How Mission Mode works

How the order is decided

Cards are ranked by Weighted Shortest Job First: what it costs to leave a card undone, divided by how big it is. That is not a rule of thumb invented for planning software. It is Smith's rule, and it is the provably optimal order for one person working through a queue, which is exactly what a working day is.

• —Due dates, on a curve that accelerates as the date approaches and keeps climbing while a card is overdue.
• —Priority, so an important card can outrank a merely convenient one.
• —How many other cards refer to this one, because work everything else mentions is rarely safe to leave.
• —Staleness, so nothing sits at the bottom of the queue forever.
• —Size, when a card carries an estimate — smaller work rises, because clearing it costs less.
• —Blocked state and its reason, so blocked work is visible without pretending it can be completed today.

How many cards you get

Mission Mode does not guess how long your cards will take. It counts how many you have actually finished on the days you were working, over the last ninety days, and uses that. You get a plan sized for a good day, and an honest note about how many you will finish on a typical one.

Until you have completed cards on at least five days, there is nothing to measure. Mission Mode says so rather than showing a number it cannot stand behind, and starts forecasting once the history exists.

Generate a plan

1. 01

   Say how much of the day you have

   Use the slider for the time you genuinely have, not the time your calendar says you should have. Half a day plans for half your usual throughput.

2. 02

   Plan the day

   Tarsen ranks the accessible work and creates a draft mission with an explanation for why each card made the list.

3. 03

   Review the order

   Follow the rationale, open the cards if context has changed, and remove anything that is no longer the right work.

4. 04

   Accept or regenerate

   Accept the draft when it reflects the day. Regenerate if a due date, your available time, or project priority has changed.

Deterministic first, AI optional

The ranking is deterministic and works without an API key. If a workspace has an AI provider configured, Tarsen can improve the prose explanation after the plan is generated. AI does not silently choose a different set of cards.

Ask Tarsen is a separate capability. It can answer questions about the accessible workspace and propose card changes, but Mission Mode remains useful when AI is disabled.

Keep the input useful

• —Add estimates where you have them. A card with one is sized against your other estimates; a card without is treated as ordinary, never as an invented duration.
• —Mark a card blocked and say why instead of leaving it looking active.
• —Give urgent work a due date and priority rather than expecting the title to carry both.
• —Complete cards in Tarsen rather than only in your head. The forecast is built from your finished work, so it gets better the more of it Tarsen sees.
• —Regenerate when a meeting, incident, or new commitment changes the time you have.