Proposals

Overview

The invitation for Thursday arrived overnight, and two mails about it followed. By the time you look, the thinking is half done: a node for the meeting, a link to the client it recognised, a prep task due the day before, a reply asking for the agenda. None of it has happened. A proposal is something your second brain worked out and has not done — written up as a short article about one matter, with everything that would happen underneath, waiting for one decision from you.

Proposals come from both directions — a chat you had, or the inbox reflex , which reads your mail, calendar events, signals and thoughts as they arrive, covered next — and they are decided the same way wherever they came from.

Screenshot

Basics

Walk through them

Everything that waits on your decision is under Proposals , the first tab of your Inbox , with how many there are. What is urgent comes first; within the same priority, the one that came in first. Open one and you walk through them one at a time: decide, and the next is in front of you. A proposal that grows or comes back from a rework keeps its place, so nothing sinks out of reach if you stop halfway.

The same proposal also stands where it belongs: on the page of an item it is about, on a node it would change, and on the event in your calendar. Deciding it in one place decides it everywhere. A chat is not one of those places: a chat that sets something up says so in its answer, and the proposal waits here with the rest.

Read one

A proposal opens with its article: a title, a few sentences on what is going on and why this is the answer, and the mails, events or signals it is about embedded where the text mentions them. Below it, What will happen says it plainly, one sentence per thing it touches: the meeting is linked to the client, a task is created, your reply goes to the organiser — with the mail itself in full, exactly as it will be sent.

While your second brain is still writing a proposal — something new arrived for it, you sent it back, or you asked a chat to change it — the step says so and waits. You can still let it go; you cannot carry out or send back what is not finished.

Carry it out

Carry out does all of it, in one go: the nodes and links are made, the changes are applied, the mails are sent. When mail goes out, the button says how many. A proposal is decided as a whole — there is no carrying out half of it. If part of it does not look right, have it reworked instead.

If the proposal changed while you were reading — a reply came in and your second brain worked it in — carrying it out stops, and the new version is in front of you to read first. You only ever carry out what you saw. If something fails along the way, what went through stays done and the rest stays in the proposal, to try again or let go.

Answer its questions

Some things only you can settle: whether a bug is picked up this week or later, whether to say yes to the second date. Then the proposal asks, in its article, and every answer is already worked out — each with the reply it would send and the task it would create. Pick one and What will happen follows your answer; carrying out waits until every question has one. When none of the answers is yours, pick Something else… and say in your own words what you want: that sends the proposal back to be worked out again.

Have it reworked

Under every proposal is Anything else? — write what you would have different and choose Rework . Nothing happens yet: your second brain takes the remark along, works the proposal out again, and it comes back with what changed said at the top. "Reply in English", "no task, I'll do it now", "the invoice is something else" — a remark about one part changes only that part. An item that does not belong in this proposal leaves it and is looked at on its own.

A remark that holds for good is remembered beyond this proposal. On a proposal from the inbox reflex — "An always gets an English reply" — it becomes a sentence in its instructions , proposed alongside the rest; something true about you goes into your context , the note about you every proposal is written with.

Let it go

Let it go drops the whole proposal: nothing it proposed happens, and the items it was about stay in your inbox as they are. If you had typed a remark, it asks first, because the remark goes with it.

See a proposal before you decide

A proposed node, event or page is a real record, made straight away and flagged as pending: it is searchable, it draws on the calendar as a dashed block you cannot drag, a proposed page sits ghosted in the note, and it carries provisional wherever it appears. That is what lets a later proposal build on an earlier one instead of proposing the same node twice.

A change to something you already own — a due date moved, two nodes merged, a link removed — is not made in advance. It is described, and applied only when you carry the proposal out.

One proposal per subject

A proposal is about one matter: one thread, a meeting and the mails about it, one request, one problem — or one series you handle in one go, like this week's dinners or a run of birthdays. Two mails and the meeting they are about are one proposal; a bug report and a quote from the same client are two.

While a proposal is open, it follows its subject. A new reply in the thread, a meeting that moves, a signal that flips to resolved: it goes straight back to the proposal it belongs to, which is written again to match — the draft amended, the task's due date moved, what no longer makes sense withdrawn. Once you decided it, the subject is settled: what arrives about it after that becomes a proposal of its own. A chat splits its work the same way, one proposal for each thing you would say yes or no to on its own — and asked to change one that is still open, it revises that proposal rather than starting a second.

• Archiving an item changes nothing about the proposal it is in. Most proposals take their items out of your inbox themselves — "leaves your inbox" is one of the things that will happen — so carrying one out is usually also how the queue empties.
• Deleting an item gives its proposal another look: whatever only made sense with that item is withdrawn, and the rest stands.
• A proposal with nothing left lapses. When the other side writes that the matter is settled and the reply that was drafted is withdrawn, or what it would change no longer exists, there is nothing to decide, and it leaves the tab by itself.

What a proposal may hold

• A node for the thing to hang on, with the item linked to it.
• A relation from that node to the client, project or person it concerns.
• A task with a due date before the thing it prepares for.
• An event when one is implied — travel time, a preparation block.
• A page — findings land as a new page of the node's note, ghosted until you carry the proposal out, never as edits scattered through what you wrote. For a meeting today or tomorrow, that page is the agenda.
• A mail — a reply, a forward, or a new mail, when there is genuinely something to say. It is sent as written when you carry the proposal out.
• A change to something you already keep — a title, a due date, a status, two nodes merged — and, for an item it is done with, taking it out of your inbox.

Judging a proposal

A proposal is judged the way you judge your own filing, because it is your filing — it applies the same tests you would. Read the article, then ask the question it claims to answer: would you have written this down yourself? Is the node hung on what the item is about, rather than on who appears in it? Is the reply the one you would have sent? Carry out what you would have done; send back what is nearly right; let go of what mints structure you did not ask for.

Letting go is a full answer, but it teaches nothing by itself. The same proposal let go for the same reason every week is a sentence for the inbox reflex's instructions — that is where letting go becomes policy.

FAQ

What if I never look at a proposal?

Nothing happens. It waits, nothing in it is applied because you ignored it, and your graph is exactly what you carried out into it.

Do proposals expire?

Not with time: it is a queue, not a deadline. A proposal only lapses when nothing is left in it to decide.

Can I carry out only part of a proposal?

No. Say which part you would leave out under Anything else? and have it reworked; what comes back is the proposal you would carry out whole.

Can I edit a drafted mail before it goes?

Not by hand inside the proposal. Say what you would change — shorter, warmer, in English, without the second paragraph — and have it reworked. The mail you see is the mail that is sent.

Can I undo a proposal I carried out?

A sent mail is sent. Everything else it made is yours from then on, like anything you made yourself: edit it, unlink it or delete it the usual way.

Why did it propose nothing?

Routine rhythm is not inbox work. A daily standup, a block you made for yourself, a newsletter or a receipt is read, marked as looked at, and left in your inbox for you to archive.

Can my second brain do something without asking?

No. It never sends a mail, answers an invitation, or changes something you already own on its own. When a decision is needed it asks you in the proposal and leaves the decision with you.

What happens when a meeting is rescheduled?

If its proposal is still open, the move goes back to that proposal and it is written again for the new date. If you already carried it out, the move arrives as a new proposal: what you carried out stays, and may get a proposed correction.

Can I ask for a proposal on an item myself?

Yes: Make proposals on an item asks your second brain to look at it now — even one you archived months ago. It works on mail, calendar events, signals and thoughts, the things the inbox reflex reads. A photo or a location is yours to file, so the action is hidden rather than offered and useless.