SwayaSwaya
A planner that adjusts to the day you are actually having, rather than the day an average version of you would have had.
Private betaThe plan assumes a version of you who does not exist
Most planners ask how long a task will take, then quietly assume you will be equally capable of it on Tuesday morning and Thursday night. They budget time and ignore everything else the day is spending.
So the plan is reasonable on paper and wrong by lunchtime. The app's response is to show you a list of what you did not finish, which implies that the plan was correct and you were the problem. That implication is a design decision, and it is the wrong one.
The five ideas Swaya is built on
These are the parts that make it a different product rather than another list with a nicer typeface.
Capacity is an input that moves
Swaya asks what today actually has in it — sleep, energy, stress, the commitments already fixed in place — and treats the answer as a figure that changes rather than a constant it can assume. The plan is built against today's number.
A planner that assumes fixed capacity is accurate about two days a week. Treating capacity as a variable is less tidy and considerably more useful.
Repair is a first-class action
When demand runs past what the day can hold, Swaya offers repair as a real route through the app: shrink a task to its smallest useful version, move it, defer it, or rebuild the day around what is left. You pick; it applies.
Every planner produces broken plans. Most treat the broken state as your clerical problem to sort out by hand, which is how people end up abandoning the planner rather than the plan. {{TODO: Confirm the exact repair options offered — shrink, move, defer, rebuild, anything else? — CONTENT-TODO #16}}
Every number says where it came from
Each figure carries a badge showing its origin: something you entered, something the app observed, or something the app worked out from the rest. You are never left guessing which kind you are looking at.
Guessing whether a number is a measurement or an inference is exactly where trust in a health or planning app quietly dies. {{TODO: What are the exact provenance labels the app shows? — CONTENT-TODO #17}}
Fact, pattern and prediction are kept apart
Three kinds of statement, three distinct treatments, always. That you slept five hours on Tuesday is a fact. That your Tuesdays tend to run short is a pattern. That tomorrow may be tight is a prediction.
Blurring the three is the standard failure of health and planning software: a prediction inherits the visual confidence of a measurement, and you make a real decision on the strength of a guess. Swaya keeps them separate in wording and in appearance, with no exceptions.
Hide, don't delete
Turning something off removes it from your view. It does not destroy it. What you hide stays recoverable.
Read that as a promise rather than a feature. Nothing you switch off in Swaya is deleted as a side effect, and nothing leaves your data because you wanted it off your screen.
Three ways to use Swaya
The same app at three depths. You pick one, and you can change your mind later without starting again.
Just today
The minimal surface. Open it, see today, close it. No week view, no configuration, nothing you have to finish setting up first.
Plan my week
The middle setting. You get structure across the week without being asked to configure how it works.
Tune everything
Full control for people who want it. You can also override the depth per area, so one part of your life can stay casual while another is tracked precisely.
The point of three settings is that the app meets you where you are, rather than requiring you to become a power user before it earns its place on your phone.
Getting started
Three steps, and then it is useful.
{{TODO: What are the three onboarding steps as actually built, in the app's own wording? — CONTENT-TODO #12}}
There is no checklist of prerequisites to work through before Swaya does anything for you. It works on the first day with whatever you have told it by then, and gets better as it has more to go on.
Asking why, and asking more
Two separate things, kept separate on purpose.
The first is explanation in place. Any card that shows you something can tell you why it is showing it. You ask at the thing you are looking at — this task, this figure, this suggested change — and the answer is about that specific thing rather than a general description of how the feature works.
The second is a longer conversation, which has its own entry point that you open when you want it. Thinking out loud, working through a week, talking about something that does not fit on a card.
There is nothing following you around the screen and no bubble hovering in a corner waiting to help. Software that interrupts you is a different product from software that answers when asked, and this is the second kind.
Suggestions stay suggestions. Nothing reaches your plan until you put it there.
What Swaya will not do
No guilt mechanics. No streaks to break. No verdicts about you as a person — Swaya records what a day held, not whether you were good.
{{TODO: Confirm the exact list of non-goals to state publicly, in your own words, since this is a commitment rather than a description. — CONTENT-TODO #13}}
Privacy and your data
Swaya is local-first. Plans, tasks, check-ins and recovery context are stored on your device rather than on a server. Cloud backup and sync are not active unless you turn them on.
You can export your data and delete it from inside the app. Deleting is confirmation-gated, so it cannot happen by accident.
Health and recovery signals are used as planning context only. Swaya does not diagnose or treat anything, and it is not a substitute for medical advice.
{{TODO: Exactly what leaves the device, and what is sent where when someone asks for an explanation or opens the longer conversation? This must be precise before publication. — CONTENT-TODO #14}}
{{TODO: Which third-party service, if any, generates those responses, and is it named publicly? — CONTENT-TODO #15}}
Step-by-step instructions for getting your data out: Exporting and deleting your data.
The full policy, currently an unreviewed draft: Read the Privacy Policy.
Who Swaya is for
Three situations, described as situations.
Your capacity genuinely varies
Illness, caring responsibilities, a condition with good weeks and bad ones, shift work. Any planner built on a fixed daily budget is wrong for you most of the time, and you have probably stopped noticing how much you were compensating for it.
You keep abandoning planners
Not because you dislike planning. Because every one of them eventually turned into a monument to what you did not do, and closing the app was easier than looking at it.
You are carrying more than one life at once
A job and a degree. Work and someone who depends on you. The load is real, it moves around, and it has never once fitted into a checklist.
Who Swaya is not for
If your days are genuinely alike and a plain checklist has been working, Swaya is more machinery than your problem needs. Use the checklist.
It also will not tell you what to do with your life. It works out what today can hold; the priorities stay yours.
Availability
Swaya is in private beta with a small number of testers. The build changes often, and some parts are visibly unfinished.
{{TODO: Is the beta open, waitlisted, or closed right now, and how does someone actually get in? — CONTENT-TODO #5}}
{{TODO: Which platforms does Swaya run on today — iPhone, iPad, web? — CONTENT-TODO #19}}
Related
The behaviours every Anahadh product follows: How Anahadh builds these products, including why facts and predictions are never shown alike.
For the thinking that happens before a plan exists, Explore Writam — a canvas rather than a schedule.
Confused by something in the app? Contact support — confusion reports are as useful as bug reports.
Questions about Swaya
- Is this just a to-do list with extra steps?
- No. Tasks are one input. The layer underneath is capacity: time, energy, recovery, and the commitments already fixed in your day. A to-do list tells you what you meant to do; Swaya works out whether today can hold it.
- Will it change my plan without asking?
- No. Swaya can propose a change and show you what it would do, but nothing is applied until you apply it.
- Is this medical advice?
- No. Sleep, energy and stress are used as planning context to estimate what a day can hold. Swaya does not diagnose, treat, or replace professional guidance, and it is not emergency support.
- What happens to my data if Anahadh stops building Swaya?
- Your data is already on your device rather than on a server, and export works from inside the app, so a shutdown would not strand it. {{TODO: Confirm the export format so this answer can name it. — CONTENT-TODO #14}}
- I have tried a lot of planners. Why would this one stick?
- It might not. The specific bet is that planners get abandoned at the moment the plan breaks, so repair is built as a designed path rather than left as cleanup. If that is not why you abandoned the last one, this may not help.