Tasks are one of the core objects in Routine. They represent actions you need to complete at some point.
There are two types of tasks in Routine: regular and recurrent tasks. In both cases, tasks are composed of a title (or name) and an optional description (in the form of a note).
Every task belongs to a parent, be it another task, a page, an event, a person, etc. In some cases, however, a task does not belong to another object. We refer to those as root tasks. For more information on that topic, please refer to .
Regular and recurrent tasks can be created through the
🔀 Regular Tasks
To create a regular task, type the name of the task in the console and press ↵ to validate. The new task will be created and saved in your Inbox.
When the task gets created, time can also be blocked, or the task can be scheduled for a specific date. For more information, refer to the
You can perform a number of operations on regular tasks, among them:
- Rename: press
↵to edit the name of a task in a list (e.g., Inbox); a task's name can also be edited when the task is open - Open: double click the task in a list or use the open button when provided (e.g., in notes); alternatively, you can always use the
⌘↵keyboard shortcut to open a task. - Describe: when a task is open, and there is no description, just press
↵or select a template to add a description. - Archive: tick the checkbox or use
⌘Ato mark a task as complete - Restore: untick the checkbox or use
⌘Ato reverse the process and restore an archived task (see)Restore archived items - Schedule: click the calendar icon or use the
⌘Skeyboard shortcut to schedule or reschedule a task - Delete: 🛑 not available yet
Tasks can also be created in the form of checkboxes, being in a task description, an event's private notes, a page, or a person's profile. For more information, please refer to
Regular tasks can also interact with your calendar, for instance, by allocating time for you to make sure those tasks will be attended to. For more information, please refer to
To create a task on mobile, just hit the + button, type a name and validate.
🔄 Recurrent Tasks
Recurrent tasks get created through the use of the every keyword. Unlike regular tasks that get saved in the Inbox for you to reconsider later, recurring tasks inherently have a notion of time, the recurring frequency.
For more information about the syntax to use to create recurring tasks, please refer to the
The recurring task being created can be considered as the origin object. Whenever the frequency is reached (e.g., daily, every Friday, etc.), a regular task gets automatically created based on the recurring task.
For more information regarding recurrences in general, please refer to
As a result, if you create a daily recurring task with a description that contains, say, an image; every one of the recurring instances (which are regular tasks) will have a copy of the image in their own description.
The operations that you can perform as recurring tasks are slightly different from regular tasks:
- Rename: press
↵to edit the name of a task in a list (e.g., Inbox); a task's name can also be edited when the task is open - Open: double click the task in a list or use the open button when provided (e.g., in notes); alternatively, you can always use the
⌘↵keyboard shortcut to open a task. - Describe: when a recurrent task is open, and there is no description, just press
↵or select a template to add a description. - Edit: to change the frequency of a recurrent task, click on the frequency (e.g.,
Daily) to change it - Stop: to stop a recurrence, click on the
Stopbutton; in effect, no more occurrences will be created leading to the recurrence to automatically complete at the end of the cycle. - Restart: if a recurrence has been stopped, you can restart it and new occurrences will be created in the future following the recurrence's frequency.
Editing a recurring task's description will impact the future recurring occurrences but not the past ones.
Unfortunately, it is not yet possible to create recurrent tasks on mobile.
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