One of the things Clarity.Do is built to do is answer a simple question, on any given day and at any given time: what should I do next?
It answers that in two complementary ways. Upcoming shows you what’s coming based on when things are due. Priority shows you what to do right now based on what actually matters and how soon it matters. Together they turn a list of tasks into a sequence — something you can act on without staring at it.
This piece is about the second one. Priority works because of a small but important split: in Clarity.Do, every task carries two ratings, not one — importance (the consequences of doing it, or not) and urgency (how close the deadline really is). You set those when you plan a task. Priority is what you open afterward to see where that planning lands.
Plan first, then look
The workflow is two simple steps.
Plan. When you create a task — or any time after — give it an importance and an urgency level. This is the thinking part: deciding what each task actually is, before the moment arrives where you need to act on it.
Look. Open the Priority view whenever you want a clear answer to “what now?” Clarity.Do shows you, at the top, the tasks where both ratings are above Normal — the ones you’ve decided are both important and urgent. Below that, the ones that are urgent without being important. Then the ones that are important but not yet urgent. The planning you did earlier shapes the order.
The split between planning and looking matters. You don’t want to be deciding what’s important under deadline pressure, in the same moment you’re trying to act on it. Doing the thinking up front makes the looking fast — and the doing, faster still.
The three buckets
Inspired by the Eisenhower matrix, the Priority view organizes the tasks you’ve raised above Normal into three buckets:
| Bucket | When it shows | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|
| Urgent & Important | Both ratings above Normal | First. These are the fires that actually matter. |
| Urgent | Urgency above Normal, importance not | Handle it, schedule it, or delegate it, so the important bucket still has room to breathe. |
| Important | Importance above Normal, urgency not | Protect time for it now, before it becomes urgent. |
Each bucket groups tasks under their project, so you don’t lose context when you switch from one to the other.
A scale that has room to breathe
Importance and urgency each have six levels, from “just for the record” up to “extremely.” New tasks start at Normal in the middle. That middle is on purpose: it leaves real room above and below, so the top of the scale stays meaningful.
A task only appears in the Priority view once you raise its importance or urgency above Normal. Anything left at Normal stays out of the way. Priority is a shortlist, not a dumping ground — it shows you only the tasks you’ve explicitly decided are above the baseline.
A useful rule of thumb: reserve the top two levels of urgency for things with a genuine hard deadline this week, and the top two of importance for work that, if it went undone, would change the shape of next month.
Priority and Upcoming, side by side
Priority and Upcoming are the two views Clarity.Do uses to answer “what’s next” — and they answer the question differently on purpose.
- Priority is consequence-led. It looks at what you decided matters and what you decided is time-sensitive, and surfaces the intersection. Open it when you want to choose your next task by what it costs to not do it.
- Upcoming is date-led. It looks at when things are due and shows you what’s heading toward you. Open it when you want to plan around the calendar.
Both are sorted, on Pro and Premium, using the importance and urgency you set — so the consequential work bubbles up in either view without hand-sorting. They’re two angles on the same well-planned set of tasks.
Getting the most out of it
A few habits make the matrix pay off:
- Be sparing with urgency. Many tasks feel urgent in the moment but aren’t, once you look closely. It’s worth a second pass before promoting one.
- Review the Important bucket regularly. That’s where a little planning now prevents tomorrow’s emergencies.
- Promote tasks only when they earn it. A higher rating won’t add hours to the day; it just makes the top of the list louder.
- Trust the bucket. If a task is sitting in Urgent-and-Important, start there. The view exists so you make that call once, not every few minutes.
Where to set it
Importance and urgency are part of every task’s details — set them when you create the task, or change them any time from the task editor. They’re a Pro feature; the free Beginner plan keeps every task at Normal. To see the matrix come alive, upgrade or open the Priority view and start raising the ratings on the tasks that deserve it.
What you’ll notice within a day or two is a quieter kind of progress: you spend less time wondering what to do next, and more time simply doing it.