Getting Started
What is WhatsNextAction?
WhatsNextAction is built on a simple idea: your mind is for having ideas, not holding them. By capturing everything that has your attention into a trusted external system, clarifying what each item means, and organizing the results into clear categories, you free up mental space to focus and engage with your work.
Creating Your Account
Tap "Start Free" on the landing page to open the registration dialog. Enter your email, choose a password (at least 8 characters with a letter, a digit, and a symbol), and confirm it. After registering, a verification email is sent to your address — click the link to verify your account. If you don't see the email, use the Resend button (available every 60 seconds). The app detects verification automatically — once you click the link in any browser, you'll be logged in without returning to the original tab. Prefer one-click sign-up? Use the "Sign up with Google" button to create or access your account with your Google account instead (and "Sign in with Google" on the Sign In dialog). You can also sign in from the "Sign In" button if you already have an account.
Your First Five Minutes
Open your Inbox and do a brain dump — type everything on your mind and press Enter after each one. Tasks, ideas, errands, reminders, things you need to buy, calls to make — get it all out. Don't think about organizing, just capture. Once you have a handful of items, tap the Clarify button at the top. The app will walk you through each item step by step, helping you decide what it is and where it belongs.
The Five Steps
1. Capture — Collect everything into your Inbox using Quick Add or the Inbox input. 2. Clarify — Process each item: is it actionable? Is it one step or many? Can you do it in two minutes? 3. Organize — The Clarify wizard places items into Next Actions, Projects, Calendar, Waiting For, Someday/Maybe, or Reference. 4. Reflect — Do a Weekly Review to keep your system current and complete. 5. Engage — Work from your Next Actions and Today lists with confidence that nothing is falling through the cracks.
Understanding Your Dashboard
After logging in you land on the Engage page — your command center. If anything is overdue, an Overdue section appears first, listing your oldest deadlines so you can complete, rename, or trash them right there. Below it you see your Today actions, a snapshot of Next Actions, your Waiting For items, and nudges when your Inbox needs clarifying or projects are missing a next action. Use this page to decide what to work on right now.
Navigating the App
The sidebar (or slide-in drawer on mobile) is your main navigation. Each section maps to a bucket: Next Actions, Today, Inbox, Projects, Calendar, Waiting For, Someday/Maybe, Reference, Review, Completed, and Trash. Count badges next to each item show how many items are in that bucket, and a small red dot on an icon means something needs attention — overdue items (on Dashboard, Today, Next Actions, Calendar, and Waiting For), a project without a next action (Projects), or a pending connection request (Connections). The Context Filter at the top of the sidebar lets you focus all lists on a single context like @office or @home.
Quick Add — Capture From Anywhere
The Quick Add button (+) in the top navigation bar lets you capture a thought without leaving whatever page you're on. Tap it, type your item, and press Enter. It goes straight to your Inbox as unprocessed stuff. The input stays open so you can rapid-fire multiple items — press Escape when you're done. On mobile, a floating + button in the bottom-right corner does the same thing.
Capture by Email (Pro & Team)
On Pro and Team plans you can send things straight to your Inbox by email. Open Settings and generate your personal inbox address, then copy it and email or forward anything to it — the subject becomes the item title and the body becomes its description. Use the toggle to pause and resume capture, and reset the address at any time if you ever want to retire the old one. Each plan has a daily limit on inbound emails (50 per day on Pro, 100 per day on Team). On the Free plan this feature is locked — upgrade to unlock it.
From Stuff to Action
Everything starts as "stuff" in your Inbox — a raw item with just a title. During Clarify, the app asks: Is this actionable? If yes, is it one step (action) or multiple steps (project)? If it's a single action that takes under two minutes, do it now. Otherwise, you create an action with optional tags, dates, and a description. If it's not actionable, file it as Reference, park it in Someday/Maybe, or Trash it.
Moving Items Between Lists
There are two ways to move items. From any detail page, use the "Move" dropdown to pick a destination — Next Actions, Today, Calendar, Waiting For, Projects, Someday, or Reference. Some destinations ask for extra information (a date for Calendar, a name for Waiting For). You can also drag items from a list directly onto sidebar menu items to move them in one gesture.
Working With Detail Pages
Tap any item in a list to open its detail page. There you can edit the title and description by clicking on them, add tags, set due dates and deferred dates, attach files, and leave comments. Navigation arrows at the top let you step through items without going back to the list. Action buttons at the top change based on the item's state — complete, move, trash, undo, or activate.
Setting Up Your First Project
A project is any outcome that needs more than one action to complete. Go to Projects and add one with a title and an outcome — "What does done look like?" Then add action steps from the project detail page. The first action becomes your Next Action automatically, and when you complete it, the next one in the backlog promotes to take its place. On the Free plan you can keep up to 7 active projects at once; Pro and Team plans are unlimited.
Attaching Files and Adding Comments
Every action, project, and stuff item has an Attachments section and a Comments section on its detail page. Attach files by clicking the upload area or dragging files onto it (up to 10 files per item; max file size 5 MB on Free, 20 MB on Pro, 50 MB on Team). Images and PDFs can be previewed in the app. Use comments to add notes, record progress, or leave context for yourself — each item supports up to 50 comments, and each comment can be up to 2,000 characters.
Keeping a Reference Library
The Reference section is a file manager for non-actionable material you want to keep — documents, images, PDFs, and notes. Organize files into folders, search across everything, switch between list and grid views, and preview images and PDFs without downloading. Your storage allowance grows with your plan (50 MB on Free, 250 MB on Pro, 1 GB per user on Team). On the Free plan Reference is view-only; upgrade to Pro or Team to upload and organize your own files.
Reviewing What You've Completed
The Completed section is your accomplishment record. Items are grouped by recency — Today, Yesterday, earlier this week, last week, and so on — so you can see what you finished and when. Pinned above the list, productivity charts show how much you complete over time (by day this week, by week this month, and by month this year), highlighting your best day. To bring something back, simply uncheck it and it returns to its previous list.
Working With Others (Team)
On the Team plan you can collaborate with other people. Connect with someone by sending an invitation to their email from the Connections page — anyone, on any plan, can accept or decline an invitation they receive. Once connected, you can delegate an action to a connection: it lands in their Inbox and moves to your Waiting For list, and when they complete or trash it you get a "Done." note and the action returns to your Next Actions (or your Calendar if it was scheduled) automatically. You can also share a whole project with connections, giving each person Write or Read-only access so you can work the backlog together. Free and Pro users can receive and accept invitations; sending invitations, delegating, and sharing projects require the Team plan.
Upgrading Your Plan
Open Settings and use Update plan → Upgrade (or pick a plan on the Pricing page). Choose Pro or Team, monthly or yearly, enter your billing address, agree to the Terms of Service, and tap Subscribe and pay to continue to our payment provider's secure checkout, where you enter your card. Prices are in EUR and include VAT. Once the payment is confirmed your new plan is active right away, and an invoice is emailed to you. Your subscription renews automatically; you can cancel it at any time from Settings and keep your plan until the end of the paid period.
Customizing Your Settings
Visit Settings to personalize the app. Choose a theme (light, dark, or match your system), set your calendar preferences (week start day, time format, business hours and business days), customize your tag presets for quick tagging, and choose whether new items appear at the top or bottom of lists. You can also enable or disable the Weekly Review section, manage notifications, change your password, review active sessions, and manage your plan and billing from here. Changes save automatically.
Notifications
A notification bell in the top navigation bar shows in-app alerts — delegated actions, delegation completions, connection invitations, shared-project activity, and project-needs-next-action reminders — with an unread count. Notifications are marked as read as soon as you see them in the open list; click one to jump straight to the relevant item. WhatsNextAction can also send you helpful emails: a daily digest (your overdue, today, and next actions), alerts when a project is missing a next action, updates about delegations and connection invitations, and occasional product announcements. Control email from Settings — a master toggle turns all email on or off, and individual toggles let you enable or disable each type. Security emails (verification, password resets, login alerts), subscription and payment notices, and service notices (terms changes, maintenance, security) are always delivered and cannot be turned off. In-app notifications are always on.