A fixed 3×2 grid only pays off if you arrange it around how you actually work. Six cells look the same empty, but a productive dashboard for someone glued to a support queue looks nothing like one for someone deep in a single project all day. The apps matter less than the dashboard layout: where each sits, what's asleep, and what earns the cell your eyes hit first. A grid isn't the only way to do this, either; if you're still weighing your options, other ways to view multiple websites at once covers the rest.
Below are five layouts, each built for a different way of working. Pick whichever sounds like your day, or borrow pieces from two. Every layout fits a real 3×2 grid; one uses Premium's sixth cell, and says so.
1. The communicator
If your day runs on messages, build the grid around staying reachable without living inside any one app.
Top row, left to right: mail, calendar, team chat. Mail and calendar (Gmail, Outlook, or Google Calendar) open in their own tab the moment you click the cell. They're one-click launchers, not panes you stare into. Team chat depends on the tool; add it and the cell tells you within seconds how it behaves.
Bottom row: tasks, notes such as Notion, and a news source such as Hacker News. Notion and Hacker News need the TulipLot Companion first — install it once, then enable it for each site separately (Notion and Hacker News are two separate grants), and both load live from then on. Tasks can be whatever you already use.
That's six named apps, so this layout leans on Premium's sixth cell. On the free plan, drop the news cell — mail, calendar, chat, tasks, and notes still fill five cells cleanly, with the ad sitting quietly in the sixth.
Who it suits: support, sales, management — any role where being reachable is most of the job.
2. The maker
If most of your day is spent creating — writing, designing, building — the grid should say so. One cell carries the weight of your actual work; everything else is support, and it should stay out of your way until you invite it in.
Top-left: mail (Gmail or Outlook), a one-click launcher you check between tasks, not during them. Top-center: your main work surface — a Trello board, which embeds live, or a Notion doc, which needs the Companion installed and enabled for that site. This is the cell you expand into focus mode when you're deep in it. Top-right: team chat, same as above.
Bottom-left: calendar (Google Calendar), another one-click launcher. Bottom-center: a reference doc or notes app for quick lookups without leaving the grid. Bottom-right: the free plan's ad cell, or a second reference app on Premium.
The trick is the sleep control, and it only applies where there's live content to quiet: if your chat tool loads live in its cell, put it to sleep while you work and wake it on breaks, instead of letting notifications pull you out mid-thought. Mail and calendar need no such treatment. As launcher cells, they're already quiet until you click in, with no live content to interrupt you.
Five named apps, so this one runs comfortably on free.
Who it suits: writers, designers, developers — anyone whose best hours need one thing in front of them and everything else held at arm's length.
3. The monitor
If your job is watching for change, the layout should be built for glancing, not reading. Nothing here needs your full attention every minute — just enough visibility that you notice when something shifts.
Top row: your three glance-first panes — a status page, an analytics tool, and a second dashboard or uptime monitor, each added as a custom URL. The cell tells you within seconds whether a given one loads live, needs the Companion, or opens in its own tab instead. Keep these along the top, the row your eyes cross most.
Bottom-left: a news source such as Hacker News, which needs the Companion before it embeds live. Bottom-center: your calendar (Google Calendar), a one-click launcher rather than a live pane. Bottom-right: the ad cell on free, or a sixth glance target on Premium.
None of these cells are where you do the work. When a number moves, expand that cell into focus mode, dig in, then hit Esc and you're back to glancing across all six.
Who it suits: on-call engineers, support leads — anyone whose job is noticing before it's a problem, not sitting inside one app all day.
4. The researcher
Research work rotates through sources around a few things that stay put — your notes chief among them. Layout around what's stable, not what's currently open.
Top-left and top-center: two reference sites side by side, added as custom URLs for comparing passages or data without alt-tabbing; each is upfront on add about whether it embeds live, needs the Companion, or opens in its own tab. Top-right: your notes — Notion works well here (install the Companion, enable it for the site, and it embeds live), or any notes app you prefer.
Bottom-left: a search engine or library database for pulling in new sources. Bottom-center: your calendar (Google Calendar), a one-click launcher for keeping research time on the schedule. Bottom-right: the free plan's ad cell, or a third reference site on Premium.
The move that makes this layout hold up over weeks: when a source stops being useful, don't delete the cell and rebuild — use edit to swap the new site into the same slot. The position stays fixed, so your notes cell stays exactly where it was relative to your sources, and you never lose the habit of reaching top-left for "current source A."
Who it suits: students, analysts — anyone whose sources change constantly but whose workflow shouldn't.
5. The minimalist
Not everyone wants six things running. If three apps cover your whole day, the other cells don't need to be empty — they need to be asleep.
Top row: your three actives. Mail and calendar (Gmail, Outlook, or Google Calendar) are one-click launchers that open in their own tab; the third slot holds one live app, such as a Trello board.
Bottom row: two more occasional apps — notes, a second chat, whatever earns a spot but not constant attention — added once and put to sleep. A slept cell stays exactly where you left it and shows nothing new until you wake it: not gone, just quiet.
Bottom-right is where the tiers differ. On free, that's the ad cell, and it was never going to hold one of your three actives anyway, so it stays out of the way. On Premium, it's a third sleeping cell — or leave it empty; an empty cell costs nothing.
Who it suits: anyone who tried a crowded grid and found it noisier than the tab wall it replaced.
Placement rules that make any layout stick
A few rules cut across all five layouts, whichever one you start from.
Top-left goes to whatever you check most. Eyes land there first on every screen, every time, so give it to your highest-frequency check — inbox, chat, whatever pulls at you all day — not to whatever feels most important on paper.
Group by how often you glance, not by app type. A status page you check every few minutes doesn't belong next to a report you open once a week, even if both count as "analytics." Sort by rhythm first, category second.
Sleep what you check hourly. If a cell earns a glance every hour or two rather than constantly, put it to sleep between checks and wake it deliberately, instead of letting it refresh for no one.
Expand what you work in, not what you watch. Focus mode suits cells you're actively producing inside — a doc, a board, a ticket — not monitoring, which wants peripheral vision more than a full screen.
None of this is fixed forever. Drag two cells to swap them the moment your day changes shape, and the grid catches up instantly.
Layout is the cheapest lever you have. The apps barely change; where you put them changes how the day feels. Still deciding which five — or six — apps deserve a seat? Getting started with TulipLot walks through the whole setup, cell controls included. Curious why we built a fixed grid instead of another tab manager? Read Why we built TulipLot. And if you don't have a grid yet, create a free account — no card required — and have one of these layouts running before your coffee's gone cold.