The tool in detail.
This page walks through Deadlinewatch on an account filled with demo data, so you see every part of it in use. Views covers the main screens, and Tools covers every control and what it's for. Switch between them with the tabs below.
/01 The Dashboard
The running list, soonest first.
The Dashboard is the main screen, and it's where most of your time goes. Open deadline.watch and there it is. Every deadline you're working on is listed soonest first and grouped into Priority, Overdue, and Upcoming. You can change any of them right where they are.
At the top of the page you will see up to three short observations each morning about what's coming. They come from plain rules you can read, not from an AI. Nothing you enter is sent to a language model. Below them, the Pressure gauge shows where the work piles up over the next 90 days.
Then comes the Quick-add bar, the fastest way in. Type a name and a date and you're done, or use its shortcut to the full form when you want more detail. Below that are search, filters, and the list itself. Everything you need to run the day is on this one screen.
In practice
I keep deadline.watch bookmarked and open it first thing each morning. From there it stays in a tab, and I update it through the day as dates come in and work gets done.
/02 The Forecast
Your work across the weeks ahead.
The Forecast shows the same deadlines as the Dashboard, but as weight spread across the weeks ahead rather than as a list. The two are always in sync, so a change you make in one shows up in the other right away. At the top of the page you will see the same kind of observations as on the Dashboard.
The Curve traces the peaks and valleys of your workload over 90 days, six months, or a year. Each deadline is a dot, or a square if it's locked, so you can tell how much of a heavy stretch is still free to move. The Heatmap lays the same weeks out on a calendar grid, and the darker the day, the more work falls on it. The Dashboard tells you when each deadline is due. These two show how deadlines pile up on one another.
Drag a deadline to a new date and the whole picture redraws. The Heatmap, the Curve, the Pressure gauge, and the Dashboard list all move with it. At the bottom is a table of every deadline in view, which you can sort by date or by stream. Hover over a row and that deadline lights up on the Heatmap, which is the easiest way to find one by name. The thinking behind the Forecast is in the essay Your deadlines are a shape, not a list.
In practice
Before you say yes to new work, hand something off, or book time off, open the Forecast. If a stretch looks too heavy, move a few deadlines and watch the Curve settle.
/03 Adding a deadline
Add it the moment you get it.
Deadlinewatch is only useful if new deadlines go in as they arrive and existing ones stay current, so both are designed to take almost no effort. All a deadline needs is a name and a due date. That takes about 20 seconds, and the rest can wait until you need it.
The quickest way in is the Quick-add bar on the Dashboard. For more detail, the full form opens from the bar's shortcut, from Add dates in the sidebar, or when you press n. On the Dashboard itself, n puts you in the Quick-add bar instead. If you're starting with a backlog, bring it in all at once from a spreadsheet with the import template.
/04 Adding days off
The days you don't plan to work.
Days off share the Add dates page with deadlines, but they do the opposite job. Here you mark the one-off days you won't be working, like public holidays, training days, or a stretch of vacation.
You set your regular work week in Settings. It starts as Monday to Friday, you can change it to match how you work, and it applies to every week ahead. The one-off days are yours to keep up here.
A deadline can still fall on a day off, because real deadlines don't consult your calendar. Marking the day off makes the clash visible. Every deadline on a day you don't work shows up in the list below. For each one, keep it where it is, or move it to the last working day before and finish early.
That way you measure what's due against the days you actually work. There are no holiday presets, because a day off means different things depending on the work and the place. Deadlinewatch is a tool, not a calendar, so your working days and days off come from you. More on the days you don't work.
/05 Work on hold and completed
When a job goes cold, and when it's done.
Every deadline stays in view, with two exceptions, and each has its own home in the sidebar. On Hold is for deadlines in limbo, the ones you can't act on yet but don't want to lose. Switch a deadline from Active to On Hold and it leaves the active views for its own section, and its email reminders stop until you bring it back. The count beside On Hold shows how many are waiting, and you can reactivate or delete one whenever you like.
The other exception is finished work. Click the green checkmark on its card and the deadline moves to Completed in the sidebar. Completing is close to final. You get a brief Undo, and then it's done. The Completed record exports as a CSV whenever you want it.
In practice
When a client goes quiet, a deadline you can't act on just clutters the view. Put it On Hold. It leaves the Dashboard, and its reminders stop. Once a job is finished, mark it complete. It's out of view and still on record.
/01 The card
The deadline card and its controls.
Each deadline is a card, and the card carries every control that deadline needs. Whatever you want to change, you change it right there, with no menus to open. Here's what each control does, with an example of when you'd use it.
Essential information
The top row holds the name, the due date with the Lock that keeps it fixed, an optional due time, and a counter of the days left. Everything but the counter edits in place. The rest of the controls are in the row below.
Stream
Stream is the first control on the left. It's a grouping you define, such as clients, jobs, sites, or personal and business. Its color marks the deadline in every view. You can filter by stream anywhere, and a deadline with no stream shows as None.
In practice
Say you're juggling three job sites. Give each one a stream with its own color, and the Forecast shows how the three stack up over the coming weeks. Filter by one and you see that site alone.
Status
Status switches a deadline between Active and On Hold. Set to On Hold, it leaves the active views and its reminders stop. It waits in its own section of the sidebar until you reactivate or delete it. That's the place for work that's stalled or waiting on someone else's decision.
In practice
A job is waiting on a go-ahead and may not happen at all. Put it On Hold until there's a clear signal either way.
Snooze
Snooze puts a deadline to sleep for a while. Pick how long, from a day to two weeks, or choose a date. The card shrinks to a faint row at the bottom of its group. Unlike On Hold, it stays on the Dashboard and its reminders keep going out. Wake it anytime, or let it wake on its own when the snooze ends.
In practice
A deadline is waiting on input from your team. Snooze it for three days, and the work you can do now stays in focus while you wait.
Priority
Priority moves a deadline to the front of the line. Click the flag and it jumps to its own section at the top of the Dashboard, so it's the first thing you see. Nothing else changes, not the due date and not the reminders. What you do with it is up to you.
In practice
A key client calls all hands, and their job ships first. Flag it.
Lock
Lock marks a date that can't move. Most dates have some give in them, but a statutory filing, a court date, or a tender close usually doesn't. The Lock lets you tell the two apart at a glance. A locked deadline carries a red padlock beside its date and shows as a square instead of a dot on the Curve and the Heatmap. Drag it or edit the date and it refuses, and tells you why. One click on the padlock unlocks it. Telling the standard, often arbitrary deadlines apart from the ones with hard cutoffs is how you read a workload correctly.
In practice
Two dates fall in the same week. One is your own draft deadline, which can slip if it has to. The other is a filing date someone else set. Lock that one, so a stray drag can't touch it.
Email reminder
The Email reminder is the one nudge that goes out to you outside the tool. Even with the Dashboard closed, a reminder is sent ahead of the deadline. The default is a single reminder three days before, and you can add more at lead times from the day itself to six months ahead. You can also turn reminders off for one deadline, or for the whole account in Settings. The email is a backstop. The open Dashboard is where the work happens. Why the reminder is the floor and the Dashboard is the tool.
In practice
An important deadline falls in a week you're traveling. Set a reminder far enough ahead that you can check progress with your team before you leave.
Recurrence
Click the strip on the card's left edge and a drawer opens, with Recurrence as the first tool in it. It repeats a deadline weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly. Every date in the series is created up front as a deadline of its own. Move one and the rest stay where they are. A monthly date on the 31st falls on the real last day of each shorter month. A date you miss remains on the list as its own Overdue deadline. A series can run up to two years ahead. The two hard parts of a repeating deadline.
In practice
If a client files every month, set up all twelve at once and the year is in place.
Tasks
Tasks holds a checklist of subtasks under the deadline, one row each, and you tick them off as they're done. That way the smaller steps stay with the deadline they lead to.
In practice
Five departments each owe you a report before you can close. Give each one a row in Tasks and tick it off as it comes in.
Notes and Description
Notes and Description are two free-text fields for anything else that belongs with the deadline. Both are private to you, and any link in them becomes clickable.
In practice
For a submission that rests on many sources, keep a record of each one in Notes, right on the deadline itself.
/02 Data management and shortcuts
Yours to take, and quick on the keys.
Bring a backlog in with the template, and export every deadline anytime. Nothing is locked in.
Press n to add a deadline, g then d for the Dashboard, g then c for the Forecast, and ? for the full list of shortcuts.
/03 Completion
The goal of every deadline.
Click the green checkmark strip on the card's right side when the work is finished. The deadline leaves the active views for Completed in the sidebar, where it's no longer tracked but its record remains.
Completion rests on two principles. The first is that completing is close to final. There's a brief Undo right after, and once it's gone, the deadline is done. To shelve something for a while, put it On Hold instead.
The second is that finished work is archived, not deleted. The completed dates in a series are kept even if you delete the series, because the record of what you delivered matters. You can delete one from Completed yourself if you want to, and the whole Completed record exports as its own CSV. Why finished work goes on a shelf, not in the trash.
That's every view and every control. See them work together in six typical workflows.
Go to Typical workflows