Skip to main content

Tasks

This guide covers Lunatask’s unique approach to task management, including flexible workflows, priority-based lists, and productivity techniques designed for real people who want to get stuff actually done this time.

Task list

Your to-do list isn’t broken – you’re just using it like a calendar​

At Lunatask, we believe in a more forgiving, human, and actually manageable way to prioritize work and life goals. Our “Now/Later” method is designed to keep your list focused and achievable.

Instead of treating your task list as a calendar, Lunatask gives you a smart, evolving list of what matters now, without the stress of arbitrary due dates. Tasks naturally surface when they become relevant, so it’s like having priority on autopilot.

Here’s why Lunatask’s productivity method works​

You decide what matters now, everything else lives in later. Lunatask keeps both in sync and makes sure you always know what to do next.

And that’s what sets Lunatask apart from tools like Todoist or Sunsama. Tasks that aren’t relevant now stay out of view, but they don’t disappear. As time goes by, they gain relevance and rise to your attention.

Note

This is just one of the workflows Lunatask supports. Keep reading to see if it works for you or jump here to see all the possibilities (including managing future plans and deadlines).

So, what is “Now” in Lunatask?​

“Now” is your current focus, not tied to a date or deadline — just the tasks that feel important or actionable right now.

Everything else waits quietly for its turn in “Later”, automatically sorted by how long it’s been waiting, whether it’s been started, and any details you’ve added. When you're ready to move on, the next thing is already at the top.

You can fine-tune by adding task properties — like priority, effort, progress, etc — to shape how Lunatask sorts your list and decide what comes first and what can wait, because letting your passport expire is a bigger deal than forgetting to deep clean your washing machine. The more you add to a task, the smarter the system feels.

Will this work for me?​

If Now/Later doesn’t quite fit how you like to work, that’s okay. It’s just one of the many workflows Lunatask offers to organize your tasks.

Prefer a single backlog? Use the Priority List. Still want to work with dates? Try Plan Your Week. Unsure what’s most important? Give a shot to either Eisenhower Matrix or Must/Should/Want.

No matter which workflow you choose, Lunatask’s automatic prioritization — based on things like task age, priority, and progress — works behind the scenes to keep your list tidy and manageable.

How to set up your Lunatask​

In our app, tasks live in lists called areas of life, which in turn can have goals. You start with a single area of life for your personal tasks, but also can create additional ones (like “Work“ or “Education“).

You can create an unlimited number of goals within each area. Goals can be projects like “Finish website“ or other things you want to achieve in life (like “Learn Japanese“ or “Make more music“).

We believe that one can only truly focus on one area of life at a time. When at work, you want to focus on work-related tasks so personal ones stay out of view. Whereas on weekends, you don't want to be stressed out with work.

tip

Start with just a few areas, like Work and Personal and only add 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 don’t clutter your personal to-dos.

Tracking goals and projects​

Whereas areas separate dimensions of your life, goals are here for tracking things you want to achieve within that dimension.

Although you can think of goals as nested lists, they offer a few additional features. For example, goals automatically calculate your progress based on completed and pending tasks.

You can also add a due date to a goal to see how much time you have left to complete them, which is great for projects with a deadline.

tip

Since goals are basically nested lists with additional functionality, it's up to you which naming you pick for your goals.

Workflows to keep you productive​

While the app helps with prioritization, how it happens depends on the workflow you select. A workflow is a specific productivity technique that sorts and organizes the tasks of each area of life. There are a few workflows to choose from:

Each one works a little differently. For example:

  • In the 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. And so on.
  • In the Must/Should/Want workflow
    • Must tasks are more important than Should ones, which in turn are higher in priority than those you Want to do. This means that even if a Want task is already in progress, it still ranks lower than a new Must.
tip

You can switch between workflows freely, no information is lost when switching between workflows — unlike in other apps where after changing the structure of the task list you cannot easily get back to the original state.

info

No matter which workflow you use, tasks will be split into at least two visual groups of tasks — those you’re planning to do next and those waiting in the background. It’s fine if that backlog list is long.

Mix and match workflows (if you want)​

You can plan using one workflow and execute with another. 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. The beauty of Lunatask is you can switch freely between any workflows without anything getting lost.

Adjust priorities manually​

You can manually raise a task’s priority to move it higher in the list. This is a way of informing Lunatask of what’s important to you. Do this from the task detail, using the right-click menu, or via Shift+Arrow Up keyboard shortcut.

If two tasks have the same priority and other properties, the older one will come first. Tasks move up the list as they age.

tip

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

tip

At any time, you can reset a task's age in the right-click 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.

Scheduling​

Lunatask supports both date-based scheduling and time blocking on the calendar.

When the task is happening in the future — next week or next month — you can assign a date using date-based scheduling. When the date you picked comes, you can plan it into your actual schedule using time blocking.

So, date-based scheduling is useful for longer-term plans, and time blocking is useful 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:

info

Lunatask is an end-to-end encrypted app. Our integrations only bring tasks into Lunatask, data never leaves our servers because we can’t access your tasks. If you want to get your data out of Lunatask, use data export.

Learn more​

We just barely scratched the surface in this article. There are other built-in productivity techniques in Lunatask, such as work-in-progress limit. Timers are also here to help you get started with the task at hand. Feel free to check out our dedicated articles to dive deeper into various other features of our task list too, such as estimates or subtasks.

Lastly and most importantly, remember that Lunatask is not just about task management – start building healthy habits and closer everlasting relationships with the people you know today.

In Stores

Documentation

Compare

Help

About

© 2019-present Lunatask, an all-in-one privacy-friendly productivity and life-tracking app

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