How to build your shift pattern

Work & Life for Android (also on iPhone as WorkLife: Shift Work Calendar) — takes about two minutes.

Your shift pattern is the one thing the app needs from you. Set it once, and Today, Schedule, your alarms, your sleep window and your pay estimate all fill themselves in — nothing to enter by hand, ever. Until it’s set, Today shows no countdown and the calendar stays empty.

Prefer a full screen-by-screen walkthrough with every button labelled? Download the PDF guide.

Where to find it

All four routes below open the same builder — pick whichever is closest to where you already are.

The full route: Settings → Work rhythm → Manage all patterns → + New pattern. Use this any time; you can keep as many saved patterns as you like and switch between them.
Ready-made patterns: Settings → Work rhythm → Ready-made patterns — pick a common rotation from a catalogue of 21, then edit it. Fastest if your rota is a standard one, like 3 Days / 3 Nights / 6 Off.
Your active pattern: Settings → Work rhythm → [your current pattern] opens the same builder on the pattern you’re already using, so you can change it.
During first-time setup on a brand-new install, the welcome flow offers “Build your pattern” and “Ready-made pattern” as cards — same builder, same catalogue.

Whichever way you get there, the builder itself is identical. Learn it once and every route is easy.

Watch it built, start to finish

This is the exact worked example below, recorded on the app itself — a real rotation, built one block at a time. It was recorded during first-time setup, where the builder opens with a sample week you replace. From Settings → New pattern the same builder opens empty, so you simply skip the “remove the sample” step.

_{Watch: building 2 Days / 2 Nights / 4 Off (1 min 47 s).}

Build your own, block by block

A block is a run of the same shift — “2 Days”, “2 Nights”, “4 Off”. Most rotas are just two to four blocks, added in order.

Worked example on this page — “4 on 4 off,” an 8-day cycle 2 × Day, 2 × Night, 4 × Off

Open the builder (see the four routes above). During first-time setup it opens with a sample week (5 Days, 2 Off) that you’ll replace; from Settings → New pattern it opens empty.
Under Add a shift, tap the Shift row and roll the wheel to your first shift — Day. No shift that fits? Tap + Add your shift type to create one: name it, set its Starts and Ends times, and pick a colour that reads clearly against the others.
Set Starts and Ends — we used 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM. If those hours match a shift you already have, the builder says so and reuses it; different hours make a new one.
Set How many days this block runs — for our first block, 2 — then tap + Add 2 × Day. It lands as its own row under “Your rhythm”.
Repeat for the next block: tap Shift, roll to Night, set 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM, keep 2 days, tap + Add 2 × Night.
Off days are added the same way — roll to Off (a day off has no times), set 4 days, tap + Add 4 × Off.
First-time setup only: remove the sample blocks with their ×. Your rhythm now reads “2 Day (12h) · 2 Night (12h) · 4 Off · 8-day cycle”.
Give the pattern a name you’ll recognise — we used 4 on 4 off.
Set day 1 — the one setting every future date is worked out from. In first-time setup, tap Continue and then tap the day you’re on today. From Settings, use Which day is day 1? just under your blocks and set it to the real date your cycle starts.
Check the preview against a date you already know — setup’s day-1 screen shows the next 7 days; in Settings, the 2-month projection sits further down the builder — so you catch a wrong “day 1” before saving, not after.
Finish: in first-time setup, tap Continue through the last two screens; from Settings, tap Save & use. Your calendar, Today’s countdown and your automatic alarms all fill in immediately.

The one setting to get right

Your pattern repeats in a cycle, and the app needs to know where in that cycle today falls — get “which day is day 1” right and every future day lines up on its own.

If your calendar ends up right in shape but wrong by a day or two, day 1 is almost always why. Fix it from Settings → Work rhythm → [your pattern] → Edit — the projection updates instantly so you can check before saving again.

Things worth knowing

Blocks run in the order you add them. Tap a block to change it where it is (then Update this block); to move one, remove it and add it again in the right place.
Save vs Save & use: Save keeps the pattern without switching to it; Save & use keeps it and makes it active. Only one pattern drives your calendar at a time — the rest sit in “My patterns” waiting.
Overnight shifts are handled for you. An end time earlier than the start time — 6 PM to 6 AM — is understood as a 12-hour overnight shift, not a mistake.
Nothing is lost by experimenting. Every saved pattern keeps its own Use button, so switching back to an older one is always one tap away.

Made a mistake, or your calendar looks wrong?

Today still says no pattern is set — you haven’t saved one yet; follow the steps above.
Days are in the wrong place — the day-1 step was off. Open your pattern, correct it, check the projection, and save again.
You’ve saved more than one pattern — only the one marked ACTIVE drives your calendar. Open the one you want and tap Use.

Work & Life for Android — Any Shift Pattern. Still stuck? imkalakandan@gmail.com