Float, surface, sink, anchor

Float

The life-ring on a todo. Floating lifts it out of the ordinary list into a band of its own at the very top, and holds it there. It is the one thing in Float that holds a todo at the top.

Use it for the thing you refuse to lose. Floated todos are drawn with a coral ring, they always appear in Today, and they stay floated until you unfloat them or take them off the list. That last part is what makes Float different from Surface: floating a todo is also how you get it into Today.

Unfloating sends a todo to the top of the ordinary list, just below anything still floated or due. You floated it because it mattered, so letting go of the ring leaves it where you can still see it rather than dropping it back into the middle of the list. If that was not what you wanted, the notice at the bottom of the screen has Undo in it, which puts the todo back exactly where it was.

Not today, but come back Thursday

Press and hold a floated todo and you can defer it, the same command that pushes a dated todo's date, doing the matching thing to a float. It leaves Today and comes back, floated, on the day you picked: tomorrow, or the start of next week. Deferring a float does not give the todo a due date, so it never turns red for being late to something you never promised.

While it waits, the todo wears a hollow ring and the day it comes back: Sep 3. Tap that mark to float it now rather than waiting. To call the whole thing off, float it and then unfloat it, two taps of the one control. Note that the second tap also moves the todo to the top of the ordinary list, so if you wanted it left alone, use Undo in the notice that appears.

Giving the todo a due date before that day calls it off too: the hollow ring and its day go, and the todo turns up in Today on its due date instead. A due date on or after that day changes nothing, and it still comes back floated.

Surface

Sends a todo to the top of the ordinary todos, below anything floated or due. It means "up": you have not pinned it and it does not join Today, but it stays where you put it. New todos go in at the bottom, so adding things will not push it back down; only surfacing something else will.

Sink

Sends a todo to the bottom. It means not now, not soon, and you would rather not look at it. A todo you have just added is already down there, so it is the one thing sinking has nothing to do to.

Anchor

For a todo that has a due date and nothing to do until then, like paying a tax bill in November. It is not urgent, and sinking it is not right either, because the day will come and you do not want to hunt for it. Anchoring puts it out of the way until that day.

Press and hold the todo (right-click on a Mac) and choose Anchor until Nov 11, which names the todo's own date. The todo leaves the ordinary list and waits in a band of its own at the very bottom of Everything, below everything else, closed up behind a single line until you open it.

It is only offered on a todo with a due date that is still ahead. A reminder on its own is not enough. Without a due date there is nothing to bring it back, so an anchor would just be somewhere to lose it. A todo that is due today or overdue is already where it needs to be.

On its day it comes back, like any dated todo: into Today, and up near the top of Everything with everything else that is due. If the day turns out to be too soon, push the date later, by deferring it or changing it, and the todo goes back to resting at the bottom until the new day.

Anchored todos wait soonest first, and you cannot move them up or down among themselves. The date is what put each one there, so the dates are the order. That is why surface and sink are not offered on a todo waiting there: not in its menu, not among the buttons on it (on a Mac, or on either device once the todo is open), and not in the iPhone swipe, where float is the only one left. On an iPhone Duo they stay in the column, greyed. Its menu has Float, Unanchor, Complete and Move to Trash. Once its day comes, it is in with everything else that is due, and surface and sink work on it as usual.

Defer is not in that menu either: it counts from today, so it would bring a todo anchored until November back within a week. To push the day later, change the date instead.

Unanchor lets go of it. On an anchored todo, that is what the menu offers in place of Anchor, and the todo goes back to exactly where it was in the list, as if it had never been away. Once its day has come it is back in Today already; unanchoring it then only means that pushing the date later leaves it in the ordinary list.

A few things follow from what an anchor is:

• Floating it lets go of the anchor, and anchoring lets go of a float, including a float you deferred to another day. A todo is held at the top or resting at the bottom, never both.
• Clearing its date lets go of the anchor too, because the date is the only thing that would bring it back. The todo returns to its old place in the list.
• A repeating todo stays anchored for next time. Finish one and the next goes straight to the bottom to wait for its own day, so a chore that comes round twice a year is anchored once, not every time. If you finished it late and the next one's day has already come, it goes into Today with everything else that is due.
• A reminder still goes off as you set it. Anchoring holds the todo's place, not its alarm.

Where the controls are

• On iPhone, swipe a todo. One way completes it, the other gives you surface, sink and float. Press and hold for the full menu.
• On a Mac, move the pointer over a todo and the buttons appear on it; right-click for the full menu. The Todo menu at the top of the screen has all of them, with their shortcuts printed alongside.
• Either, tap or click a todo to open it. See Due dates, reminders and repeats.
• On an iPhone Duo, folded or opened out on its side, an open todo's float, surface, sink and anchor buttons stand together at the top of the column down the right-hand edge, just below the time, in that order, where search sits otherwise, instead of on the todo itself. A button with nothing to do on that todo is greyed rather than taken away: anchor on a todo without a date still ahead, surface and sink on one waiting in the anchored band. The life-ring is coral while the todo is floated, and the anchor is coral while it is anchored; tap it then to unanchor.

Anchor is in the full menu, not in the swipes or the buttons on a todo: press and hold on iPhone, right-click on a Mac. On a Mac the Todo menu has it too, with its shortcut printed alongside, and on an iPhone Duo so does the column, as above.

There is no drag to reorder

On purpose. Every move in Float has a name, which means each one is reversible and works with VoiceOver and Switch Control. Dragging was never either of those, and on a single list it would also be the slowest way to do it.

Undoing a move

Completing, moving to the Trash, deferring and unfloating raise a short notice at the bottom of the screen with Undo in it. On a Mac, or an iPhone with a keyboard, the standard undo key does the same thing for as long as that notice is showing. On the screen a reminder opens, snoozing, floating, surfacing and sinking raise it too.

Unfloating raises the notice too, because it moves the todo as well as letting go of the ring, and putting it back by hand is not something the buttons on the row can do.

Anywhere else, floating, surfacing, sinking and anchoring are not undone through the notice. You reverse those by moving the todo again: to take back an anchor, open the anchored band at the bottom of Everything and choose Unanchor, which puts the todo back exactly where it was.