The Threshold
Every new task gets a conviction score from 0 to 100. Below 90, the app stops you and asks whether it really deserves room — and offers Discard first, not last.
Finite by design
A planner that tells you to stop.
Every other to-do app is a bucket with no bottom. You add, and add, and the list quietly becomes a record of everything you are failing to do. efeque does the opposite: it holds three things, questions the fourth, and shuts the day when the day is over. It keeps score — but only of work you actually finished, and of the rest you actually took.
Accounts are created by your administrator — there is no sign-up form, and nothing to cancel.
The premise
You will not get to the bottom of the list.
Not because you are disorganised — because the list is infinite and you are not. Once you accept that, planning stops being about squeezing more in and starts being about choosing well.
Our first rule
A day has edges. Work will expand until something stops it, so something here has to stop it.
Our second rule
Rest is not what's left over once the work is done. The work is never done, so rest goes in first.
efeque is an independent product. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any author, book, publisher or productivity programme.
How it works
A dozen constraints, doing all the work.
A hard limit of three
The Today column physically refuses a fourth task. Not a warning you can click past — the card will not drop. Finish something or let it go first.
123
4
Three is the ceiling.
True time, not hoped-for time
You say sixty minutes. You have always meant ninety. Every estimate is widened by half again and shown that way, so the day you plan is the day you actually get.
60 mins
90 mins (true time)
Rest is scheduled first
Rest and joy get their own blocks, booked like meetings. If the day has none, the planner says so — gently, once, without a red badge or a guilt streak.
17:30 · Walk without headphones · 45 mins
The Handoff
One button closes the day and asks the only question that helps: what are you leaving ready for tomorrow? Then the board empties, and you are finished.
Leaving ready for tomorrow…
Shoes by the door.
To Delegate, not to swallow
Before anything is added, one question has to be answered: whose job is this, really? Answer “someone else’s” and it leaves your board in two deliberate steps: hand it to a named person, then confirm when they finish. Nothing is banked in between.
Chase the invoice · with Priya
Waiting on them → confirm → archived. Or take it back.
Categories that carry weight
Label work and rest with your own categories, and give each one a points-per-hour rate. Deep work can be worth three times an errand — because to you, it is.
Deep work · 10/hr
Admin · 4/hr
Movement · 10/hr
Deadlines, only when real
An optional date, shown on the card and nowhere else. No countdown, no escalating colour, no email. It tells you what is due; it does not nag you about it.
due 20 Aug
due today
An archive, not a report card
Every closed day is kept. Look back by day, week or month and see what you actually did, what you handed over, how much rest you genuinely took, and which categories the points came from.
DayWeekMonth
Routines, ticked not tracked
The small things you want to keep doing, with an honest frequency: every day, or three times a week, or twice a month. Tick them as they happen. A routine worth zero points is perfectly valid — some things are worth doing unscored.
✓ Walk before lunch
○ Inbox to zero
No streaks. Missing a day costs you nothing but the day.
Three ways to say “not now”
Not Today, Not This Week, Not This Month. Push something further out without pretending you have dropped it, and without it staring at you. All three stay collapsed until you ask.
Not Today 4
Not This Week 2
Not This Month 7
Nothing is deleted in anger
Maybe Later holds what you have neither committed to nor rejected. Discarded keeps what you let go, in case you were wrong. Both stay shut and out of the way, and nothing actually disappears until you say so twice.
The scoring
Points you cannot farm.
Most productivity scoring is a slot machine: streaks to protect, numbers that only ever go up, and a quiet suggestion that yesterday wasn’t enough. efeque keeps score differently, on purpose.
Points come from finishing, never from adding
A task is worth its category’s hourly rate times your own estimate. Nothing is banked until the work is actually done, so a long list earns exactly nothing.
Two currencies that never convert
Task points and rest points are counted separately and never added together. You cannot pay off a skipped walk with an extra hour of work, because the app refuses to do that arithmetic.
Delegating still counts
Handing work over earns a share of its points — yours to set, 20% by default. Getting something off your plate is a result, so the score stops punishing you for it.
Goals are lines, not debts
Set a daily target for each currency, or set none at all. Miss it and the app says the day was lighter. There is no streak to break, nothing to catch up on, and no notification either way.
Rewards
Points you actually spend on something.
A score with nothing behind it is just a number that goes up. So you define what the points are for: name a reward, set the threshold, and let it sit there being worth working toward.
- As many as you like, always ordered lowest first
- Counted from your very first day — nothing resets
- Checked when you close the day, never mid-task
- Once earned, earned for good
Honest estimates earn more than brave ones, because the buffer is applied to the number you actually gave.
Who it's for
People who are good at their work and bad at stopping.
If your list is long because you are capable, not because you are lazy, this is built for you. It will not help you do more. It is not trying to.
- You finish the day unsure what you actually did
- Your estimates are honest and still always wrong
- You say yes quickly and regret it slowly
- Rest is what happens if there's time left, and there never is
- Your to-do app has become a monument to guilt
- You take on work that was never yours, then resent it
Under the hood
Deliberately small.
No framework, no build step, no dependency to update at midnight. It is the same discipline as the product itself.
- PHPserver & API
- Vanilla JSno framework
Three things. Then quiet.
That is the whole product. It fits on a business card because it has to.
Open the planner