☑️ How to manage your Tasks

The success of a day or project depends on which tasks you complete, when, and how. Your notes are the perfect place to manage the important things you need to get done.

1. List out all of the things you need to get done

If you are making your plan for the day, take a moment to list every possible thing you may need to get done. It’s a classic brain dump. Or if you’re planning for a project, say a new website, list out every step you need to complete it.

One of the best ways to do this is via a voice transcription. When we speak outloud our thoughts and ideas tend to flow more naturally. The list of Tasks tends to be more comprehensive.

2. Convert critical ones to Tasks

If you've done a comprehensive brain dump, you've probably ended up with some smaller Tasks that don't really need to be managed. It could be additional steps to a main Tasks or even a reminder.

But every major Tasks that must be completed for the day or project, convert it into a Tasks. Forcing yourself to go through your to-do list and find the critical items is a productivity hack in itself.

A Tasks is simply a checklist item that you want to keep track of. For many use cases for a checkbox, you might not want to keep track of them at all. Things like grocery or packing lists.

You can convert any list item to a Tasks using cmd + shift + return. This shortcut will toggle through an open and closed Tasks as well. If you want to turn it back into a normal checkbox, just use cmd + enter.

3. Manage and schedule from Tasks Manager

The key point of converting items to Tasks is that you can then manage them from the dedicated Tasks manager tab.

Tasks on daily notes are organized into current, upcoming, and overdue. Tasks placed on non-daily notes will show up under a section that has the note title. You can also put Tasks underneath a collapsible heading to give them a sublabel. Any Tasks on notes you have pinned will also be marked as such in the Tasks manager.

You can also put backlinks and Tasks to other notes. This is particularly useful for scheduling Tasks that exist on other notes pages. Simply backlink to either an exact or relative date, and that Task will then be scheduled for whatever day you chose.

If you want to clear out unwanted Tasks, you can either archive them or convert them to a checklist.