Most calendar apps are designed for nine-to-five schedules. If you work nights, rotating shifts, or 12-hour days, those tools don’t reflect your life — “Monday” might start at 7 PM, and your only free time to study or rest might be a three-hour window at 4 AM. ShiftWork Tempo is a free time-blocking app built to help you organize the time around your appointments and shifts — not just log them. Try it now at shiftworktempo.com.
[SCREENSHOT: Full app view showing day or week view with a shift block placed]
It Works Alongside Your Existing Calendar — Not Instead of It
ShiftWork Tempo isn’t trying to replace the calendar already on your phone. Your appointments, reminders, and events can stay right where they are. ShiftWork Tempo connects with iCal so those appointments pull in automatically — and then gives you the tools to intentionally plan everything around them. The shift you’re working, the study block you need to fit in, the self-care time that keeps getting squeezed out — that’s what this app is for. Google Calendar sync is currently in development.
[SCREENSHOT: iCal events visible on the ShiftWork Tempo calendar alongside placed blocks]
What Is Time Blocking — and Why Does It Matter?
Time blocking means intentionally assigning tasks to specific slots in your day, rather than keeping a vague to-do list and hoping things get done. For shift workers, this matters more than most: your schedule changes constantly, your free hours are unpredictable, and the time between shifts is precious. ShiftWork Tempo lets you see your time honestly and decide — on purpose — how to spend it.
Core Features
Drag-and-Drop Shift Blocks
Place 12-hour, 8-hour, or 4-hour shift blocks directly onto your day from the sidebar. Shifts are color-coded and can be moved, pinned, or deleted at any time. This is the heart of the app — building your schedule around your actual work hours rather than a standard 9-to-5 grid.
[SCREENSHOT: Sidebar showing the three shift block options]
Task and Appointment Presets
Create reusable presets for the things you schedule repeatedly — study sessions, therapy appointments, lab draws, self-care time. Save them once, then place them onto any day in seconds. Both tasks and appointments support custom colors and durations.
[SCREENSHOT: Sidebar showing task and appointment presets]
Fixed Events and Weekly Repeats
One-time events like exams or deadlines can be pinned to a specific date and locked in place. For things that repeat every week — payday, medications, trash day — set up a weekly repeat once and it appears automatically on every chosen weekday. You can skip a single occurrence without deleting the whole series.
[SCREENSHOT: Repeat event showing on the calendar]
Pay Preview
Thinking about picking up a bonus shift? Drop it on the calendar and ShiftWork Tempo shows you exactly what it adds to your pay for the period — base hours, any shift differential, and flat bonuses included. Set your hourly rate once and see what a stretch of shifts actually earns before you commit.
[SCREENSHOT: Pay preview panel showing hours and gross pay]
Day and Week Views
Switch between a detailed day view and a full seven-day week view. Both show the complete 24-hour day so overnight shifts display correctly — no awkward cutoffs at midnight.
[SCREENSHOT: Week view showing multiple days with events]
Built for Students and Project Builders Too — Not Just Shift Workers
ShiftWork Tempo’s category and checklist system makes it surprisingly useful for anyone managing focused work alongside a shifting schedule — nursing students, online learners, freelancers, or developers working on personal projects.
Categories let you group your task presets by subject or project — create a “Pharmacology” category, a “Client Project” one, a “Personal Dev” one — each with its own color. Your presets live inside those categories in the sidebar, so when you’re planning your day you can see exactly what kind of work you have available to schedule.
[SCREENSHOT: Sidebar showing task presets grouped by colored categories]
When you place a task block on the calendar and tap into it, there’s a checklist built right into the event. Use it to break down what you want to accomplish in that block — specific chapters, a feature to build, a set of practice questions. Check items off as you go.
[SCREENSHOT: Event edit screen showing the checklist section with items]
Didn’t finish everything? The notes field on each event is there for exactly that. Jot down what you actually got through, what’s still left, or where you left off — so the next time you open a block for that subject or project, you’re picking up where you stopped rather than starting from scratch.
[SCREENSHOT: Event edit screen showing the notes field]
The Log tab in the sidebar lets you look back at past events by name and date range, pulling up the notes and checklists from previous sessions. If you blocked out time for Pharmacology — or a development sprint — three times this week, you can pull those up and see exactly what you worked through across each session.
[SCREENSHOT: Log overlay showing past event history with notes and checklists]
It’s not a dedicated project tracker or study app — but for anyone juggling shift work and focused personal projects, having your schedule, your tasks, and your session notes all in one place removes a lot of friction from actually getting things done.
Who Is ShiftWork Tempo For?
ShiftWork Tempo was built with nurses and healthcare shift workers in mind, but it’s useful for anyone whose schedule doesn’t fit a standard weekday pattern — warehouse workers, first responders, hospitality staff, students juggling part-time shift work, freelancers, developers working on side projects, or anyone managing caregiving responsibilities around irregular hours. If you have a calendar full of appointments and no good way to plan the time around them, this app was built for you.
How to Get Started
ShiftWork Tempo runs entirely in your browser — no account required, no app to install. Visit shiftworktempo.com, and your schedule saves automatically to your device. Connect your iCal feed to pull in existing appointments automatically, and use the export button to back up your data anytime.
ShiftWork Tempo is free to use and built from a real need. If you’ve been making do with a calendar that wasn’t designed for your life, give it a try and see if it fits. Feedback from real users is actively shaping how it develops.
app is in development, please be patient as I work to implement some features
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