Tasks
Work, next to the mail it came from.
A task list that knows what your mail says. Seven states rather than three, due dates you type in words instead of clicking, and notes that hold a document rather than a sentence. It is not a project management suite, and the last section says so.
- States
- To do
- In progress
- In review
- QA
- Done
- Cancelled
- Hold
- A list groups into
- Overdue
- Today
- Tomorrow
- Upcoming
- Someday
- Completed
- Due dates it understands
- next friday
- eow
- in 3 weeks
- sept 15
- 3d
- 24h
Type the date. It is faster than finding it.
A date picker is four clicks to say a thing you could have typed in five characters. The field takes the words instead — and the grammar runs on the server, so the list of formats it understands can grow without every visitor downloading a parser they will use twice. These six are the awkward ones, which is why they are the ones worth showing.
The board
- 01
Seven columns that match how work actually stalls
Seven states, not three: To do, In progress, In review, QA, Done, Cancelled and Hold. Review and QA are separate because they are different people doing different work, and Hold is not Cancelled — one is waiting, the other is over.
- 02
Drag without a renumber
Cards carry a fractional sort key, so dropping one between two others writes a single number rather than renumbering the column. Order survives two people dragging at once instead of one of them winning.
- 03
Priority with room underneath it
Priority is stored 0–9 and shown as none, low, medium, high or urgent. The wider range is there so imported or scripted values keep their ordering instead of collapsing into five buckets on the way in.
Dates
- 04
Due dates you type, not click
Type "next friday", "eow", "in 3 weeks" or "3d". A grammar reads it, not a list of formats — which matters because the useful inputs are the irregular ones nobody thinks to add to a list.
- 05
The grammar is not in your bundle
The parser is a couple of hundred kilobytes of grammar and it loads the moment you open a date field, not before. Somebody who never sets a due date never downloads it.
- 06
Six buckets, including one for no date
A list groups into overdue, today, tomorrow, upcoming, someday and completed. Someday is a real bucket rather than a synonym for forgotten: a task with no date has a place to be.
Detail
- 07
Notes that hold a real document
Notes are a document, not a text box: headings, bulleted and numbered lists, checklists, quotes, dividers, images and code blocks with syntax highlighting. Typed with a slash, the way you would expect.
- 08
People, comments and a record
Assign to anyone in your organisation, and the card carries comments and a history of what changed. The history is written by the app rather than typed by whoever remembered.
- 09
Linked to the calendar
A task can point at a calendar event, so the thing you have to do and the time you set aside to do it are one item rather than two that drift apart.
From your mail
- 10
A thread becomes a task
Turn a thread into a task without leaving it. The task keeps the link, so the answer to “what was this about” is one click rather than a search.
- 11
Your preferences travel
Sort order, whether completed tasks show, whether deleting asks first, whether a new task offers to make an event — set once, and every device you sign in on follows.
What it does not do
Every page like this one lists what a product is good at, which is why that list tells you nothing. These are the limits, named before you find them.
- 01
No recurring tasks
There is no repeat rule. A task that happens every Monday is seven tasks, or one you keep moving. The calendar has recurrence; tasks do not, and adding it properly means deciding what a missed occurrence should do — which is the part that takes the time.
- 02
Reminders depend on a job runner
Reminders exist in the code and run on a scheduled job runner. Whether that runner is connected is a deployment question, and on a deployment where it is not, a reminder is written and never sent. We would rather say that than let you find out by missing something.
- 03
Attachments need storage configured
Files on a task need object storage configured. Without it the rest of the task works and attachments are simply unavailable, rather than failing at the moment you try.
- 04
Not a project management suite
No board templates, no automation rules, no burndown. This is a place to track work, not a project management suite, and pretending otherwise would set an expectation the product does not meet.
It is included with every mailbox — there is nothing else to turn on.
Open Tasks