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Tasks

Our lists are the place for all your tasks and to-dos – they remember everything that needs to be done, freeing up your mental space to focus on other things.

Lunatask comes with a unique way of prioritizing your tasks, guiding you to finish already started tasks before taking on new work or towards older tasks instead of newer ones. It's just as simple.

Task list

Why reinvent a to-do list?​

As human beings, we often struggle with prioritization. Let's face it, we avoid difficult tasks, and we may not always follow through on tasks we have already started. Unfortunately, to-do apps often do not provide the necessary tools to address these issues. Instead, they leave it up to you, which can lead to a sense of failure.

Lunatask is different. We believe a to-do app should guide you so no task is left behind and reduce distractions. There are built-in battle-tested productivity techniques, such as Must/Should/Want method, Eisenhower matrix, work-in-progress limit, and others to keep you organized and productive. Timers are also here to help you get started with the task at hand.

Organization​

In our app, you organize your tasks into areas and goals. What other apps call lists, we call areas of life. We opted to use a less generic name to help users figure out how to structure their lists. You start with a single list for your personal tasks, but also can create additional ones (like "Work" or "Education").

Additionally, you can create an unlimited number of goals within each area. Goals can be projects like "Finish marketing website" or other things you want to achieve in life (like "Be more social" or "Make more music").

Structuring your areas​

⚡️ Unlimited number of areas is available on Premium plan – Free plan is limited to two areas

We believe that one can truly focus only on one area of their life at a time. This is one of the fundamental principles Lunatask was built upon. When at work, you want to focus on work-related tasks and avoid being distracted by your personal tasks. Whereas on weekends, you don't want to be stressed out by your work-related tasks.

So, how many lists should one have? When you have too many lists, you can't prioritize the tasks across them. If two tasks compete for one portion of your time, they should live in the same list.

We recommend starting with just a few areas (perhaps for your personal and work-related tasks), and only adding new ones once you are sure you need them. For example, you might want to create a separate area for movies you'd like to watch so they do not clutter your list of personal tasks.

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You can create additional lists under each area using goals. That way, you can have many different lists and still prioritize tasks across them in the main view of tasks for the area.

Tracking goals and projects​

Whereas areas represent different areas of your life, goals are here for tracking things you want to achieve in each area of your life.

Although you can think of goals as nested lists, they offer a few additional features. For example, goals automatically calculate your progress toward them from the ratio of completed and pending tasks.

Optionally, goals can also carry a due date, so you always see how many days you have left to complete them. This is great for goals representing projects that must be completed before a specific date.

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Since goals are basically nested lists with additional functionality, it's up to you which naming you pick for your goals. Let's look at the previous example of tracking movies you'd like to watch.

You can create a goal a name it "Movies" or use the goal-oriented naming of "Watch more movies". Whichever you prefer, and of course, you can use a different naming schemes in other areas.

On the other hand, if you go with the option of using a separate "Movies" area, you can use goals to categorize the movies further (like "Romantic", "Dramas", or "Thrillers").

Prioritization​

Unlike other to-do apps, Lunatask automatically prioritizes tasks for you. In this section, we will delve more deeply into how this works.

When you open Lunatask for the first time, you might be surprised by the missing ability to drag tasks manually around to move them up or down. This is because lists in Lunatask automatically sort your tasks, so the list is always prioritized.

While new tasks arrive at the bottom of the list, one is checking off older tasks on the top. The "first-in, first-out" approach maximizes throughput and makes sure no task is left behind. This leads to feeling better when there's a lot on your plate, even if you are usually a disorganized person.

You can tell Lunatask which tasks are important to you by changing their priority. You also pick which tasks are for now and which for later. This is how our Now / Later workflow works. There are also other workflows, like Must/Should/Want method.

One of our users said about this:

My initial impressions of it were that it was very frustrating ("This is stupid! Why can't I drag tasks!"), but then, once the concept behind it clicked, it was a real a-ha moment – most apps are designed with neurotypical users in mind, which is not really something that was obvious to me until I tried Lunatask.

How it works?​

There is a set of rules that govern the order of tasks in the list. This works somewhat differently based on which workflow you pick for each of your lists. For example, this is how it works in our Kanban workflow:

  • Tasks marked as In progress are more urgent than tasks in Next to nudge you to finish what you already started before taking on new work, so they show higher in the list
  • Waiting tasks are not actionable, hence they have a low urgency (lower than tasks in Next, but usually higher than tasks in Later) and are shown less prominently in the list
  • Higher priority usually means higher urgency as well. Using priority, you can nudge Lunatask so it knows what is important to you – if something is important, tell that to Lunatask by raising the task's priority.

If a new task should be done before an older one, it means it has a higher priority. Feel free to assign a higher priority to the new task to make it appear higher in the list. This can be done using the priority picker in the task detail, using the right-click context menu, or via Shift+Arrow Up keyboard shortcut.

If two tasks have the same properties like status, motivation, Eisenhower value, or priority, the older one is always considered more urgent, causing new tasks to appear at the bottom of the list while bubbling up as they get older.

See our dedicated articles for how it works in detail in each workflow.

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Lunatask always highlights the next task to work on in bold (but this can be turned off in the settings).

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At any time, you can reset a task's age in the right-click context menu. This can come in handy when organizing tasks that have been pending for a long time and you don't want them to be automatically prioritized at the top of the list and instead treat them as created today.

Different workflows​

A workflow is a specific productivity technique you pick for each of your areas and it affects mainly how your tasks are grouped together. There are a few workflows to choose from:

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You can switch between workflows freely here. Not like in other apps where after changing the structure of the task list, you cannot easily get back to the original state. The section where the task belongs in the current workflow is always calculated from its properties — no information is lost when switching between workflows.

In Now / Later workflow or Kanban workflow, you pick your next tasks by changing their status to Now or Next respectively.

Regardless of which workflow you pick for each list, there will always be at least two visually separated groups of tasks — your backlog of candidates to work on later (usually called Later) and your next tasks.

Usually, you will have only a handful of tasks planned to work on next, and you will periodically review your later tasks. It is okay if you have a lot of tasks there.

multi-workflow workflows (advanced)

Your prioritization workflow does not have to be your execution workflow. One might figure out what's important using Eisenhower matrix workflow, assign a date to each task, and then switch to Plan Your Week for the rest of the week to work on their tasks. Or you can do it the other way around, plan your week day by day in Plan Your Week workflow given external priorities, and then switch to Kanban workflow and execute the plan from there. Every morning, your planned tasks for today will show up in the "coming up" section above your regular Kanban status sections, which now track progress on your tasks.

So, you replaced manual ordering of tasks with 5 priorities?​

Yes, that's the simple way to say it. When you start manually dragging tasks around, you usually lose the sense of how old the task is. Using priorities, you have a way of saying that a certain task is more important than another while still allowing for more things to be taken into account (like their age or status).

Is this perfect?​

Of course, this gets in a way sometimes. However, people tend to avoid complex tasks and procrastinate on easy ones while challenging tasks get stuck for several days (we were certainly guilty of that in the past). So while the algorithm might not be perfect at prioritizing tasks, humans (and especially those with ADHD) sometimes are not either.

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Fortunately, the suggested order is just a recommendation. You can always get the tasks done in any order you like. Lunatask will just make sure to push tasks to a more prominent place higher in the list as they get older or are left unfinished to remind you of them, so no task is left behind. Pick any task you like and start working on it and don't forget to mark the task as In progress.

How to use the task list?​

Lunatask was designed so you can focus on one area of your life and one thing at a time without being distracted by other work that needs to be done later. Here is how we recommend using our task list:

  1. Take a minute to enter everything that needs to be done into the “later” section
  2. Move everything out of the “next” section, if needed
  3. Move a few tasks you want to finish in the near future (perhaps today) from “later” into “next”, with priorities set if needed
  4. Collapse the “later” section and simply forget about everything in there
  5. Now you have a few tasks in “next” in each area, allocate time appropriately between areas (e.g. work in the morning, personal tasks in the afternoon)
  6. Pick one area, switch to it and forget about other areas
  7. You now see just what you need to do today in that area (a few tasks) and nothing more. You are not distracted by your personal tasks that are now basically on hold until the afternoon.
  8. When the time comes, switch to the other area and do the same

Of course, you can choose however you want to use the task list or what the "next" section means to you.

Scheduling​

Lunatask supports both date-based scheduling and time blocking on the calendar. When the task is happening in the future, in a few days or next month, you can schedule it for that day or the day before using date-based scheduling. When the date comes, you can plan it into your day using time blocking.

So, date-based scheduling is useful for tasks happening later in the future, and time blocking is for today's or tomorrow's tasks. See our dedicated articles describing each method for more detail.

Integrations​

We offer powerful integrations allowing you to create tasks on various platforms or sync them into Lunatask from other apps and services. Here are a few examples of what our integrations can do:

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Lunatask is an end-to-end encrypted app and our integrations are designed to get tasks in from other services and apps, not to get them out. Lunatask servers cannot sync your data to other services as they simply do not have access to your data. If you want to get your data out of Lunatask, use data export.

Creative uses for areas and goals​

We are sure you will devise creative ways to structure your areas and goals. Here are a few examples of what you can do with areas and goals you might otherwise not think of.

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If you're looking for tips on handling long task lists, check out our article dedicated to that.

Inbox pattern​

Although Lunatask does not have an Inbox as you may find in other to-do apps, you can create one easily if needed. Simply create a new area, name it "Inbox", search the list of available icons for "inbox" to pick a nice icon, and place the area as the first area at the top of the menu.

Task archiving​

Lunatask currently does not have archiving of tasks – you either delete or complete a task. However, you can easily create a separate list (either an area or goal), name it "Archive", and archive tasks by dragging them there. When using a goal to achieve this, set its "show in area tasks" option to only actionable tasks and assign the task the Later status so that the task won't appear anywhere else in Lunatask.

Utilities​

When planning your day using time blocking, one may find it useful to have the option to place 15-minute or 30-minute breaks onto your calendar.

To do that, you can leave the space on the calendar between your tasks and meetings empty. Or, you can drag an exact-size break block onto the calendar. How? Create a new area and name it "Utilities". In there, create a task named "30m break" and assign an estimate of 30 minutes. Now, feel free to drag this utility task onto the calendar whenever you want to place a 30-minute break into your schedule.

Reading lists​

You can dedicate one area to storing a list of articles to read later or YouTube videos to watch. Create a new area and name it "Read Later" or "Watch Later".

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Set up a browser bookmarklet and save articles, webpages, or YouTube videos into your reading list with just one click in your browser's bookmarks bar.

Privacy​

Your tasks enjoy the same security and privacy benefits as our other features and are end-to-end encrypted.

Learn more​

We just barely scratched the surface in this article. Check out our dedicated articles to dive deeper into various other features of our task list, such as estimates, subtasks, timers, or the work-in-progress limit.

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Made with love in Prague. Used all over the world 🌎