How it works
From ten years to today
This page describes the design. The planner’s date rules are written and tested. The rest is planned and not built.
The goal cascade
Goals sit at seven horizons: ten years, three years, one year, the quarter, the month, the week and the day. Each goal points at one goal on the horizon above. A goal has a title, a reason, and optionally a measure: a number with a unit, or simply done or not done.
Goals will be written on ordinary notebook pages. The Planner notebook gets a Goals tab for the long horizons and a tab for the current quarter.
Two ways to start
- Top down. Start at ten years and work toward today. At each step you see the goal above and answer one question: what would move it?
- Bottom up. Start with this week and work upward. Ten years is a lot to ask on a first visit, so the longer horizons can wait for your first weekly review.
Every step can be skipped and picked up later.
Tasks and checkboxes are the same thing
A checkbox you write on a page and a task in your task list will be one task, not two copies. The page is where you write. The list is what views, the API and Nabu read. A task with no goal is allowed, and it is flagged so you can see it.
Twelve execution weeks, then Review and Plan
A quarter is thirteen whole weeks. Weeks 1 to 12 are for doing the work. Week 13 is Review and Plan: score the quarter against its goals, decide what carries over, and set up the next one.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13 (Review and Plan)
- Execution week
- Review and Plan week
The date rules Written and tested
This is the one part of the planner that exists in code today. It is a set of pure date functions with tests, not a screen you can use.
- A week belongs to the fiscal year that contains its fourth day. With weeks starting on Monday and the year starting in January, this is ISO 8601 week numbering.
- Quarters 1, 2 and 3 are thirteen weeks each. Quarter 4 is the rest of the year: thirteen weeks, or fourteen in a 53-week year, when it gets two Review and Plan weeks.
- Because quarters are whole weeks, their edges can sit up to about a week away from the month edges. For example, Q4 2026 runs from 28 September 2026 to 3 January 2027.
- The week start day (Monday by default) and the month the fiscal year starts in (January by default) are settings.
Inside a quarter tab, each week will have a page and each day a sub-page, created when you need it. The next quarter’s tab will appear in week 12.
What Nabu will do Planned
Nabu is the agent layer. It reads the notebook and works on six jobs. None of them is built yet.
| Job | When | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Capture | A chat message, a shared link, a transcript | Text filed on the right page, with tasks pulled out |
| Organize | New or imported pages | A suggested location and links. It will not move pages without your consent |
| Align | A task is created or changed | The task linked to a goal, or flagged as unaligned |
| Prioritize | Each morning, or when you ask | An ordered plan for the day, with a reason for each item, sized to the time you have |
| Review | End of each week, and the Review and Plan week | A scorecard against your goals, and proposals for what to carry over |
| Delegate | A task assigned to an agent | A brief sent to the agent you connected, and the result attached to the task |
Rules Nabu is designed to follow
- Imported notes, transcripts and replies from other agents are treated as data, never as instructions.
- Deleting, moving pages in bulk, sending anything outside your workspace and delegating to another agent need your approval, unless you change that policy yourself.
- Every run is logged with what was read, what was done and what it cost, and you can see the log.
- Agents you connect start as “propose only”. You choose whether one may read, propose, act with approval or act freely.
Nabu reads your notes on the server. That is why version 1 has no end-to-end encryption. What that means for your notes.