Kanban
In this workflow, tasks are broken down by their status, with the section for Started
tasks on the top, then your Next
tasks to work on after you you finish what you already started, then your Waiting
tasks, and finally your backlog of tasks to work in the future at the bottom of the list.
The newest and least actionable tasks live at the bottom and are slowly moving up the list as they get older. This workflow encourages you to finish existing tasks before taking on new ones.
This is similar to a traditional Kanban board, where tasks start on one side of the board and slowly move to the other side as they go through each status. Compared to a traditional Kanban board, the visual difference is that in Lunatask, sections are stacked vertically instead of as columns horizontally.
When you create a new task, it starts its life in Later
status. You can change its status by opening the task and selecting the new status in the status picker, using the right-click menu on the task in the list, or via Shift+Arrow Right
keyboard shortcut.
In the settings, you can change the initial status for newly created tasks. By default, it is Later
, but it can be changed to Next
. This is useful when you have a long backlog of tasks in Later
you don't intend to work on in the near future.
Tasks in each section are sorted by something we call urgency. You can think of urgency as a set of rules that govern the order of tasks in the list. Learn more about urgency on our page dedicated to prioritization.
The task with the highest urgency will be highlighted in bold in the list as the next task to work on. This can be disabled in the settings.
As in other workflows, start working on tasks from the top. If you have trouble getting started on a task, set a timer.
No need to look at tasks that are not relevant now — once you plan the tasks to work on next, collapse Later
section by double-clicking its name. This works for all sections in all workflows.