NewTwos

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Your first five minutes

iPhoneiPadAndroidWebMacWindowsLinuxWatchUpdated 2026-08-18

The fastest way to understand NewTwos is to use it for five minutes rather than read about it.

Why you'd care

There is nothing to configure before NewTwos is useful. No workspace to name, no projects to define, no template to pick. Today already exists and is waiting for you, so the only real first step is writing something.

Do these five things

  1. 1

    Write whatever is on your mind

    Open the capture bar and type. It does not matter what. Press Enter and it lands on Today.

  2. 2

    Write four more, quickly

    Do not stop to organize. The point is to see that capture costs nothing. See the capture bar.

  3. 3

    Turn one into a to-do

    Give it a checkbox. It is now the only kind of thing that will follow you to tomorrow. See thing types.

  4. 4

    Check one off

    Press ⌘D. Completed things stay on the day you finished them, which is what turns your days into a record.

  5. 5

    Search for some*thing* you just wrote

    Press ⌘/ and type a word from it. That is the whole retrieval story. See search.

That is enough to use NewTwos properly. Everything else is refinement.

What to do tomorrow

Open it and look at Today. Anything you did not check off will already be there. You did not move it, and you will not have to. That moment is when the product usually clicks, and it cannot happen on day one.

What not to do yet

  • Do not build a list structure. Days handle the first few weeks on their own. Make a list when a topic starts crowding your days, not before.
  • Do not tag anything. Search works without tags. Add them later if you find yourself wanting a cross-cutting view.
  • Do not customize. The defaults are tuned for a new reader. Come back to appearance and nav settings once you know what you actually do all day.

Tips

  • Write badly and fast. A half sentence you can find later beats a tidy note you never wrote.
  • Put the app where your thumb is. On a phone, moving NewTwos into the dock does more for the habit than any setting.
  • If you want a guided version of this, the Twostorial is a real list seeded in your account that you can interact with. See the Twostorial.