Introduction to recurring dates

You likely have tasks that repeat on a regular basis—writing monthly reports, recycling every week, or calling Mom on her birthday. Instead of creating a new task every single time, add a recurring date! When you complete a task with a recurring date, it automatically shifts to the next date with no extra effort required on your part.

Add a recurring date

In the task name, use natural language to set a recurring date, like every Monday or every weekend. The smart Quick Add automatically recognizes, highlights, and adds the recurring date to the task.

Select Platform:

Web, macOS, Windows 10/11iOSAndroid

A date may be a part of a task name rather than a deadline. For the task "Create monthly report", the word monthly is highlighted as a recurring date. Click or tap the word to disregard it. You can also turn off smart date recognition.

Use recurring dates

Recurring dates come in a wide variety of formats, so you can consistently complete your tasks. Whether it's to buy milk every week or take medication every 12 hours starting at 07:00 PM, there’s a recurring date for almost anything.

A heads-up though! A task's future occurrences are hidden by default. If you need to see all occurrences of a task, open your project, apply the calendar layout, and turn on Future occurrences.

Huge thanks to Todoist ambassador, Leighton Price, for providing examples for this article.

Reschedule a task with a recurring date

If you suddenly need to put a task off for another day, reschedule the task.

When rescheduling a task with a recurring date, the next recurrence depends on the type of recurring date:

• Absolute recurring date: the next recurrence will always be on that specific day of the week or date of the month. For example: every Tues or every 15th day.
• Relative recurring date: the next recurrence will continue based on the newly set date. There's no option to reschedule them where they would still maintain the original pattern. For example: every week or every 12 days.

To postpone a recurring task, use the task scheduler and pick a new date. If you type a new date for a recurring task, you will completely change the task's date and lose the recurrence.

Melis · Customer Experience Specialist

You can view all your recurring tasks in Todoist by either entering recurring in the search bar, or using recurring as a filter query.

Best practices for recurring dates

When adding a recurring date, follow these best practices to ensure Todoist recognizes and adds it correctly:

• Place the start date at the end: every 14 days 7am starting 1 Nov
• Place the time after the first date: every other Tues 7am starting 1 Nov
• Specify the days of the week the date will recur: every mon, tues, wed, and fri

  Todoist doesn't support every day except as a recurring date.

Marija · Customer Experience

If your recurring task has a deadline, consider adding the deadline to the task. For example, create a recurring date every 2 days at 12:00 and add a deadline {Feb 28}. As you work on this task, you will always see its deadline, while the recurring date will change. To learn more about deadlines, check this article.

Get in touch

Start creating tasks with recurring dates to build strong habits over time. If you run into any issues scheduling recurring dates, get in touch with us. We—Summer, Keita, Stef, or any of our 14 teammates—will make sure you stay on track with all your recurring tasks.