Introduction to tasks

Tasks are the most important feature in Todoist. You can create a task for anything:

  • Want to remember to call mom? Create a task!
  • Do you need to bring some important documents to that very important meeting at work? Create a task!
  • Need to buy milk on the way home? Create a task!

Learn how to create, edit, schedule, and delete tasks.

Create a task

There are several ways to create a task:

  • Click or tap the + icon to open Quick Add.
  • On desktop or web: While in a project, label, or filter view, click the Add task option.
  • While in task view, you can create sub-tasks by clicking or tapping Add sub-task.

Edit a task

A task may need a new due date, label, section, or priority. There are several ways to make changes to a task:

  • Use the task view to make changes to a task name, date, project, priority and more.
  • Use Quick Add shortcuts after the task name to quickly add a task or make changes to a task.

    For example, enter the following in the task name:

    #Work today

    This moves the task to the #Work project and sets the due date to today.

  • In Todoist for iOS and Todoist for Android, use context menus to quickly make changes to tasks.
  • Click the drag handle icon to drag tasks between sections. However, if a grouping option is turned on in a view (for example: Today), tasks can't move between groups.

Complete a task

Completing tasks is easily the most satisfying part of using Todoist.

When a task is complete, click or tap the circle beside the task.

When working with tasks in sections, completed tasks remain in the sections they were completed in. To move a completed task to a different section, uncomplete it first. Then, move the task to a different section.

Turn on task complete tone

For that boost of motivation, turn on the task complete tone to play a sound when completing a task.

  1. In Todoist, click your avatar in the top-left corner.
  2. Click Settings.
  3. Click General.
  4. Scroll down to Sound & appearance.
  5. Turn on the task complete tone for either desktop and web or mobile.

Uncomplete a task

If you complete a task you didn't mean to, or need to bring a completed task back, you can uncomplete the task.

To uncomplete a task:

  1. Click View at the top-right of the project.
  2. Turn on Completed tasks.
  3. Click the checkmark icon to uncomplete the task.

Reschedule a task

We can't always accomplish everything we want to get done in a day. And that's ok! Todoist makes it easy to roll with the punches and reschedule tasks for later.

Reschedule an individual task

  1. Hover over a task you want to reschedule and click the calendar icon.
  2. Choose a new due date for a task by clicking on one of the date shortcuts or by selecting a new due date from the calendar.

Reschedule multiple tasks at the same time

  1. Press Ctrl (Windows) or Cmd (macOS) and click each task to select/unselect them. To select a range of tasks, hold Shift and click on the first and last tasks in the range.
  2. In the bar that appears at the top, click Due date and choose a new due date for all the selected tasks.

Reschedule a task from the Today or Upcoming views

  1. Hover over the task you want to postpone and click and hold the gray handle that appears to the left of the task name.
  2. Drag and drop the task to a later date to reschedule it.

Reschedule all overdue tasks from the Today and Upcoming views

  1. Click Reschedule in the top-right of the overdue tasks.
  2. Choose a new due date for all overdue tasks.

If you postpone a repeating task with relative recurrence, for example, every 2 weeks, the task will repeat 2 weeks from the new due date.

If you postpone a recurring task that repeats on a particular date or weekday, for example, every Monday, the recurrence will not change. 

Delete a task

When you want to remove a task from your task list without completing it, you can delete it. Here’s how:

  1. Right-click on the task you want to delete from Todoist.
  2. Select Delete task from the drop-down menu.
  3. Click Delete to confirm.

FAQ

The completion of recurring tasks can only be undone right after the occurrence has been completed, by clicking “undo” in the popup (web, Windows, macOS) or by tapping the undo popup (iOS, Android) which appears at the bottom of your screen.

It’s not possible to undo any previous occurrence of the task. For example, if you have a task due every day, and you complete it today, you can only undo today's task. You can't undo any previous occurrence of the task.

Note that you won't be able to undo the recurring task once the pop-up message disappears. Instead, you can create a new task or just reschedule your existing task by adding a new recurring due date that starts at your previous instance.

When you're done using your recurring task, you can simply complete it forever:

Right-click on a task and select Complete forever.