Workflows
This article explores each productivity, prioritization, or organization method in detail to help you choose which one to use in each context – in each area of life, a different workflow might be more suitable.
If you haven’t yet read our overview of the unique productivity method behind Lunatask and why it actually works, start here first — it explains everything you need to know on a single page.
You can then dive into specific productivity workflows below in this article.
Before we dive in further, there are three ways to create a new task:
- Click the big blue “add” button at the bottom of the menu on the left
- Hover over the name of any section, and the button to add a new task into the section will appear
- Press
Aon the keyboard – alternatively,CMD+N(on Mac) orCtrl+N(on other platforms)
All our workflows are yet another layer of our unique approach and philosophy – doing all a to-do can to help you, guide you, organize and present you with an overview of future options to work on in the most helpful, guiding, and actually manageable way – all on its own, so you don’t have to 🌟
Use Shift+Arrow Up to increase a task’s priority and let Lunatask know what’s important to you, or use Shift+Arrow Right/Left to quickly move tasks between sections.
No need to look at tasks that aren’t relevant now. Once you plan the tasks to work on next, feel free to collapse Later section by clicking its name.
Priority List
In this workflow, your tasks live in one long list – no sections, not statuses. Almost like you would do with paper and pencil – it’s great for personal tasks, shopping lists, and other short lists.
Since this simple workflow treats all tasks equally, “Next to work on” overview shows only the top 10 tasks for areas using this workflow to keep you focused and avoid too much clutter 🧹
As in any other workflow, a task with the highest urgency is always highlighted in bold as the next task to work on – although this can be disabled in the settings.
Now / Later
Our simplest workflow with sections. It serves as a default workflow upon which our more advanced workflows are built – like our Kanban or Must/Should/Want workflows.
In this workflow, tasks live in two buckets called Now and Later. Now bucket is where you keep tasks to work on now (your current focus), while Later holds candidates to work on in the future.
In area settings, you can change the initial section for newly created tasks. By default, it’s Later, but it can be switched to Now, if you wish.
This workflow supports work-in-progress limit when enabled and configured in the settings – a warning will show when you have too many tasks in your Now section.
Kanban
This workflow is an extension of our Now / Later workflow, where your Now tasks are broken down even further to give you more structure.
In this workflow, your current tasks are broken down by their status, with the section for In progress tasks at the top, then your Next tasks to work on after you finish what you already started, then your Waiting tasks, and finally your backlog of tasks to work on and pick from in the future.
This workflow encourages you to finish existing unfinished tasks before taking on new ones.
This is similar to a traditional Kanban board, where tasks start on one side and move to the other as progress is made. Compared to a traditional Kanban board, the visual difference is that in Lunatask, sections are stacked vertically rather than arranged horizontally in columns, but the concept is the same.
In area settings, you can change the initial status for newly created tasks. By default, it’s Later, but it can be switched to Next, if you wish.
This workflow supports work-in-progress limit when enabled and configured in the settings – a warning will show when you have too many In Progress tasks.
Must/Should/Want method
⚡️ This feature is available on Premium plan
This workflow is our modification of MoSCoW productivity method and an extension of our Now / Later workflow, where your Now tasks are broken down even further to help you figure out what’s important.
For each of your current tasks, choose whether it’s a Must, Should, or Want. This will tell you what is important, what isn’t, and what to focus on first. As in other workflows, start working on tasks from the top.
In Lunatask, your tasks are always automatically sorted by their age and priority. On top of that, our Now/Later approach keeps you focused – to avoid overwhelm and help you get through your tasks in an organized, manageable way.
This already does a lot on its own to guide you, but when combined with Must/Should/Want as another additional layer, it becomes incredibly powerful – we believe you won’t find a better prioritization system 🌟
Plan Your Days
This workflow is designed to better accommodate those who still prefer a date-oriented approach or use Lunatask mainly for its other features.
You can plan tasks for specific days (e.g. “I'll do this today, and that tomorrow”) or plan your whole upcoming week, rather then work in a Kanban-like fashion without dates as offered by our other workflows.
If you only have tasks for today or tomorrow, only those sections will appear and you’ll have just a neat Today / Tomorrow / Later to-do list.
If you’d like to have just two sections – “Today” and your backlog of tasks to work on and pick from in the future, it’s simpler to use Now / Later and treat “Now” as “Today”. Remember, it’s up to you to give “Now” (your current focus) a meaning – for you, it could simply be “Today” 💡
To schedule a task quickly, just select it in the list and press S on your keyboard. On mobile, long-press a task in your list to open its quick actions menu.
In area settings, you also can configure where newly created tasks are initially placed - whether in “Today” or in “Later”.
Lastly, learn about our approach to scheduling and planning, and why we instead recommend our other, more forgiving workflows that require less time to manage, avoid constant rescheduling, a sense of failure, and other downsides of rigid, date-oriented approaches 👈
Eisenhower Matrix
⚡️ This feature is available on Premium plan
You wouldn’t find a prioritization technique more popular than the Eisenhower matrix – famously employed by Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States.
As an extension of our Now/Later workflow, where your Now tasks are broken down even further, this workflow helps you quickly identify the activities you should focus on and the ones you should ignore in your current focus.
First, assign to each task whether it’s important or not important, and urgent or not urgent. The matrix will then tell you what to do with each task.
| Important | Urgent | Section |
|---|---|---|
| ✅ | ✅ | Do Now |
| ❌ | ✅ | Delegate / Push Back |
| ✅ | ❌ | Do Later |
| ❌ | ❌ | Avoid / Eliminate |
Once you assign importance and urgency to each of your current tasks, this is how your list will look like:
This workflow also features our signature automatic prioritization – tasks are sorted first by their urgency/importance value, then their assigned priority, and lastly by their age. As in other workflows, start working on tasks from the top.
If you have trouble getting started on a task, try starting a timer.
Upcoming workflows
We’re working on a new Today / This Week / This Month / This Year / Later workflow called “Plan Ahead“ – bringing the best of both worlds, a Kanban-like workflow for scheduling, giving an overview of future plans, and working seamlessly for both tasks with and without dates assigned.
Would you like to see more workflows to pick from implemented? Have workflow idea of your own? Let us know on our Idea Portal 🙏