today vs Reclaim.ai: two different approaches to protecting time for what matters
What Reclaim and today each protect
Reclaim is a Google Calendar overlay that automatically blocks time for habits (lunch, exercise, focus time) and tasks, using AI to find the best available windows and defend them against meeting requests. Today is a daily planner where you manually create time blocks, set a daily outcome, log focus sessions, and review the day. Reclaim automates calendar protection for predetermined behaviors. Today is where you make intentional daily decisions about how to spend your protected time. They can work in tandem: Reclaim protects focus windows automatically; today is what you do inside those windows.
What Reclaim does better than today
Reclaim's automation is its core value: once configured, it defends your habits and focus time without requiring daily manual effort. For users who consistently fail to block time for exercise, lunch, or focus work because 'something always comes up,' Reclaim's automatic protection removes that failure mode. Reclaim also integrates deeply with Google Calendar, making it native to the calendar environment many knowledge workers already live in. Today requires you to remember to open it and maintain your time blocking manually — Reclaim does this automatically for predefined patterns.
What today does better than Reclaim
Today provides a daily planning practice that Reclaim doesn't attempt: the daily outcome, focus session logging with usefulness tracking, energy and headspace check-ins, friction logs, and evening reflection. Reclaim's automation protects time on the calendar but doesn't capture what you did with that time or help you learn from how the day went. Today's data layer — how many sessions you completed, whether they served your outcome, what friction you experienced — is what enables compounding improvement over weeks and months. Reclaim optimizes your calendar; today improves your planning judgment.
Combining Reclaim and today for an optimal setup
The recommended combination: use Reclaim to automatically protect morning focus blocks and personal habits in your Google Calendar, then use today to plan intentionally within those protected windows. Reclaim ensures the time exists; today ensures the time is used well. This stack removes the calendar protection burden from daily planning (Reclaim handles it automatically) while maintaining the intentional daily practice that makes protected time productive (today's structure). Both tools are lightweight enough that running them together doesn't create significant overhead.
Frequently asked questions
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