Settings and options

Settings · updated 23 May 2026

The list of choices is short on purpose. Most planning apps give you far too many toggles; the design discipline here is that fewer options means fewer wrong configurations. Every setting that exists earns its place. A setting that does not exist is a decision, not a bug. This page walks all of them, and for each one explains why Ramon built it that way (or did not).

The Settings modal has six tabs along the top: Profile, Appearance, Cadence, Reminders, Sync, Danger zone. Each one is a different category of preference; this guide walks all of them.

1. Themes

Why this exists. You will look at the app for five to ten minutes a day for a year. How it looks in those minutes matters. Eight default palettes would have done the job; thirty-three exist because the right palette for a January morning is different from the right palette for a July evening, and the right palette for someone who hates pastels is different from the right palette for someone who hates dark mode.

The app ships with 33 palettes. Each one comes in both a light and dark variant, so you have 66 looks total. Open Settings → Appearance and tap a swatch to switch. The change is immediate and persists across sessions.

Two of the palettes are special:

• Classic Glass (default light). Neutral cream background, subtle glass cards, no mesh gradient. Closest to a serif-document feel.
• Brushed Steel (default dark). Cool grey, subtle hairline, no mesh gradient.

The other 31 palettes are inspired by light conditions across the day: dawn pastels, midday brights, dusk warms, midnight cools. Pick whatever feels good to look at for ten minutes a day.

The dark variant of each palette is honest dark mode (true near-black background, contrast-checked text), not just a tinted overlay.

2. Cadence preferences

Why this exists. The reflection cadence is what keeps the app useful. If it asks too much (Full mode on day three of the beta) or too little (Light mode after month two), you stop doing it. A few small switches let you adjust it.

The tunable cadence settings all live in Settings → Cadence:

• Reflection mode. Light or Full.
  • Light (default) keeps the prompts short. Useful in your first 30 days when the bigger questions feel overwhelming. A small hint shows so you know the deeper prompts are still available.
  • Full adds the deeper prompts at each reflection: wins, challenges, next focus, adjustments.
  • The learnings prompts are present in both modes: the daily "One thing I learned today" line and the weekly Key learnings card are always there, always optional.
• Reflect timing. Evening (default) or morning. Determines when the daily reflection card asks for yesterday's wrap.
• Plan timing. Evening (default) or morning. Determines when the daily plan card asks for today's three priorities. Many people prefer to plan the night before so the morning is clear.
• Draft annual goals from my Summit Goals. On by default. Covered in full just below.
• Header density. How much sits above the work on a planning screen. Compact states in one line what this level feeds and keeps your goals behind a toggle. Full shows them straight away. Left on Follow my mode it stays compact while you are in the reduced view and switches to full once you unlock the whole system, which is usually what you want.
• Daily value anchor. On by default. Covered under "The daily anchor" below.
• Hidden messages. Only appears once you have hidden something. Covered under "Putting a message away" below.

Changing these settings re-renders the Execute step immediately so the new layout takes effect without a reload.

Putting a message away

Why this exists. The planning screens offer a few small lines nobody asked for: a greeting, your purpose quote, the daily anchor, and a weekly line drawn from your Strengths Profile. They are there because they help most people most of the time. If one of them stops helping you, it should go away and stay away.

How to hide one. Hover the line and a small cross appears on its right. Click it. The line disappears for good, not just for this session, and the app confirms where to find it again.

How to bring them back. Settings → Cadence → Hidden messages. The section lists everything you have hidden and has one button that restores the lot. It is not shown at all while nothing is hidden, so it will not clutter your settings.

What deliberately has no cross. Overdue milestones, the "coming up" list and the break notice. Those are not messages, they are the state of your plan, and a plan that can be told to stop mentioning a missed deadline is how deadlines get missed twice. If an overdue milestone is wrong, the fix is to open it and change the date, not to hide the notice.

Draft annual goals from my Summit Goals

Why this exists. Writing a Summit Goal and then facing a blank annual plan is the point where most people stop. This setting puts a first draft on the page for you. A draft is a starting point, never a decision: everything it writes is yours to rewrite or delete.

What it does. When a life area has a Summit Goal and that year has no annual goal yet, the app writes:

• One annual goal per area, with the objective pre-filled from your Summit Goal wording. It is shown in muted text so you can see at a glance that it is still the app's words rather than yours. The muting disappears the moment you start typing.
• A checkpoint at the end of each remaining quarter, named "Q1 checkpoint", "Q2 checkpoint" and so on. These are also shown muted until you edit them.

Why you may get fewer checkpoints than you expect, or none. A checkpoint is only added when at least two months of the year are still ahead of you. A target six weeks away is not enough time to move an annual goal, so the app leaves it out rather than handing you a deadline you cannot realistically work toward. It also never places one at the end of December, because the Annual wrap-up already closes the year.

In practice that means someone starting in January gets three checkpoints, someone starting in June gets one, and someone starting in September gets none at all. If you get none, the Milestones tab says so and invites you to add your own. That is the setting working correctly, not failing.

The daily anchor

Why this exists. Your values shape your life areas, your vision and your Summit Goals, and after that they tend to disappear. The anchor is the one place your values appear in an ordinary day.

What it does. Each day names one of your top five values, rotating so it is a different one each day rather than always your North Star, and suggests a way to bring it into what you actually planned. The wording changes day to day, drawn from twenty prompts, so you do not stop reading it.

The tick at the end of the day. The day's reflection asks one thing about it: whether you brought that value into the day. There is nothing to write. Leaving it blank is not a no, and a day you never answered is counted as unanswered rather than as a failure.

What it is for. After a few months the ticks show which of your values you are actually living and which ones you keep leaving out. A value you ranked highly but rarely tick is worth a conversation with yourself, and it usually points back at your Life Areas rather than at the value.

Where to switch it off. Settings → Cadence → Daily value anchor. Off means no line on the day and no tick at the reflection. Anything already recorded is kept, not deleted.

Where to turn it on or off. Two places, and they are the same switch:

• Settings → Cadence, the toggle described above.
• The Summit Goals step, on its Where this leads tab. This is where the effect is easiest to understand, since that tab is about how a summit routes down into your plan.

Turning it off means every annual goal starts from a blank page. Turning it back on drafts goals for any year that does not have them yet. Switching it off never deletes anything that has already been drafted.

Where to edit what it drafted. Everything lives in Execute → Year, inside the annual goal card for that life area:

• The goal sentence is on the card's first tab, in the Objective box. Type over it.
• The checkpoints are on the card's Milestones tab. Each row lets you change the date, the title, the success measure, and whether it is an event or a value you count. The trash icon removes one, and "Add milestone" adds your own.

A short note above the checkpoint list tells you how many of them are still drafts. Once you edit a row it counts as yours, the muted styling drops, and the note stops mentioning it.

3. Dropbox sync

Why this exists. Browser localStorage is fast and private but it disappears if you clear browsing data. Dropbox is the cheapest way to make the plan survive a wiped browser, a new laptop, or a phone-to-desktop swap. The app uses Dropbox's app-folder scope so it can only see its own folder, not your wedding photos.

The app stores your plan in your browser's localStorage by default. If you clear browsing data, the plan goes with it. The manual .save file (see Save, load, and backups below) covers that risk, but Dropbox sync makes it automatic across devices.

To turn it on, follow these three steps:

4. Calendar export (ICS)

Why this exists. Calendar reminders are the one thing that most reliably keeps people using the app. The Sunday weekly reflection helps most, and it is the one most people skip because nothing prompts them. Put it in your calendar once and you stop having to remember it.

The app invites you once: right after you set your Summit Goals, a small toast asks "Want these plans in your calendar?" with a Set up button. The wizard never opens by itself; dismiss the toast and it does not come back. The permanent home is Settings → Reminders.

The ICS Wizard is a 4-step modal at Settings → Reminders → Launch wizard:

Default schedule (if you accept all defaults at step 3):

• Daily plan + reflection. Two events per day, 8:00am and 9:00pm.
• Weekly reflection. Sunday 7-9pm.
• Monthly check-in. Last day of month, 7-8pm.
• Quarterly check-in. Last Sunday of the quarter, 4-6pm.
• Annual wrap-up. Two events: year-end wrap-up (late December) + new-year planning (early January).

If you change the schedule later, re-download and re-import; the new events replace the old (the ICS UID is preserved across exports so Apple/Google de-duplicate cleanly).

5. Notifications

Why this exists. Most planning apps cover themselves in red dots. This app sends notifications only for the five cadence moments you already agreed mattered, and never for anything else. No "you have not opened me in three days" nags, no marketing pings, no social notifications. The heaviest cadence sends five events a year, and the default is none.

The app can send browser notifications for the same cadence events (Sunday evening reflection nudge, end-of-month check-in nudge, end-of-quarter check-in nudge). It does not send any other notifications.

To enable: Settings → Notifications → Enable browser notifications. Your browser will ask for permission. Approve.

To disable: same toggle, or revoke permission in your browser's site settings.

The app respects your browser's Do-Not-Disturb / Focus Mode setting; if your OS is in DND, notifications go to the queue and surface when DND ends.

6. Demo mode

The demo lets you browse a fully-populated three-year plan without touching your real data. Useful for the welcome carousel, for screenshots, for showing a friend, or just for exploring what a finished plan looks like.

To load:

1. More menu → Load demo data.
2. A confirmation modal asks if you want to save your real plan first. If your plan has any content, tap Save first; the save runs, then the demo loads.
3. The app reloads in demo mode. A banner at the top says Demo mode · Back to my data.

To exit: tap the Back to my data button in the banner. Your real plan returns instantly. Nothing in the demo is saved to your real plan.

7. Save, load, and backups

The app saves to your browser's localStorage every time you change something. The Save button in the topbar downloads a .save file (JSON) as a portable backup.

• Manual save. Topbar Save button. Downloads life-goals-2026-05-23.save (or similar).
• Manual load. Topbar Load button. Pick a .save file from disk; the app replaces the current plan with it. A confirmation modal warns first.
• Auto-backup reminder. If you have not saved in 7+ days and your plan has data, a soft banner suggests a backup.
• File format. JSON. Open it in a text editor to inspect; do not edit by hand unless you know what you are doing.

Save before any risky thing: switching browsers, clearing cache, OS updates, testing the demo, or just regularly as a discipline.

8. Install as a PWA

The app is a Progressive Web App. You can install it to your phone's home screen or your computer's app launcher, and it runs in its own window without the browser's address bar and toolbars. Installed PWAs cache the app shell offline.

9. Keyboard shortcuts

The app responds to a small set of keyboard shortcuts. Open the keyboard cheat sheet with ? from anywhere.

• Cmd+K (Mac) or Ctrl+K (Windows / Linux): Jump bar.
• Cmd+S / Ctrl+S: Download a .save backup.
• Cmd+O / Ctrl+O: Load a .save file from disk.
• Cmd+Z / Ctrl+Z: Undo (in-session, last 20 actions, does not survive reload).
• [ / ]: Previous / next cascade step (matches the footer paginator).
• ← / → with the stepper focused: Move between cascade steps.
• Alt+1 through Alt+4: Jump to phase (1 = Discovery, 2 = Planning, 3 = Execute, 4 = Wins).
• 1 / 2 / 3 on the Values rapid-sort: keep card / pass / shrink hand.
• F: Toggle fullscreen.
• Esc: Close any open modal (including the jump bar).
• ?: Show the shortcut cheat sheet.

Mobile-only note: the Ctrl/Cmd+K hint at the bottom of the screen is hidden on viewports under 600px wide; the shortcut still works if you have a Bluetooth keyboard attached.

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Other things you can configure

Beta-specific

• Beta password gate. Set once when you first open the app. Stored hashed (SHA-256) in your browser. Cannot be reset by the app; ask support if you forget.
• Beta sunset banner. Appears as the beta end-date approaches. Reminds you to download a .save backup before the build is retired.

Privacy and data

• All goal-planning data lives in your browser's localStorage. Nothing is sent to a server I control.
• Plausible Analytics tracks anonymous page-views (cookieless, no IP retention beyond what every server logs by default). Disable: use a tracker-blocking extension; the app does not break.
• Senja feedback form is optional. Opens in a new tab; submissions go to me directly.

Where things are NOT configurable

• Fonts. DM Sans for UI, Loretta for headings. Locked.
• Number of cascade steps. Eight, plus the Wall of Wins once your first achievement lands. Locked.
• Two-day rule sensitivity. Locked at two days.
• Maximum focus areas. Three. Locked.

These constraints are part of the program's discipline, not bugs.

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Where to next

• Set up the settings that matter most? Calendar export takes 5 minutes and keeps the whole rhythm going: jump to that section.
• Curious about the rhythms these settings configure? The Cadence page walks each one in depth.
• Specific question? The Customization and data recipes cover the most-asked.