Add the Now Planner

[tyler-dane]

Priority

High (would significantly improve my experience)

Feature Description

MVP Spec

Start

• Renders view on /now route
• Prompt user to select a task to focus on (from the current day's tasks)
• Shortcut overlay includes Now shortcuts

During Focus

• Has a card at the top-right that displays the number of minutes until the next event
  • The time auto-updates to retain accuracy (ie, it's not a static value).
  • Use a similar pattern for fetching events as the Day view. In other words, stay away from Redux Saga. We're dropping that tool from our stack in 2026, so let's keep things decoupled from it.
• Displays shortcuts for this view and global shortcuts
• User has ability to:
  • Mark task as completed via click or ENTER
  • Go to next task via click or j and k
  • ESC goes back to today/week view
• After completing all the tasks, redirects user to /day

Other

• Uses the same data as the /day view does (localStorage for now)
• Includes a component that lets the user see where they are and how to navigate back to other views. Try to reuse the SelectView component for this for simplicity.
• Uses Tailwind for styling. (We're moving away from styled-components in 2026)

Out-of-scope

We'll consider doing these after we ship the MVP and get feedback

• Add Cmd-Palette to the Now and Day views
• Move the Reminder from the week view to the Now view.
  • Remove shortcut from the week view
  • Remove from the cmd-palette on the week view
• Creating tasks from the Now view. Unsure if this is the right UX, or if it'd be better to have users only create tasks in the Day/Week view.
• Add subtasks. Also unsure if this is worth it, should experiment and talk to users before committing.

Use Case

This'll help users plan their current focus

References

These are listed for reference/inspiration. We don't have to clone them exactly

Compass prototype: https://lite.compasscalendar.com/now

Vimcal - Focus mode (0) I think
Sunsama - Focus mode (pictured below)