What's New?: Entries from January - December 2023

Calendar layout for projects, and a happy new year! Dec 25

Before the year comes to a close, we have one very special announcement to unwrap: The long-awaited calendar layout is now available for projects!

Calendars have been a looong-requested feature and, throughout 2023, we’ve been methodically stacking the precise building blocks needed in order to build the calendar-everywhere-all-at-once view so many of you have been patiently waiting for.

The first building block was task duration, launched back in August. After that, we opted for an iterative approach to building calendars in Todoist – our first step being today’s release of calendar layout for projects. Since releasing this update to our experimental testers in November, we’ve learned a ton (900+ pieces of feedback and counting!) and, thanks to your insights, have added a few new elements to round out the experience.

Viewing a project as a calendar

Join Paweł, one of our frontend developers, as he walks you through the feature’s ins and outs from what can only be described as his North-Pole-adjacent office in Minnesota.

Try it for yourself! First, ensure that you have either a Pro or Business subscription, and then:

1. Select a project with lots of tasks with due dates.
2. On desktop/web, click View in the upper right corner. If you’re on mobile, tap the three dots icon, then View.
3. Select Calendar, and the project will automatically be displayed in calendar layout.

From there you can:

• Get an overview of all your project’s key dates and milestones.
• Drag & drop scheduled tasks around the calendar to reschedule them.
• Drag & drop unscheduled tasks onto the calendar from the “No date” sidebar (on mobile, tap No date at the top-right).
• Click any date to schedule a new task.
• Navigate further in the future, or back in the past.

Some experimental testers have mentioned using calendar layout in projects for things like income tracking, as a content pipeline, and as a sleep tracker… Tweet us (X us? 🤔) @todoist to let us know how you’re using it!

What’s next for calendars in Todoist?

We know that calendar layout for projects doesn’t fully scratch the Santa-Clause-sized itch for calendar visualization in Todoist.

But please trust us when we say that it’s coming straight down the chimney pipeline! In 2024, we have a whole squad of Doisters dedicated to an initiative that’s internally referred to as “Calendar Everywhere.” 😏

We are very, very excited about this and if you are too, please consider signing up to become an alpha tester. That way, you’ll get access to our “Calendar Everywhere” explorations before the millions of others who use Todoist (including even our Experimentalists).

Thank you sincerely for all your support in 2023 – sending you all our very best and warmest wishes for 2024! 🎊

Freedom from the confines of default sorting logic: Dec 13

With the new manual sort option, you can rearrange your Today and Upcoming tasks any way you darn well please, thank you very much. 😤

Want to put a task scheduled for 9 AM at the bottom of a day’s list instead of at the top? That makes sense!

Want to drag a P1 task to the middle of your Today view? Who are we to say you shouldn’t!

Our “simple yet powerful” product philosophy means creating common sense defaults so most people don’t have to think about it most of the time…while giving you the option to override them when you need to.

After all, no two Todoisters are exactly alike. That’s what keeps our jobs so interesting!

Today’s workload at a glance: Dec 13

Does it sometimes feel like you’ve scheduled 30 hours worth of tasks in a 24-hour day? It might be because you actually have. 😮‍💨

Now when you open your Today view, you’ll get a quick sense of your workload for the day with a total task count and the total amount of time you’ve planned for them based on cumulative task durations.

We hope this small change helps you better manage your workload and set ambitious but achievable expectations for yourself in 2024. Remember, there’s no shame in postponing for tomorrow that which you were never realistically going to get to today anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

View filters and labels in board layout: Nov 30

First, there were boards in projects. Then there were boards in Today and Upcoming.

As of November 30, 2023, boards have conquered the final frontier: filters and labels!

Imagine seeing…

• Your #work tasks due this month neatly laid out in boards based on project.
• Your @waiting tasks cleanly arranged in boards based on the date you added them.
• All the tasks assigned by: me beautifully visualized in boards based on the teammate you assigned them to.

Yes, you’ll still have the same number of tasks in your Todoist, and yet, the board layout somehow makes it all feel cleaner, calmer, and more manageable. (It’s science.)

Using board layout in filter and label views:

1. Select the filter or label you want to see tasks of.
2. In the top-right corner, click View (on mobile, tap the three dots icon and select View).
3. Click or tap the Board icon to select the board layout.
4. Group tasks by project, priority, label, or other attributes to see your filtered tasks arranged in columns.
5. Filters containing multiple queries will group tasks according to each query by default.

Want to see it in action? Take a look at this short demo from our CEO, Amir.

A simplified layout for better focus: Nov 20

Nothing beats a clean, organized workspace. That’s why we set out to declutter Todoist and simplify the layout on all devices.

In the coming days, we’ll be rolling out Todoist’s new layout to all users. The cleaner look and feel will help you save your mental energy by focusing on what really counts – completing meaningful tasks and making the most of each day.

Find your way around the new layout 🗺️

The first thing you’ll probably notice is that we said goodbye to the beloved red (or your chosen theme color) bar at the top. The result is a more refined canvas, especially if you click the icon to hide the sidebar (or shortcut M).

Here’s an overview of what’s changed:

• Many items have been neatly tucked away into a new user menu that you can access by clicking on your profile picture.
• The ring around your profile picture will tell you how you’re progressing towards your daily completed tasks goal (if you’ve set one). Click on it to instantly see your completed task count at the top of the menu.
• We’ve removed the Home button, but rest assured, you can still change your Home view to whatever you like. Press the H key on your keyboard to access it throughout the day.
• And, never fear, you can still customize your sidebar in the new layout. Go to Settings > Sidebar to decide which views to show or hide.
• If you’re not a shortcut-kind-of-person, you’ll find Quick Add and Quick Find right near the top of the sidebar. (And if you are, go ahead and carry on using Q and Cmd/Ctrl + K.)
• Projects now have a new icon: mirroring how you would type # for a project in Quick Add.
• Should you ever feel lost, remember you can always use the Cmd/Ctrl + K shortcut to quickly find anything (tasks, projects, actions, and more) with our new Quick Find.

A new Todoist color palette 🎨

Of course, a new layout calls for some new colors! Designers Ana, Anaïs, Ben, and Stephen simplified the palette and created four new deliciously named color themes so you can make Todoist feel more like you (plus four more, if you’re on a paid plan ⭐).

Quick access with the navigation bar on mobile 📱

Developers Pedro and Enric implemented the new navigation bar at the bottom of the screen in our mobile apps. Here’s how it works:

• Use the bar to quickly navigate to commonly used views: Inbox, Today, Upcoming, Filters & Labels, or Search.
• Tap the Browse tab to navigate to any other view. Tap it twice to go straight to the navigation menu.
• Customize the navigation bar to fit your workflow by selecting the views you want quick access to. To adjust, go to Settings, then select Navigation on iOS or Navigation bar on Android.

Quick tip

Now that we’ve decluttered the Todoist layout, you may feel inspired to tidy up your to-do list too. Check out our article on applying Marie Kondo’s life-changing tidying magic to Todoist. It’s the perfect step-by-step guide to help you organize and simplify your tasks for a productive, clutter-free experience.

Your feedback and ideas have been invaluable in guiding us through these enhancements and some tough decisions along the way. If you’re curious, we’ve shared some behind-the-scenes info on our new Todoist Bulletin.

Thanks for helping us build the tools you need for a more organized, productive, and clutter-free life. Let us know what you think of the newly simplified Todoist!

Faster loading, smoother scrolling with task list “virtualization”: Oct 13

Your long task lists will now load faster and scroll smoother with a nifty little update called list “virtualization”.

Instead of loading all tasks at once (slow), we now only load the items that are currently visible on your screen (faster). Scroll up or down, and Todoist smoothly loads the next set of visible tasks. (For the technically curious, here’s how our CEO Amir explains it.)

This is one of those almost invisible improvements that won’t make any headlines – in fact, the vast majority of Todoisters won’t consciously notice it. But these microsecond-saving upgrades all add up over time to an app that just works.

After all, you have better things to do than wait for your to-do list to load.

Keep track of progress with always-visible completed tasks: Oct 12

We’ve added a view option that allows you to keep completed tasks permanently visible within individual projects. It’s a great way to visualize your progress and recognize the work you’ve already put in.

To show completed tasks in a project, go to the View icon at the top-right and turn on the Completed tasks toggle. (On iOS, tap the three dots icon to show/hide completed tasks.) When enabled, the project’s “to-done” list will remain in plain sight across all devices and – for shared projects – between teammates.

Quickly switch project layouts with new menu design: Oct 5

Changing the layout of your project is a lot quicker and simpler, thanks to the newly redesigned interface. It’s a small change, but by eliminating one click and adding clear and delightful icons, selecting a layout is more intuitive and almost requires no second thought.

Of course, you still have to decide between the options – list or board, what will it be?

Reclaim your schedule with task durations: Aug 30

Your to-do list can be infinite. Your time…not so much. By popular demand, we’re bringing task durations to Todoist to help you take back control over your schedule and craft a realistic plan for each day. 

As one Todoister put it when she requested this feature:

“I am an intern at a law firm, a social activist, a student and, of course, I have many other duties in my life. To manage all that, I need to be able to control how much time I spend on each of my tasks in Todoist.”

By setting the time you’ll start a task and how long it will take, you’ll know exactly what will fit in your schedule — and what will just have to wait for another day. 

Then, see your plan neatly blocked out in your calendar app of choice alongside your other commitments. 

Here’s the nitty gritty on how to use task durations:

• When you click or tap on Time, you can now set the start time and assign a duration to your task.
• You can also add a task’s duration via Todoist’s signature smart Quick Add by typing “for” (e.g., “Team meeting today 4pm for 45min” or “Write first draft 9am for 2 hours 30 minutes”).
• If you’ve connected your Todoist to a calendar app, the task duration will sync to your calendar automatically (and, on Google Calendar, vice versa with 2-way sync so you can update your tasks from your calendar). More about using Todoist with your calendar.

Want to see it in action? Take a look at a short demo from Stijn, our product designer from the Netherlands:

A big thank you to everyone who wrote in to explain what you were missing in Todoist and what you wanted these features to help you accomplish. This update is a first step towards bringing more powerful planning tools to your Todoist… 👀

Take task durations for a spin and let us know what you think.

Turn off task goal celebrations: Aug 15

“For the love of god let me hide/disable the new cutesy pop up congratulating me on finishing some arbitrary number of tasks.” 

We’ve heard similar sentiments from quite a few Todoisters that the celebration pop-ups when you complete your daily/weekly task goals are a bit too disruptive. Particularly on mobile.

We’re happy to report you can now turn off these pop-ups entirely from the Productivity tab in your Settings. 🙇

Multi-task drag & drop: Aug 3

Re-organizing your tasks just got a lot faster and much more intuitive with revamped drag & drop on Todoist’s web and desktop apps. You can now:

• Select and reorder multiple tasks within a project or section at the same time. 
• Create sub-tasks in bulk by dragging them from left to right to adjust their indent level (or drop sub-tasks on top of their current parent task to turn them into regular tasks).
• Move multiple tasks to a different project by dragging them to the left sidebar.
• Know where you drop. We’ve added better visual indicators, so you know where exactly your tasks will land when dragging and dropping.
• Click and hold anywhere on a task to drag it. No need to find the little grey “handle” to the left of the task.
• Plus, reordering projects in the sidebar is now faster and smoother.

Want to see the new drag & drop in action? Take a look at this quick demo from Craig, our frontend developer from Vancouver, Canada, who single-handedly developed this feature: 

Special character support for project, section, and label names: July 11

Previously, when you added special characters to the names of projects, sections, and labels, Todoist replaced them with an underscore. So your “Work @home” project would turn into “Work__home” project.

While many thought this was a pesky bug, it was actually because of technical limitations. (Long story short: characters like @ / # " ( ) | & , ! interfered with the functioning of Quick Add, search, and filters). 

But now, thanks to some under-the-hood adjustments, these restrictions are a thing of the past. So you’re free to use all special characters in naming your projects, sections, and labels (with the exception of white space at the beginning or end of a name, which will be automatically trimmed).

Looking for creative names to personalize your to-do list? Here are some new personal favorites from Todoisters:

Add reminders fast with the new Quick Add shortcut “!”: Jul 5

Save yourself several clicks by typing “!” in the task field to add a reminder (or several) to your time-sensitive to-do’s.

Typing “!” — or tapping Reminders on mobile — will now pull up a quick list of suggested reminder times. Choose from the list, or keep typing your own.

Some example formats you can now use to set a reminder:

• !Mon 9am = Monday at 9 AM
• !2h30m = 2 hours and 30 minutes from now
• !30min before (or “!30mb” for short) = 30 minutes before your task is due (only works if your task has a due time)
• !later = 4 hours from now
• !tomorrow = the next day at 9 AM
• !next week = Monday at 9 AM (unless you’ve changed the default for “next week” in your Settings)

Go to our help center for a full list of Quick Add shortcuts for reminders in case you’re curious.

A few other design updates to make setting reminders easier: Jul 5

While we were adding the reminder shortcut, we made a few other design updates to make the whole reminder experience clearer, faster, and more intuitive:

• The new menu on web/desktop allows for smoother date and time picking and the option to set a reminder for an amount of time before your task is due.

• Scheduled automatic reminders will now appear in your task details as soon as you add a due time (if you have automatic reminders turned on in Settings).

• Location reminders have been moved to a separate label for improved visibility. And, for even faster access, you can now place them front and center by customizing your Quick Add.

• An updated design on iOS with bigger map and adjustable radius for more precise location-setting for reminders.

• Enjoy a seamless experience across all platforms now that reminders on Android have been redesigned to look just as sleek as the rest.

Create custom filters using natural language with Filter Assist: Jun 30

We’re the first to admit that figuring out the right query for your filter view can be a bit … complicated.

That’s why we set out to overhaul and vastly simplify creating a filter. This is with a little help from our AI overlords friends. 🤖

Before, you had to puzzle out a filter query that looked like this:

assigned to: me & due before: next month & #Work

Now, you can simply describe the filter you want using natural language, like this:

“all tasks that are assigned to me for this month in my Work project.”

The new, AI-powered Filter Assist will generate the filter query for you to add directly to your Todoist.

Want to see it in action? Take a look at a short demo from our founder, Amir:

Filter Assist is currently only available in English and Spanish. Learn more about Filter Assist at the help center.

Psst … Working on Reminders: Apr 25 🤫

Reminders are getting some much-needed love. Keep an eye out for a few exciting improvements coming very soon …

Of course, this is all still very hush-hush (well, most of it!), but we can tell you that reminders will look better and work even better real soon.

In the meantime, here are some smaller updates on reminders designed to help you remember the right tasks, at the right time, at the right place.

Pin reminders on Android 📌

Android users will be happy to hear that they now have the ability to “pin” reminders to their device’s notification panel. Accidentally dismissing a reminder will be a thing of the past. Head to your Settings and turn the Pin reminders toggle on to ensure crucial reminders will grab your attention when you need them.

More snooze options on iOS 💤

Things change, and sometimes a timely reminder is not what you need right now. On iOS, you now have more snooze options when you receive a reminder. To snooze a reminder, long press the notification on your device. Next to your default time for snoozing reminders, you can choose to snooze a reminder for 3 hours or even until 9 AM on the next day. Simply tap the desired snooze option, and get back to what you were working on in the first place.

Improved reminder visualization (iOS) ✨

We’ve updated the design of reminder notifications on iOS, similar to what they already look like on Android. Now, the task name is placed front and center and the notification includes the reminder time. It’ll make interpreting reminders at a glance easier, so you don’t lose time deciphering them. Small change, big improvement!

Why am I not receiving reminders? 🤔

Figuring out how to set up your device to receive reminders can be tricky, so it’s no surprise that our number one frequently asked question is: “Why am I not receiving reminders?” We’ve got you covered with an updated Settings tab, in-app directions, and a new troubleshooting guide to help you set up your device for reminders.

Focus on to-do, not overdue: Mar 31

We’ve all had our fair share of overdue tasks staring us in the face. They can be quite daunting, especially when they take over your view of the day as they pile up to panic-inducing levels. Here’s a quick fix: you can now collapse the Overdue section on your desktop or browser. 🤩

Perfect for whenever you feel overwhelmed or just need to focus on Today before dealing with those pesky or less important tasks.

The collapsible Overdue section is available in the Today and Upcoming view. Just make sure you’ve switched to list view and don’t have any grouping enabled.

So, go ahead and hide them for a moment of clarity, but don’t forget to tackle those tasks tomorrow, later in the week, or … someday, maybe. 🗓️

In other news, spring cleaning has started, and we’ve squashed a group of bugs making everything feel fresh and clean again. 🧹 ✨

Will you help shape Todoist’s future of collaboration?✨

Do you regularly collaborate with others and believe that working together should be faster, simpler, and more joyful? Then you might be the perfect candidate to participate in our newest private beta. Sign up to be one of the first to test a brand new way of collaborating inside Todoist (before we release it to everyone else!).

→ Request access here

Bye-bye bugs: Feb 8

It’s a new year and we’re off to a good start with a nice list of pesky bugs we got rid of. Also, some tuning and polishing have made everything a little better than before.

Customize Quick Add available on all platforms

With Quick Add customization now available on all devices, you can make Quick Add work even quicker for you. Personalize your Quick Add by choosing which task actions you want to display and in what order. Even better, your settings will automatically sync across all platforms.

For example, if your workflow includes regularly assigning tasks to your team members, you can choose to add Assignees to your Task Action list. Do you work with an intricate labeling system? Put it front and center so it’s the first thing you can add to your task. Think of this feature as a way to simplify and tailor your Quick Add to the way you work best.