callumalpass_tasknotes/docs/features/task-management.md

Task Management

TaskNotes provides a system for managing tasks, which is built on the principle of "one note per task." This approach allows you to create, edit, and organize your tasks with a set of properties, while maintaining the portability and extensibility of plain text files.

Creating and Editing Tasks

You can create and edit tasks in a variety of ways. The primary method is through the Task Creation Modal, which can be accessed via the "Create new task" command or by clicking on dates or time slots in the calendar views. This modal provides an interface for setting all available task properties, including title, status, priority, and due dates.

TaskNotes also supports Natural Language Creation, which allows you to create tasks by typing descriptions in plain English. The built-in parser can extract structured data from phrases like "Buy groceries tomorrow at 3pm @home #errands high priority."

Additionally, you can convert existing checkbox tasks in your notes to TaskNotes using the Instant Conversion feature.

Task Properties

Each task in TaskNotes is a Markdown file with a YAML frontmatter block that stores its properties. The core properties include:

• Title: The main description of the task.
• Status: The current state of the task (e.g., "Open," "In Progress," "Done").
• Priority: The importance of the task (e.g., "Low," "Normal," "High").
• Due Date: The date by which the task must be completed.
• Scheduled Date: The date on which you plan to work on the task.
• Contexts: Location or tool-based groupings (e.g., "@home", "@work").
• Projects: Links to project notes in your vault that the task belongs to.
• Tags: Standard Obsidian tags for categorization.
• Time Estimate: The estimated time required to complete the task, in minutes.
• Recurrence: The pattern for repeating tasks, using the RRule standard.
• Time Entries: An array of recorded work sessions, with start and stop times.

You can also add your own custom fields to the YAML frontmatter, and use the Field Mapping feature to map them to TaskNotes' internal properties.

Projects

TaskNotes supports organizing tasks into projects using note-based linking. Projects are represented as links to actual notes in your vault, allowing you to leverage Obsidian's linking and backlinking features for project management.

Project Assignment

Tasks can be assigned to one or more projects through the task creation or editing interface. When creating or editing a task, click the "Add Project" button to open the project selection modal. This modal provides fuzzy search functionality to quickly find and select project notes from your vault.

Project Links

Projects are stored as wikilinks in the task's frontmatter (e.g., projects: ["[[Project A]]", "[[Project B]]"]). These links are clickable in the task interface and will navigate directly to the project notes when clicked. Any note in your vault can serve as a project note simply by being linked from a task's projects field.

Organization and Filtering

Tasks can be filtered and grouped by their associated projects in all task views. The FilterBar includes project-specific filters, and tasks can be grouped by project in the Task List and Kanban views. Tasks assigned to multiple projects will appear in each relevant project group, providing flexibility in project-based organization.

Template Integration

Projects support template variables for automated workflows. The {{projects}} template variable can be used in task templates, and the {{parentNote}} variable will format project links as YAML list items when creating tasks from project notes.

File Management and Templates

TaskNotes provides a system for managing your task files. You can specify a Default Tasks Folder where all new tasks will be created, and you can choose from a variety of Filename Generation patterns, including title-based, timestamp-based, and Zettelkasten-style.

TaskNotes also supports Templates for both the YAML frontmatter and the body of your task notes. You can use templates to pre-fill common values, add boilerplate text, and create a consistent structure for your tasks. Templates can also include variables, such as {{title}}, {{date}}, and {{parentNote}}, which will be automatically replaced with the appropriate values when a new task is created.