Console

The term console refers to the input you use to issue orders, save information, and search.

The console is part of the Dashboard but is also present throughout the app to perform basic actions like scheduling a task, searching etc.

In other words, whenever you interact with Routine through text instead of clicking, the console is involved.

📺 Interface

Through the console, the user can create and manipulate different types of objects, most notably tasks, events and text.

The console comes with natural language capabilities for the user to specify properties. Based on the provided properties, Routine deduces which command the user is likely willing to perform.

If multiple commands are possible, the console lists them for the user to manually select (↑ ↓) and trigger the action of her choice with ↵.

In addition, the console provides a summary of what it has understood of the user input, see below with “Buy sofa on Sun, Apr 17th in 🏡 House”.

👩‍💻 Commands

Most of the properties are indicated through the use of keywords for the console to understand what is meant. Below are described the commands along with the properties and keywords supported.

1. Regular tasks

Routine allows creating, scheduling (see Schedule tasks), allocating (Block time for important tasks) and postponing (Postpone tasks) tasks.

Create regular task

If no keyword is provided, the Routine console will create a task based on the text provided in the console and store this new task in your Inbox.

Schedule regular task

To schedule a task, the console needs the on keyword to be used to specify the scheduled date.

If other properties are specified, the console will not consider this as scheduling but as another action.

Examples:

• Get a haircut on Monday
• Submit tax report on September 22nd 2023
• Declare taxes on 2025
• Call mom on tomorrow

Allocate time a.k.a block time

To block time with the console, you need to specify a date, time, and duration.

While the on keyword is used to specify the date, at is used to indicate the precise time while for is used to provide a duration.

A few points must be noted:

1. The console will assume default values if some properties are missing, most notably Today will be used if no date is provided and 30 minutes will be assumed for the duration is omitted
2. If no time is provided, the console will try to find the first time available time to allocate. See for more information.

Examples:

• Prepare email draft on Monday at 2pm for 3h
• Call lawyer on December 1st

A default duration of 30 minutes is assumed while looking for the first available opening

• Clean office at 3pm for 1h30

The date defaults to today in this case

• Sign contract tomorrow morning

2. Recurrent tasks

Routine allows creating recurrent tasks. For more information, please refer to Recur tasks.

Create recurrent task

To create a recurring task, the user must indicate the frequency through the use of the every keyword.

In addition, the starting and ending dates can be specified through the starting and until keywords.

Examples:

• Check metrics every workday
• Call parents every Sunday starting next month
• Yearly review every year
• Schedule call with Henry every quarter until 2024

3. Regular events

Routine allows creating events right from the console.

Create regular event

As for time allocation for tasks, the date, time and duration properties must be provided through the on, at and for keywords.

A few points must be noted:

1. The console will assume default values if some properties are missing, most notably Today will be used if no date is provided and 30 minutes will be assumed for the duration is omitted
2. If no time is provided, the console will try to find the first time available time to allocate. See for more information.

Examples:

• Go to pharmacy tomorrow at 2pm

A default duration of 30 minutes is assumed

• Football game on Saturday for 2h at 3pm
• Publish resume on Sunday for 10 minutes

The console will look for the first available opening on Sunday for 10 minutes

Schedule regular meeting

Routine provides the with keyword to specify participants, resulting in the ability to schedule meetings.

A few points must be noted:

1. The console will assume default values if some properties are missing, most notably Today will be used if no date is provided and 30 minutes will be assumed for the duration is omitted
2. If no time is provided, the console will try to find the first time available time to allocate. See for more information.

4. Text

Add text

In addition to creating tasks and events, Routine also allows to add text directly in the notes of any object as part of your knowledge graph.

In order to reference the target object, the user must make use of the redirection functionality through the > and / keywords.

Also, make sure that an object (task, event, page, person, tag etc.) is referenced. Referencing a calendar for instance would not work because calendar are not Routine objects with notes.

🗝️ Keywords

Below are listed the keywords Routine supports:

• on
• in
• at
• for
• this
• next
• with
• every
• starting
• until
• >
• /

🤔 Completion

The console comes with a powerful completion mechanism which suggests the most likely items you are likely to type next, saving you precise time.

We advise you to make use of this mechanism as often as possible to increase your productivity.

Whenever the console displays suggestions, you can use the ↑↓ arrows to navigate and press ⇥ (TAB) or ↵ to validate the element you want to select.

👉 Redirection

If often happens when you capture a task, note, thought etc. that this information needs to be organized, next to other information on the same topic for instance, being movies to watch, stuff related to your house, a person or even a project.

Routine allows to specify the parent in which the object should be created. The same mechanism is used for specifying the calendar which should hold an event.

In order to specify the holder, use the > character followed by the name of the parent object or the name of the calendar.

You can go one step further and use the / character as a separator to indicate the heading (H1/H2/H3) under which the created object should be placed.

👾 Specials

Some actions are so common that it would be nice to be able to do without the keywords for those.

Routine can therefore detect the special words below without the need to use keywords

• today
• tomorrow, tmr

The same is true for default ranges:

• morning
• afternoon
• evening

🙅 Escaping

Sometimes, you want to type text that include a word that the console interprets as a keyword e.g in, on, every etc. or as a special e.g tomorrow.

In order to tell Routine not to interpret a word, just hit ⎋ (ESCAPE) on the keyword or when suggestions are displayed and the console will consider the input as normal text.

🎭 Formats

Routine supports the following formats.

Date

• Day: Friday, Monday, etc.
• Month: September etc. in which case Routine converts into a full date for the 1st day of the given month
• Year: 2023, 2025 etc.
• Date: December 14th, the 12th of February 2021, etc.

Time

• AM/PM: 2pm, 10:30am etc.
• 24h: 13, 19:45 etc.

Duration

• Minutes: 30m, 30min etc.
• Hour: 1h, 2h15, 1h30min etc.

Frequency

• Day of the week: Monday, Friday etc.
• Period: day, week, month, quarter, year
• Other: workweek

✋

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