How xTiles is structured: three levels
Before building anything in xTiles, it helps to understand the three-level hierarchy the whole product is built on. Every piece of content — tasks, notes, project plans, habit trackers — lives somewhere inside this structure.
- Spaces are the outermost containers. Think of them as top-level folders for different areas of your life: Personal, Work, a specific client, a long-term project. Spaces stay separate by default — you decide what goes where.
- Projects live inside Spaces. Each Project is a collection of related pages: a weekly plan, a reference area, a content tracker, a trip itinerary. Projects are the main unit of organization.
- Pages are the actual canvases you work on. Unlike documents in most tools, xTiles pages use a tile-based layout across the full screen width — you arrange content spatially, not in a top-to-bottom scroll.
Most new users start directly in the Planner without setting up this structure first — which is fine. But understanding Spaces and Projects unlocks the real power of xTiles: the ability to connect your day-to-day planning to deeper project work.
Connecting projects to your Planner
The Planner is where you plan your day and week. But by default, it shows only tasks — not the projects they belong to. There are three ways to keep your active projects visible from the Planner.
Option 1: Recent projects tile
The Planner has a section called eXtra Tiles that contains smart, automated tiles. One of them is Recent projects — it automatically shows the projects you've visited that day. No setup needed. Open any project during the day, then return to the Planner and it will be there as a shortcut. You can also navigate back to previous days to see what you worked on.
Option 2: Paste a link to a project
Open any project or page in xTiles and copy its link. Then go to your weekly Planner layout, create a tile, and paste the link. xTiles lets you display linked content in four ways:
- Text — shows the project name with an arrow icon
- Link — displays as a plain URL
- Bookmark — card-style preview with title
- Card / Image — a large visual tile you can click to dive in
Any of these display modes will take you directly to the project when clicked. The card view works well if you want a visual anchor for a project you're actively working on.
Option 3: Save it in a weekly template
If you have a set of projects you want visible every week, add them to your Planner layout once, then save it as a template. The next time you create a new week, the template will apply and those project tiles will already be there. Templates are a free feature.
Sub-projects and sub-pages: going deeper
For complex projects — something that spans months, or has six distinct phases — you need a way to break it down without losing the overview. xTiles handles this through sub-pages and sub-projects.
When you hover over any tile, you'll see expand arrows appear at the end of the line. Clicking these gives you three options:
- Expand to note — opens a small pop-up panel beneath the tile where you can add notes, images, or files. Best for brief supporting detail.
- Expand to page — creates a full sub-page inside the current project. You can see the breadcrumb path: your project name → the sub-page name. Good for one focused area.
- Expand to sub-project — creates a full project underneath, with its own set of pages. Use this for anything complex enough to need multiple sections.
Any sub-project you create — even one built from a tile inside your weekly Planner — will automatically appear in your Projects section. You can access it from there, expand it, and add pages inside it just like any top-level project.
This means you can sketch a project outline on your weekly layout and immediately have it live as a proper project — no need to navigate to a different section first.
Task properties and custom views
xTiles tasks support properties out of the box — urgency, priority, due date — and you can add custom properties to fit your workflow. A common one is duration: how long a task will take.
Add a custom property to tasks
Open any task and click + Property. Choose Select from the property types. Name it something like "Duration". Add options: 15 min, 30 min, 45 min, 1 hour. This property now appears on every task across your workspace.
Tag your tasks with duration
When creating or editing a task, click the Duration field and select a value. Over time, this gives you a realistic sense of what your day can hold — rather than a list of 20 tasks with no time estimate.
Create a board view by custom property
Go to your Tasks collection (the global view of all tasks across xTiles). Click + New view and choose to group by Duration. You will get a board with columns for each time block. Drag tasks between columns to re-estimate. This makes it easy to plan days by total available time.
The Tasks collection is always available in your sidebar. It pulls every task from every project in your workspace — regardless of which Space it belongs to — into one filterable, sortable view. You can filter by priority, urgency, due date, or any custom property you have added.
Templates: manual and AI-generated
xTiles has a template gallery with options for planning, work, personal productivity, and more. Some templates are free; others are available with a paid plan. But the fastest way to get started is often to generate your own.
The AI tile (the sparkle button in your toolbar) lets you describe what you want in plain language and generates a structured page layout for you. For example: "Create a weekly meal planner for a family of two with a shopping list and prep notes." The AI produces a visual layout with tiles for each day, ingredient lists, and tips — immediately usable and customizable.
You can be as specific as you want. Ask for particular colors, specific sections, or a format you have in mind. Once you have a layout you like, save it as a template so you can reuse it each week without rebuilding it.
eXtra Tiles: the automated layer in your Planner
When you open your daily or weekly Planner, you will see the eXtra Tiles panel in the left toolbar. This opens a panel of smart tiles that are connected to other parts of xTiles — and to your external tools.
- Tasks tile — shows all tasks with a due date on that day, pulled automatically from every project you have. Delete this tile and all your tasks disappear from the view; restore it from Extra and they come back.
- Schedule tile — shows events from your connected Google or Outlook calendar. Tasks and calendar events side by side in one view.
- Recent projects tile — shortcuts to the projects you have visited that day.
- Capture tile — connects to the Web Clipper, showing recently saved items from your browser.
These tiles are different from regular tiles you create yourself. They cannot be renamed or broken — they have built-in connections to your data. If you delete one accidentally, you can always add it back from the eXtra Tiles panel.
Web Clipper: capturing tasks from anywhere
One of the most practical features for everyday use is the xTiles Web Clipper — a browser extension that lets you save any web page, article, or email directly to xTiles without leaving your browser.
Here is a common use case: you receive an email you need to act on. Instead of copying and pasting content into xTiles manually, you open the Web Clipper while viewing the email, use the AI summary option to generate a brief digest of what the email contains, set a due date, and save it to your Planner. When you open xTiles later, the task is there — with a summary and a direct link back to the original email.
This turns your inbox from a place where things get lost into a source of properly scheduled tasks. The Web Clipper works with any web page, not just email — articles, research, reference material, anything you encounter while browsing.