How to use Busy

Busy is a to-do list you just type: your tasks are plain text in a notebook that scrolls through your week, and a handful of typed conventions — @3pm, @@ every weekday, !note — quietly handle scheduling, repeats and notes. This guide covers everything. It's free to use: open a notebook and follow along.

Contents

• Getting started
• Your week on one page
• Schedule with @ times
• Recurring tasks with @@
• Markdown notes with !note
• Complete & organise
• Track time on a task
• Stats & metadata charts
• Live sync & offline
• On your phone
• Connect Claude
• Keyboard shortcuts

Getting started

Sign up (email or Google — no credit card), open a notebook, and type. Each bullet is a task. Press Enter for a new task; Tab nests a task under the one above it, so subtasks are just indented bullets. There is no separate "add task" form anywhere — the page is the list.

Your week on one page

A bold header like 22/07/2026 - Tuesday starts a date section, and Busy automatically keeps the next seven days inserted for you — today highlighted, past days grey, future days green. Your week is one scrollable page: no tabs, no calendar view to click through. Anything typed under a day belongs to that day, and the Catch up button brings overdue tasks forward into today when life happens.

Schedule with @ times

Give any task a time by typing it, the way you'd write it on paper:

• Call the dentist @3pm
• Standup @9:30am · Deploy @15:00 · Gym @1730
• Time zones work too: Team call @9am EST

A scheduled task shows a clock, turns amber once its time has passed, and shows as overdue (red) on past days. Allow browser notifications and Busy reminds you about overdue tasks periodically — including a badge on the browser tab icon.

Recurring tasks with @@

Type a rule in plain English on any line starting with @@ and Busy files it into a Recurring tasks section at the top of the notebook. Each rule then drops its task onto the right days automatically, with its time attached. Examples that work as written:

Bound a rule with for 6 weeks or from 2026-01-01. Hover any recurring task to see how its rule was understood and when it will next occur.

Markdown notes with !note

Type !note inside a task and it becomes a 📝 link that opens a full-screen markdown editor with live preview and syntax-highlighted code blocks. The note travels with its task — copy or move the task and the note comes along; there's no separate documents area to lose track of. For a quick annotation, an all-italic line sits under a task as a note that can't be completed and isn't counted as a task. A persistent Notes section also lives at the top of the notebook for free-form notes not tied to a date.

Complete & organise

• Cmd/Ctrl + Enter or double-click a task → complete (and back).
• Tab / Shift + Tab → indent / outdent.
• Double-click a parent task → collapse or expand its subtasks (remembered per notebook).
• Copy or cut a task and you get the task, its nested subtasks and its 📝 note as one unit; pasted HTML from elsewhere is cleaned up automatically.

Track time on a task

Put the cursor in a task and press Work (or Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + P) to start a timer on it. A green dot and the elapsed time show while it runs; only one task runs at a time, so starting another pauses the first. Completing a running task banks its time, and hovering any task shows when it was added and completed and how long you worked on it.

Stats & metadata charts

The Stats panel charts tasks added and completed over time. Log anything else as an italic #key value line under a day — #weight 78.4, #distance 5km — and Busy charts the trend; #weight and #distance get tailored charts.

Live sync & offline

Changes autosave, and the same notebook can be open on as many devices and tabs as you like — edits made elsewhere appear live within a second or two while you keep typing. You can keep editing offline or through a connection hiccup; changes sync when you reconnect. Everything you type stays yours: export all notebooks any time from the Download All button.

On your phone

Busy works in the mobile browser with a thumb-sized action bar that appears above the keyboard whenever the cursor is in a task: complete, indent/outdent, move up/down, open the note, start the timer. Add Busy to your Home Screen (Share → Add to Home Screen) and it runs full-screen like an app — nothing to install from a store.

Connect Claude

Busy ships a remote MCP connector, so Claude (claude.ai or Claude Desktop) can read and update your tasks with your permission: add https://get-busy.app/mcp as a custom connector and approve access. Ask Claude to add tasks, plan your week or tick things off. Revoke access any time under Notebooks → Connected apps. Step-by-step instructions.

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