NerveDay — a short guide

Getting started

A guide walks you through the first launch. For each permission — Calendar, Reminders, Contacts and Notifications — it first explains what NerveDay needs it for and what it does not do with your data. The screen has a single Continue button, and then the system asks. Steps without a permission, such as the typeface or importing, can be skipped and set up later.

• ·Calendar and Reminders — NerveDay reads and writes them only through the system. Accounts such as iCloud, Google or Exchange stay set up in the system, and whatever you save stays in Calendar and Reminders, even if you delete NerveDay.
• ·GTD lists — NerveDay needs three lists in Reminders: Inbox, Waiting for and Someday. It finds them by name and creates the ones that are missing. Every other list is a project.
• ·Contacts — read only: birthdays on the Today screen and call and message buttons next to people you mention as @name. NerveDay never changes Contacts.
• ·Notifications — the morning summary and alerts for events and tasks. This is also where you choose who alerts you (see Alerts).
• ·Lock — optionally lock NerveDay with Face ID or Touch ID; it is off by default.
• ·Coming from another app? — tasks from Todoist or Things and notes from Apple Notes. You see what will come over before anything is written.

The guide ends with Check: you see for each permission whether it is allowed, and an Open Settings button where it is not. Declining never breaks the app — the part concerned explains what is missing and the rest keeps working. To run the guide again, go to Settings ▸ Run the guide again.

Settings are under ⋯ in the Today header on iPhone, below the sidebar on iPad, and in the NerveDay menu on the Mac (⌘,).

Today

Your morning in one look: the date with public holidays and name days, the day's progress, the next event with a countdown, your schedule, Today's steps, notes, Waiting for, anniversaries and a preview of tomorrow.

• ·Schedule — events from the calendars you show, with the free time between them; overlapping events are marked as conflicts. Tap an event to open it, touch and hold for a preview.
• ·The next event — a card with a countdown and, for an online meeting with NerveDay Plus, a Join button. On iPhone the next event also rides above the tab bar.
• ·Today's steps — today's reminders. Swipe right to tick one off, left to move it to tomorrow.
• ·Inbox — when something is waiting there, Today offers Process Inbox with the number of new items.
• ·Birthdays and anniversaries — from Contacts and from the anniversaries you add in Settings ▸ Anniversaries, with the age and Call and Message buttons.
• ·Holidays — public holidays of Czechia, the United Kingdom or the United States, and name days, next to the date (Settings ▸ Home screen).

Choose what Today shows and in which order in Settings ▸ Home screen ▸ Order and what to show, and your own background photo in Settings ▸ Appearance ▸ Today wallpaper.

Looking back and the weekly review

From 7 p.m. Today opens as Looking back: how many steps you got done, and a button that moves the rest to tomorrow. At other times, open it from the ⋯ menu in the Today header, or from the window toolbar on the Mac.

On review day (Friday by default), from noon on, Today reminds you of the weekly review. It takes you through four parts: the Inbox, projects without a next action, Waiting for and Someday. Change the day and time of the reminder in Settings ▸ Notifications ▸ Notification details.

Calendar

Day, 3 days, Week, Month, Year and Agenda views; days and months scroll smoothly.

• ·A new event — drag across an empty spot in the grid, use the + button, or quick entry.
• ·Moving and resizing — drag an event elsewhere, or drag its edge to change its length. On iPhone and iPad, touch and hold it in the grid first. On the Mac, drag with ⌥ to make a copy.
• ·Event details — repeat, alerts, the location with a map and directions, a link, attendees and their replies; Duplicate and Hide in NerveDay.
• ·Deleting — for 5 seconds you can tap Undo. After that, the deletion in Calendar is permanent.
• ·Hide in NerveDay — one occurrence or the whole series disappears in NerveDay only and stays in Calendar. Bring it back in Settings ▸ Calendar ▸ Hidden events.
• ·Which calendars you see — tap a calendar to hide it; Show only this calendar leaves just that one. Save a combination you like as a calendar set.
• ·Colors and new calendars — change a calendar's color in Apple Calendar or only in NerveDay, and create a new calendar right from NerveDay (Settings ▸ Calendar ▸ Calendars and colors).
• ·Display — the first day of the week, the number of days in the week view, weeks in the month view, the range of hours, highlighted weekends, dimmed past events and week numbers (Settings ▸ Calendar ▸ Calendar view). Settings ▸ Calendar also has a second time zone and tasks in the calendar.
• ·Zoom — pinch to zoom the grid; with a keyboard, ⌘+, ⌘− and ⌘0.
• ·Keys — with a keyboard, D, W, M and Y switch the view, T jumps to today, C creates an event and the arrows move. Turn single-key shortcuts off in Settings ▸ Keyboard.

Tasks the GTD way

Every task is a reminder in Apple Reminders, so you see it there too and on all your devices. On top of them NerveDay builds Getting Things Done:

• ·Inbox — everything new lands here until you sort it.
• ·Next actions — what you can do right now, grouped by context (@phone, @computer…).
• ·Projects — every other list in Reminders is a project, and its first open task is the next action. A project opens as a page with its tasks, notes and events, which you edit right there.
• ·Waiting for — what you handed to someone else.
• ·Someday — ideas without a date.
• ·Smart lists — Due today with a This evening section, Upcoming, Scheduled, All tasks and Completed.

Choose which lists are the Inbox, Waiting for and Someday in Settings ▸ Inbox and lists.

Processing the Inbox

Process Inbox (⇧⌘P on the Mac) shows one item at a time and asks what to do with it: Done in 2 min, Next action, Waiting for…, To a project, Someday, Reference or Delete. With a keyboard, 2, N, W, P, S, R and ⌫ are enough. Deleting can be undone for 5 seconds.

Working with tasks quickly

• ·Swipe a row — right for done, left for Schedule or Delete. On the Mac the same actions are in the context menu and the Task menu.
• ·Schedule — Today, This evening, Tomorrow, This weekend, Next week, Someday or a date. With a keyboard, ⌘D and then T, E, M, W, N, S or X (remove the date).
• ·Upcoming — a week strip, what is overdue, the next 14 days with events and tasks, and later. Drag a task onto another day and it keeps its time.
• ·Subtasks — a checklist in the reminder's notes (☐ / ☑); the task's row shows the progress, such as 2/5.
• ·Contexts and tags — @context and #tag. Reminders does not know them, so NerveDay keeps them, together with subtasks, in the reminder's notes, and nothing gets lost.
• ·Selecting several — with Select (on the Mac ⌘-click and ⇧-click), then mark done, schedule, move, set the priority or a context, or delete them all at once.
• ·Your own order — drag tasks to reorder them, on the Mac also with ⌥⌘↑ and ⌥⌘↓. NerveDay keeps the order in your iCloud; Reminders keeps its own.
• ·People — write @Jana in a task and a Call button appears next to it; touch and hold for a message, FaceTime, e-mail or the contact card.

Notes

Notes are NerveDay's own content. They are stored on your device and in your iCloud, so you have them on iPhone, iPad and Mac.

• ·Blocks — type “/” and pick a heading, a list, a checklist, a table, a quote, a code block, a tip, a warning or a divider. A heading folds away everything under it.
• ·Tables that calculate — formulas such as =B2*C2, =SUM(D2:D5), =AVERAGE(B:B), IF or ROUND, in English and in Czech (SUMA, PRŮMĚR, KDYŽ, ZAOKROUHLIT…). A total row is one command away.
• ·Code — a code block detects the language and colors it.
• ·Links between notes — type [[ and pick a note. Every note shows what links to it.
• ·Attachments — drop an e-mail from Mail, a PDF, a photo, a file or a link into a note. Scan documents with the camera, and draw.
• ·Templates — a meeting, a shopping list, a doctor's visit, a trip and more; save your own with Save as template.
• ·Meeting note — start one from the event's details.
• ·Keeping order — pinned notes, tags, and the Cards, Rows, Rows with preview or Table view.
• ·Versions and trash — restore an earlier version of a note; a deleted note waits in the trash.
• ·Lock — lock single notes with Face ID or Touch ID.
• ·Sharing — send a note as text or a PDF, copy it as Markdown, or print it. Share with people… through iCloud is part of NerveDay Plus.

Quick entry

The Quick entry button in the iPhone tab bar, ⌘N, or ⌃⌥N anywhere on the Mac. Write the way you speak, in English or Czech; you can mix the two. Before you save, NerveDay shows what it understood.

• ·With a time it is an event — “tomorrow at 10 dentist” saves an event in Calendar with your default alert (Settings ▸ Notifications ▸ Alert for new events).
• ·Without a time it is a task — “by Friday offer @computer” saves a task with a due date and a context into the Inbox.
• ·A note — switch Kind to Note; the whole text is saved.
• ·When — today, tomorrow, day after tomorrow, on Monday, Dec 24, in an hour; at 10, 10:30, 5pm, noon, morning, afternoon, evening; from 2pm to 4pm, for half an hour.
• ·Repeat — daily, every Tuesday, every other Friday, every month, every weekday.
• ·#name — a calendar or a list; the start of the name is enough. If none matches, the default is used and the preview says so.
• ·@context — the task's context, such as @phone.
• ·! — Important.
• ·Conflicts — when a new event overlaps another, the preview tells you before you save.

You can also pick the Kind (Auto, Event, Task, Note) yourself, and dictate with the keyboard's microphone instead of typing. You can add entries from Control Center (New Entry), from the Share menu in other apps and from Shortcuts too.

Search

The Search everywhere magnifier on Today and ⌘K open one search for events, tasks, notes and people from Contacts. The same rules apply to search in Notes, Calendar and Tasks.

• ·Parts of words and typos — “kitch” finds Kitchen, and one typo in a longer word is forgiven. Capitals and accents never matter.
• ·#tag and @context — keep only items with that tag or context; the start is enough (#kitch).
• ·“Exact words” — in quotes they must appear together; -word leaves out items that contain it.
• ·Commands — the ⌘K palette also takes you to a screen or a list, creates a new entry, a new note or the daily note, and switches the calendar view.
• ·Type to search — with a keyboard, just start typing on Today, in Tasks or in the notes list, and the palette opens with what you typed.

Widgets and Live Activity

Add widgets to the Home Screen on iPhone and iPad and to the desktop on the Mac:

• ·Date — today's date in the style of the NerveDay icon, on the Lock Screen too.
• ·Next event — what comes next, with a countdown.
• ·Today's steps — today's reminders, ticked off right on the widget.
• ·Day — the rest of today's events and steps, ticked off right there.
• ·Controls — New Entry and New Note for Control Center, and on the Mac for the menu bar too.

• ·Live Activity — on iPhone the next event appears on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island with a countdown, and stays until it ends; for an online meeting with NerveDay Plus, with a Join button. Turn it on in Settings ▸ Notifications ▸ Notification details ▸ Live Activity for the next event, and pick 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes in Show before the start. All-day events and events longer than 8 hours do not get one. iPad does not show Live Activities; on the Mac the menu bar item takes their place (see The Mac).

Shortcuts and Siri

NerveDay offers these actions in the Shortcuts app:

• ·Add Entry — writes text just like quick entry.
• ·Day Summary, Next Event, Today's Steps — tell you what today holds.
• ·Complete Task
• ·Create Note, Append to Note, Find Notes, Open Note
• ·Export Note, Export All Notes, Import Notes
• ·New Entry, New Note, Open Today — open NerveDay in the right place.

Siri understands phrases such as “What's on my NerveDay today”, “What's next in NerveDay” or “Add to NerveDay”. The spoken phrases are in English; the actions are translated.

• ·Focus — the NerveDay filter (Settings ▸ Focus) can keep a single context and hide some calendars while a Focus is on.
• ·Spotlight — finds notes, events and steps; turn events and steps off in NerveDay's Settings (Events and steps in Spotlight).

While NerveDay is locked, actions that read something ask you to unlock it first; adding still works.

The Mac

NerveDay for Mac is a native app with real windows and menus, not an iPad version carried over. It does everything iPhone and iPad do, and more:

• ·Menus and shortcuts — every action has a menu item (File, Edit, Task, Go, Note, Format, View). Help ▸ Keyboard Shortcuts (⌘/) lists them all, with search and printing.
• ·The ⌘K palette — search and commands in one place.
• ·The menu bar — the NerveDay icon next to the clock opens today's events and steps (tick them off right there), Quick Entry… and Open NerveDay. With NerveDay Plus, the menu bar shows the next event with a countdown when it starts within the hour, and the panel has a Join button.
• ·Quick entry from any app — ⌃⌥N in any app; turn it off in Settings ▸ System.
• ·Services and Share — other apps have Add to NerveDay and New Note in NerveDay in their Services menu, and NerveDay is in the Share menu too (text, links, e-mails, images).
• ·Windows and the sidebar — several windows (⌥⌘N); customize the sidebar in View ▸ Edit Sidebar…: hide, reorder and rename groups.
• ·Mouse and trackpad — a preview when the pointer rests on an item (you can turn it off in Settings), and ⌘-click and ⇧-click to select several tasks.

Common shortcuts: ⌘N new entry · ⇧⌘N new note · ⇧⌘E new event · ⇧⌘R new reminder · ⌘1 to ⌘7 Today, Inbox, Calendar, Next actions, Projects, Notes, Review · ⌘T today · ⇧⌘C done · ⌘D schedule · ⇧⌘P process the Inbox · ⌘F find · ⌘/ the shortcut legend. The same shortcuts work on an iPad with a keyboard.

Alerts

In the setup guide and in Settings ▸ Notifications ▸ Who alerts you, you choose:

• ·NerveDay (default) — NerveDay reads the alerts stored with events and reminders and sends its own notifications with Join (meetings, with NerveDay Plus), Done (tasks) and Snooze buttons. It never changes or deletes the alerts in Calendar and Reminders. To avoid double alerts, turn off notifications for Calendar and Reminders in the system Settings.
• ·Calendar and Reminders — Apple's apps alert you as before, and NerveDay sends only the morning summary.

Settings ▸ Notifications ▸ Notification details also has:

• ·Alert me about — events, all-day events, tasks with a time, and birthdays and anniversaries the day before.
• ·Calendars and lists that alert — a calendar or list that is off never alerts through NerveDay; nothing changes in Calendar and Reminders.
• ·Quiet hours — alerts that would come during them are not planned; the morning summary is not affected.
• ·Summaries and reviews — the time of the morning summary and the weekly review reminder.

Settings ▸ Notifications also has the badge on the icon (Inbox or Today's steps). Location-based alerts are always handled by Apple Reminders. Notification delivery depends on the system, so check important dates yourself.

Backup, export and import

Calendar and Reminders are backed up by Apple along with your accounts. You back up NerveDay's notes in Settings ▸ Backup and export:

• ·Export all notes… — a folder of Markdown files with attachments, readable without NerveDay. The export is not encrypted; locked notes are left out unless they are open.
• ·Weekly backup — once a week NerveDay saves all notes with attachments, including locked notes and the trash, encrypted into a “NerveDay Backup” folder in a place you choose, for example iCloud Drive. The last 8 weeks are kept. The password has at least 8 characters; without it nobody can open a backup, and NerveDay cannot recover it for you. Back up now runs a backup right away.
• ·Restore from a backup — NerveDay decrypts a backup into a folder of Markdown files; bring the notes back through Notes ▸ Import.

Export a single note from its menu, or with the Export Note action in Shortcuts.

Import from other apps

Settings ▸ Import from other apps brings over:

• ·Todoist — a project's CSV or a ZIP backup; projects become lists in Reminders.
• ·Things 3 — the Things database from your Mac or iPhone; projects and areas become lists, project notes become notes.
• ·Apple Notes — an export to Markdown with attachments, PDFs, a folder or a ZIP; folders become tags.

Before anything is written you see what goes where and what does not come over. Importing again adds no duplicates, and Remove this import takes the whole import back.

NerveDay Plus

Everything you need for the day is free: Today, the calendar, tasks, notes and iCloud sync. On iPhone and iPad the free version shows an ad banner at the bottom of lists — never on the Today screen, in widgets or on the Mac. Ads are never personalized; change your consent in Settings ▸ Ad privacy (shown in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland).

Plus (Settings ▸ NerveDay Plus) adds:

• ·No ads — nowhere in the app.
• ·Meeting links — join Zoom, Teams, Meet, Webex and FaceTime with one tap: in the event's details, on Today, in the notification and in the Live Activity.
• ·Note sharing — Share with people… through iCloud; only the people you invite see the note.
• ·Your own color schemes — pick the accent and the backgrounds (Settings ▸ Appearance ▸ Color schemes).
• ·Meetings in the Mac menu bar — the next event with a countdown right in the menu bar.
• ·The Mail extension on the Mac.

Buy Plus monthly, yearly or once for good. One purchase works on iPhone, iPad and Mac and is shared with your family through Family Sharing. On a new device, tap Restore Purchases; manage the subscription with Manage Subscription. Prices are on the NerveDay page under Versions and prices.

Where your data lives

• ·Events and tasks — in Apple Calendar and Reminders, in the accounts set up on your device (iCloud, Google, Exchange…). NerveDay never connects to those accounts itself, and whatever it saves stays there after you delete it.
• ·Notes, attachments and settings — on your device and in your private iCloud database; Apple syncs them between devices signed in with the same Apple Account. Settings ▸ Sync shows how it is going.
• ·Only on this device — hidden events, your own note templates, the Today wallpaper and the lock setting.
• ·No account, no servers of ours, no AI — NerveDay sends nothing to us. The only exception is Google's ad banner in the free version for iPhone and iPad (see the Privacy Policy).
• ·The lock — Settings ▸ Privacy and lock: Lock NerveDay (immediately, or after 1, 5 or 15 minutes) and Lock notes too. Widgets, the Live Activity, notifications and Spotlight follow the system's privacy settings and are not covered by the lock.
• ·When something goes wrong — errors in the app carry a code. Tap Copy diagnostics in Settings and send it to apps@techwizards.cz; it contains only codes and device state, never the text of your notes.
• ·Deleting the app — events and tasks stay in Calendar and Reminders, and notes stay in your iCloud until you delete them in Settings ▸ your name ▸ iCloud ▸ Manage Storage ▸ NerveDay.