1. Empty your head first
Before you decide anything, write down everything that's on your mind: calls to make, things you promised, errands, half-formed worries. It takes two minutes and it stops the list from rattling around while you work.
Don't sort as you go. A plain list is fine. In Louryx you type a task the way you'd say it, like “Call mom tomorrow 5pm”, and it lands on the right day at the right time. Anything without a date stays in your list until you place it.
2. Choose the three things that would make today a good day
Look at the list and ask a simple question: if only three things got done today, which three would I be glad about tonight? Those are your priorities. Everything else is optional, and that's a relief, not a failure.
Three is a deliberate number. It's enough to move real work forward and small enough to survive interruptions. If one of the three is big, break off the first step (“draft the outline”) instead of writing the whole project down as one task.
3. Give each one a time, and look at the whole day
A task without a time competes with everything else all day long. A task with a time has a place. Put your three priorities into the hours you actually have, around meetings and commitments, with a little buffer between them.
Seeing the day as a timeline makes this honest: you notice quickly when four hours of work won't fit into two free hours. In Louryx, switch Today to “By time” to see your tasks as blocks on the clock, drag a block to move it, and keep anything not yet scheduled in its own small list above the timeline.
4. Plan for your energy, not just your hours
Two people with the same calendar can have very different days. If you slept badly, a day of deep work is a plan to feel behind. Match the work to your energy: demanding tasks when you're sharp, small admin tasks when you're not.
Louryx asks how your energy is in the morning (low, steady or high). On a low day, Plan my day puts lighter tasks first and offers to move deep-focus work to a better day; it never moves anything without asking.
5. Close the day in two minutes
The end of the day is where most plans quietly fall apart: unfinished tasks pile up and tomorrow starts with guilt. A short shutdown routine fixes that.
- Check off what you finished, even small things.
- Move what's left to a real day instead of “someday”.
- Write one line about how the day went.
- Glance at tomorrow's first task, so the morning starts easy.
Common mistakes to avoid
A few habits quietly break most daily plans. Watch for these in your first week:
- Planning more hours of work than the day has free.
- Leaving priorities without a time, so they drift to the evening.
- Treating an unfinished task as a failure instead of moving it to a real day.
- Rebuilding the whole system every Monday instead of keeping the routine short.
Make it a habit, not a project
The best daily planner is the one you open every day, so keep the routine short. Five minutes in the morning and two in the evening is plenty. In Louryx, “Finish my day” walks you through the evening part, and anything you didn't get to waits under “From earlier” the next morning instead of disappearing or piling up.
You can try every feature free for seven days without a card, and tasks stay unlimited on the free plan afterwards.