introduction to the key Views and Tools of Deadlinewatch, as you would see them with data. Switch the tabs below to see each walkthrough.

01The Dashboard

The main view. A running list with signals.

The Dashboard is your main workspace, reachable directly at deadline.watch. This is where you see and control every deadline. The list is sorted soonest first, in three groups: Priority, Overdue and Upcoming.

Short observations at the top outline what is coming. They are created from a plain, verifiable rule. No black-box AI, and nothing you enter goes to a language model. Below it, the Pressure gauge shows where the work concentrates over 90 days.

Next comes the Quick-add bar, the fastest way to drop in a new deadline, straight from the Dashboard. It contains a shortcut to the full form if you need to add more detail. About 20 seconds is all it takes. Below are the search bar, the filters, and the list itself. The Dashboard was designed so all your daily operations run from this one screen, without clicking around. I keep it open in a tab and update it as the day unfolds.

The Deadlinewatch dashboard: the deadline list sorted soonest first, split into Priority, Overdue, and Upcoming, with due times, email reminders, and the 90-day pressure gauge across the top — Scroll to see more, or click to enlarge

In practice

In the morning, go to bookmarked deadline.watch to go straight to your Dashboard. Keep it open in a tab and update the deadlines as the day unfolds.

02The Forecast

Your work as a shape. Weight and distribution.

The Forecast is where you go to see the impact of your commitments. It is the same workload that you saw on the Dashboard, but shown as a weight. Make a change here and it is reflected in the Dashboard (and vice versa). The two are always in sync.

The top features observations, similar to what you saw in the Dashboard. The Curve below shows the peaks and valleys of your workload over 90 days, 6 months, or 1 year, with each deadline represented as a single dot, or a square for locked deadlines. The squares tell you at a glance how much of a heavy stretch you are actually free to move. Then, the Heatmap lays the same weeks out on a calendar grid. The darker the shade, the more work falls on that day. Both views show how deadlines affect each other, not just when each is due. Drag a deadline to a new date and the shape redraws with it, on the Heatmap, the Curve, the Pressure gauge, and the Dashboard list alike. At the very bottom, a simple table lists every deadline in view, sortable by due date or a Stream. Hover over a row and that deadline lights up on the Heatmap. This lets you locate the deadlines by their name. Your deadlines are a shape, not a list.

The Deadlinewatch Forecast: the workload curve and heatmap calendar showing deadline clusters across the weeks of the chosen outlook, with the in-view reference table below — Scroll to see more, or click to enlarge

In practice

Use the Forecast to read the weight of upcoming weeks before taking new work, reallocating resources or taking holiday. Move the deadlines around to see how the Curve flattens and the Heatmap eases, making work more manageable.

03Adding a deadline

Add it the moment you get it.

The tool only works if the new deadlines are added and the existing ones stay current, so both operations were designed to be quick and easy. The minimum information a deadline requires is a name and a due date, about 20 seconds. Details can be added later, if needed.

The fastest way to add a deadline is the Quick-add bar on the Dashboard. Alternatively, you can use a full form that can be accessed in three ways: with a shortcut in the Quick-add bar, from the sidebar, or by pressing n on any page other than the Dashboard, where n jumps to the Quick-add bar. If you have a backlog of deadlines to bring in and prefer to work with spreadsheets, use the provided template to upload in bulk.

The add-deadline form: name and due date required, with an optional due time and the Stream, Priority, Lock, Recurring, Email reminder, and Details controls beneath

Prefer to work with spreadsheets? Download the import template.

04Adding days off

The days you don't plan to work.

Adding days off shares the page with deadlines, but it is the polar opposite. Here you mark the one-off days you typically would not work: statutory holidays, training days, or entire stretches like vacation.

You set your work week in Settings. It starts as Monday to Friday, and you change it to match how you actually work. Deadlinewatch then applies that week to every week ahead. The one-off days are the part you keep up to date yourself.

Marking a day off does not mean a deadline cannot fall on it, which reflects the reality. It only means the conflict is made visible to you, and the reconciliation form below lets you decide what to do with the information. You can keep the deadline where it is, or move it to the preceding working day and complete it ahead of the date.

The point is to realistically weigh what is due against the days you work, rather than assuming every day is available, which is simply not the fact of life. A day off has a different meaning depending on what you do, how you work and where you are, which is why Deadlinewatch does not provide any presets for days off or holidays. It is a tool, not a calendar, and the data on both ends, work and no work, has to come from you. More on the days you don't work.

The Add days off section: a 3-month band with days off shaded and deadlines marked, above the reconcile list naming each deadline that falls on a day off with Keep it and Move to buttons

05Work on hold and completed

When a job goes cold, and when it is done.

The general premise of the tool is that every deadline stays visible, so nothing slips out of sight. There are two exceptions, and each has its own home. On Hold is for deadlines in limbo. Not ready to mark complete, not slated to delete, but not worth tracking day to day either. Switch a deadline's status from Active to On Hold and it moves to its own section in the sidebar, out of the active views. Its email reminders stop while it is there, so put a deadline on hold when you know it can wait, and you are not expecting to be reminded about it. The number next to On Hold in the sidebar shows how many are waiting there. Other than that, you will not see or hear from them. A deadline On Hold can be reactivated or deleted at any time.

The other exception is finished work. Once you are done with a deadline, hit the green checkmark on the right side of its card and it moves to the Completed section in the sidebar for archiving. Completing a deadline is close to final, and they are not meant to be revived. You can export the whole record of completed deadlines to a CSV for tracking and record keeping.

The Completed surface: finished deadlines with their completion dates, filterable by stream and period, with a CSV export of exactly that view

In practice

The client goes silent. Days go by and the non-actionable deadline clutters your view. Put it On Hold to keep it out of sight. It leaves your Dashboard and stops sending reminders until you bring it back. Same with completed deadlines. Once it is done, mark it so and it leaves the view.

01The card

The deadline card with tools.

Each deadline is a card and it contains tools needed to manage that individual deadline. This means that whenever you need to update the deadline, the controls are right there with it. No clicking around. Below we go over each one to introduce their functionality and how they help you stay on top of your deadlines.

A deadline card: due date with its time, days remaining, subtask progress, and the Stream, Status, Snooze, Priority, and Email reminder controls

Essential information

The first row on each card carries the deadline's key details. The name, the due date with the Lock that keeps it immovable, the optional hour it is due, and a counter showing the days left. Except the counter, they can all be edited in place. The controls are in the row below.

Stream

First from the left is the Stream. It is a user-defined grouping of deadlines. It can be anything you want. Every workflow is different, so streams were kept flexible. Common uses include: clients, jobs, sites, private vs. business. Each stream has a customizable color which identifies the stream across every view. Default is None if you leave it blank. One of the main advantages of using Streams is that you can use them as filters.

In practice

You need to be able to clearly distinguish the deadlines for three different job sites. Make one yellow, one blue and green. Now you see how the deadlines on these sites interact with each other. Use the Stream as a filter to see the deadlines for just this one site.

Status

Changing a deadline's status from Active to On Hold removes it from the active views, stops the tracking, and disables its reminders. The deadline moves to a designated On Hold section in the sidebar, where it can be reactivated or deleted later. On Hold is for deadlines you are not planning to work on in the foreseeable future but cannot delete. It keeps the active workflow free of jobs that are stalled or waiting on a decision.

In practice

A client went quiet and it feels like the job may not happen. Put it On Hold until there is a clear signal to resume work.

Snooze

Snooze lets you quite literally put a job to sleep for a while. Pick the Snooze duration and the deadline changes into a faint, narrow ghost row at the bottom of its group. Unlike work On Hold, it stays visible on the Dashboard, so you don't forget it. It just goes quiet to let more pressing deadlines take the center stage. Wake it up manually at any time, or it comes back up on its own when the Snooze ends.

In practice

A deadline is awaiting team input. You Snooze it for 3 days until the report comes in. That moves it out of the way and keeps the actionable work in focus.

Priority

Priority moves a specific deadline to the front of the line. Hit the flag and it jumps to the top section of the Dashboard so you always see it first. Priority changes nothing else. Not the due date, not the reminders. It keeps the deadline at the top, in its own section. You decide what needs to happen.

In practice

A high-value client calls all hands on deck. Their job ships first, regardless of other factors or commitments. It is a Priority.

Lock

Lock marks a date as immovable, one that cannot be readjusted. Most dates in a working week have some give in them. A statutory filing, a court date or a tender close usually does not, and the Lock is how you tell the two apart at a glance. A locked deadline carries a red padlock beside its due date and is drawn as a square rather than a circle on both Forecast views. Try to drag it or change the due date and it refuses out loud instead of springing back without explanation. One click unlocks it, if moving it is what you want to do. You need to tell the standard, often arbitrary deadlines from the ones with hard cut-offs to assess a workload correctly.

In practice

Two dates fall in the same week. One is your own draft deadline, which can move if the week gets heavy. The other is a filing date set by someone else. Lock the second so a stray drag can never touch it.

Email reminder

Email reminder is the nudge sent outside the tool, to your inbox. Even with the Dashboard closed, a reminder still goes out ahead of the deadline. The default is one reminder, 3 days out. Add more lead times or disable all per individual deadline. If you don't want email reminders, you can disable them globally in the settings. The email is an aid, not the tool. The open Dashboard is where the daily work happens. Why the reminder is the floor and the Dashboard is the tool.

In practice

An important deadline falls in a week you might be traveling. Set email reminders with enough lead time to check up on the progress with your team.

Recurrence

Press the strip on the left-hand side of the card and a drawer opens. Recurrence is the first tool inside it. It sets up a series of future recurring deadlines at equal intervals. Each deadline in the series is created at setup, and each becomes independent after creation. Move one date in the series and the others stay where they were. The dates fall where you mean them to. A monthly deadline set for the 31st falls on the real last day of every month, with no slow drift. The date you miss stays in your list as its own overdue row, in plain sight. A series reaches at most 2 years into the future. The two hard parts of a repeating deadline.

The recurring set editor: every date in a monthly series listed with its status, plus add and remove controls

In practice

One of your clients has recurring filings every month. Set up 12 recurring deadlines for that client in one pass, and you are done for the year.

Tasks

Tasks section lets you create a typical to-do style list of subtasks. Each task is created in its own row. Check it off when it is done. It keeps the smaller steps and milestones in one place, together with the overarching deadline they build toward.

The deadline card with its detail drawer open: the subtask checklist, the shareable description, and private notes

In practice

Reports from five different departments need to come in before you can close the deadline. Keep track of the individual submissions in Tasks.

Notes and Description

Notes and Description hold free-text supplementary information on the deadline. It can be anything, and links become clickable automatically.

In practice

You need a record of all the sources used to compile the deadline submission. Keep it on the deadline itself.

02Data management and shortcuts

Yours to take, and quick on the keys.

You always remain in control of your data. Import your backlog with the provided template, or export every deadline back out, anytime. Nothing is locked in.

For those who like keyboard shortcuts, the daily set: n to add, g then d for the Dashboard, g then c for the Forecast, and ? for the full list.

The keyboard shortcuts overlay: n to add a deadline, slash to search, g then d for the dashboard

03Completion

The goal of every deadline.

Once you are done with a deadline, hit the green checkmark strip on the right-hand side of the card. The deadline leaves the active view and moves to the Completed section in the sidebar for archiving. It is no longer tracked, but the record stays.

Two premises govern completed work. The first is that completing a deadline is close to final. A brief Undo appears right after you complete one, and once it fades, the deadline is done. If you need to shelve the deadline temporarily, the proper way to do it is by putting it On Hold. The second is that finished work is archived, not deleted. Completed deadlines in a series stay on the record even if the entire series is deleted, because record keeping of deliverables is an important part of many workflows. If you do want one gone, delete it from Completed manually. The whole Completed record can be exported to a standalone CSV file for archiving. Why finished work goes on a shelf rather than in the bin.

Now that you are familiar with the main views and tools, see them at work in six shapes of work. Go to Examples →