Areas of Focus

Areas are scope containers, not projects. Roles or commitments you have in life: Work, Personal, Investing, Side Project, Volunteering.

Areas don't "do" anything — they hold projects and tasks. You tell MLW which area you're in right now, and the whole app filters.

Setting your active area

Top of the sidebar, there's an area switcher. Default is All Areas (no filter). Click to pick a specific area, and every view narrows to that scope except Inbox.

This is how you "go deep" without distraction. Setting area = Work hides your personal stuff. Switching to Personal hides the work stuff.

Creating areas

Settings → Areas of Focus. Add as many as you need. The first two are free; more need Pro.

Each area has:

• Name
• Color — picked from a palette, used everywhere the area is shown

What makes a good area

Good areas are roles or zones of life — "Parent," "Work," "Health," "Trading Account." They persist for years.

Bad areas are projects pretending to be areas — "Launch the book," "Fix the garage." Those are projects. Projects end. Areas don't.

Rule of thumb: if you could finish it, it's a project. If you could never finish it, it's an area.

Area on every task and project

Every task and project can be assigned to one area (or none). In Project Detail and Task Detail, the Area chip lets you set or change it.

Filter vs focus

Two distinct things:

• Filter by area (via the top sidebar switcher) — narrows views to that area's content
• Filter by area in Project list (separate chip in ProjectsView header) — narrows just that one view

The top switcher is global for the session; the project view's area chip is local to that view.

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