Building Better Team Task Management in Todoist

Todoist is great for managing your own tasks, but what if you’re leading a team? How can you use Todoist in order to not only assign tasks to other team members but to also track their progress?

There are several ways to make this happen, with becoming a Todoist business member standing out amongst the pack. But there are other ways to make this happen: either in tandem with Todoist Business or by simply using Todoist Premium. That makes Todoist a task management powerhouse for personal and team use.

Small versus large teams

Let’s discuss Todoist Business as an add-on. If you are communicating with only one individual and you want to be sure to keep tabs on their work, simply use Todoist’s team inbox as a repository for all of the tasks that the two of you will work on together. Then use labels and filters to segment them out a bit. Labels essentially become team projects in this instance. Because they are calculated in the labels view, you’ll see how many tasks have each label you use. That’s one way to measure progress. Once a label has no tasks left, it’s done and you can either delete it or leave it be.

Make sure that your team inbox is a color that is different from all other project colors. This way, you can identify progress far easier when reviewing the team inbox in the “your productivity” area. Since you can’t change the team inbox color, you’ll need to pick alternate colors for projects you create going forward.

But team inbox isn’t going to be for everyone. It can get incredibly massive for one. Secondly, you may want to segment projects and assign them to different team members. While Todoist Business allows for this once tasks are taken from the inbox, it can be difficult to track progress.

This is where you need to get a bit more creative.

One thing you can do when working with a larger team (whether remotely or otherwise) is share tasks with them on a project-by-project basis. You can do this by going into the “share” button at the top right corner of the task pane and enter your teammate’s email address in the space provided. You can do this multiple times, allowing for more team members per project if you wish. I’ve shared several projects with others, and this works better for me than the team inbox because I can use a filter called “assigned to others” (which was already created for you when you first signed up for Todoist) and monitor progress across several projects with more clarity and focus.

But what if I’ve got work that I’m not ready to assign a teammate or subordinate yet? That’s where labels come in handy.

Keeping your team in sync

I use labels as contexts in Todoist, following the GTD methodology created by David Allen. So I’ll create labels for each teammate and use them in tandem with tasks that I need to follow up with them on or don’t have ready for them yet. I’ve even had some clients that have actually created projects that are named after teammates as well so that they can leave tasks not ready for them yet in there to incubate. Smart stuff.

Another thing you can do to keep the team in sync is to share the iCalendar feeds across the board:

Then have your teammates add each others’ feeds to their calendar program of choice so that they can all have a sense of where things are at in terms of the tasks they are all working on. Be mindful of using this tactic, though. Everything in each Todoist account is exposed, so only do this if all you are keeping in Todoist is work-related material that is okay for all to see. Or only have subordinates share their calendar feeds with superiors if that’s a concern.

Team task management charter

Finally, one of the things I highly recommend that teams integrate into their culture is a team task management charter. Using this sort of unifying document ensures that team members can understand and use important labels. It creates a deeper cohesion across the board, which is critical when developing a collaborative working environment—no matter what tool is being used. If you create a team task management charter with Todoist as one of the central apps, then some things you can incorporate into it are as follows:

1. Use color consistently: Each color of a project can be representative of a department, shift, or some other area of responsibility within the business
2. Use specific labels: email, errands, specific applications, and so on
3. Priority flags have a distinct meaning across the company: P1 flags could mean urgent, P2 flags could mean important, etc.

Todoist is a task management app that scales really well—for individuals and for teams. With these strategies, you can start collaborating better with Todoist today!