What you can type
The dates, times, tags, projects and commands Diurnal understands on the first line of a task, with examples.
Diurnal reads the first line of each task as you type. Words it understands are dimmed, and when the task is saved they come out of the title and become its date, time, tags or project. Capital letters don't matter.
"pay rent friday 4pm #home" becomes pay rent, on Friday at 4:00 PM, tagged home.
Days
| Type | Means |
|---|---|
today, tod | Today |
tomorrow, tmr, tmrw, tom | Tomorrow |
monday, mon … sunday, sun | The coming one, never today |
next tuesday | The Tuesday after the coming one |
next week | Next Monday |
next month | The 1st of next month |
this weekend, next weekend | The coming Saturday, or the one after |
in 3 days, in 2 weeks | That many days from now |
sep 3, 3rd sep, january 5 2027 | That date |
2026-12-05, 5/12 | That date; day or month first follows your Mac's region |
A date already past this year means next year: "taxes jan 5" typed in February files for next January.
Times
| Type | Means |
|---|---|
5pm, 5:30pm, 17:30 | That time |
at 9, by 14 | A bare number after a word like at is a 24-hour time, so at 5 is 5:00 AM |
morning | 9:00 AM |
noon | 12:00 PM |
afternoon | 3:00 PM |
eod | 5:00 PM today |
evening, tonight | 7:00 PM |
in 20m, in 2 hours | That long from now |
2-4pm | Starts at 2:00 PM |
A time is also a reminder. A time already past today means tomorrow. Day and time go in either order: "call mom 5pm tomorrow" works.
Tags and projects
#hometags the task, if you already have a tag called home. To make a new tag, type # and choose Create "#name" from the card. See Tags.+Kyotoputs the task in the Kyoto project, and creates the project if it doesn't exist yet. See Projects.
Commands
Type a slash at the start of a new line:
/taskor/reminder(or/r): a task, or one with a time to ring./cal: a Google Calendar event. See Google Calendar.- A section's name, such as
/weekly,/doneor/pomodoro, jumps there.
Keep a word as plain text
If Diurnal reads a word you meant literally, like "email tom", click the dimmed word or press ⌫ right after it. It stays plain text.
What Diurnal doesn't read
- "someday" or "later": use Move to › All Time instead.
- "every Monday" or "daily": set a repeat instead. See Recurring tasks.
- "the day after tomorrow", and two-letter days like "sa".
If a line has two dates, the first one counts and the rest stay in the title.