Todoist Reminders

1. If you wanted your reminder to be '5 days before', you can't do this at present, because that isn't one of the options and this isn't currently a free text field. See also Todoist Help: Reminders. Thanks to David Trey at Todoist support for providing the answer via email.
2. Create Todoist tasks from new Evernote reminders. When this happens Step 1: New Reminder. Then do this Step 2: Create Task. If you're having trouble acting on all those notes and research, let Zapier offer some automated assistance with this integration.
3. Creating reminders in Todoist is one of the best ways to keep yourself in the loop with your next task or a task that you don't want to forget. Reminders can come in the form of emails, SMS messages or even mobile push nudges to keep you on the latest task.
4. Select Platform: Click your avatar in the top-right corner of Todoist and select Settings. Click Reminders. Check the box next to the type of notification you’d like to receive: Desktop notification to get notifications via your. Desktop notification to get notifications via your operating system.

One of the biggest pain points that Todoist users have is the lack of start dates in the app. To be fair, not many of the task management apps out there have starts dates. And those that do have start dates don’t have the scalability that Todoist offers in terms of features and platform ubiquity. If you’re a fan of David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology, then start dates are going to be something you’ll want. And while Todoist doesn’t offer them in a dedicated field, you can make start dates happen in Todoist – and without the use of external apps or services to boot.

The app sends reminders when tasks are due, alerts for events and other types of reminders (like reminding you to take your medicine). Has periodic alerts. Apple Reminders. The app can be set to send periodic alerts (for example, every 10 or 20 minutes) until you have completed a task.

I’ve experimented with three ways to achieve start date functionality in Todoist, and while none of them are perfect…they do the trick.

1. Use the Reminder function (and don’t set a due date)

This one is a great way to create start dates, but it does need you to be disciplined about what date you can begin a task.

Todoist allows you to create reminders for tasks either by location or by time. In this case, you’ll want to use time-based reminders so that they’ll ping you on a date and time rather then where you might be located. To use reminders as start dates, don’t create a due date for the task but create a time-based reminder instead. Be disciplined and realistic about when you want that task to first appear, and then when it does remind you to start working on the task you should either flag it for completion or assign it a due date.

The one drawback to this method is that you’ll either get emails or mobile reminders regularly if you have multiple tasks starting on a day. But let’s face it – you’re probably getting email notifications anyway so at least these ones are serving what you decide to work on versus what others decide you should work on. One other thing you may want to do is pick a consistent time to be prompted by reminders so that you only need to think about start dates rather than start times. I choose 9:30 AM as my start time as that’s when I’m usually through my morning routine and am ready to move forward on my tasks for the day.

(If you want to be sure that you see these, you can always assign them a priority flag as well. That way you can create a filter that shows anything you’ve tagged to start later.)

2.Use Priority Flags and Filters

This one is a little less complex to set up, but also relies on you conducting a regular review. But you should be doing that anyway, right?

I tend to use the P1 flags for the three tasks I must get done on that particular day (My Three Absolutes) and my P3 flags for repeating tasks that I don’t want to see fall through the cracks and yet don’t have a time assigned to them. The P2 flags are designated for important tasks, both dated and undated, which is why they are so useful to use for start dates for anything that isn’t urgent (or absolute) but important. In fact, all of the priority flags are useful to use as start date triggers…if they’re set up correctly.

What you need to do is to create at least two filters. One should be for tasks that are attached to a flag type (P1 through P3) and another should be the same but with a date modifier as well. Here are some examples I use:

• Important (Query: P2)
• Important – Next 10 Days (Query: P2 & 10 days)
• Important – Next 30 Days (Query: P2 & 30 days)

As I mentioned earlier, P2 is the flag I use for important tasks so I want to make sure those have some form of start date so I can make measured progress on them over a longer period of time. I use all three of the above so I can not just see tasks that are important and not dated, but those that I have dated over a 10 day period and a 30 day period. These filters allow me to be proactive with this deeper work. The majority of my important tasks start with no date attached – this blog post would be an example. But once I reviewed this filter and decided it was time to write it, I gave it a due date that was far enough away that I was able to slowly work on it and finish it before the due date (6 days beforehand, to be precise).

This method also allows me to take care of all of my important tasks far enough out so that I can do things like take a vacation and my regular small sabbaticals.

Todoist Recurring Dates

Todoist Reminders Locations

3.Use Due Dates as Start Dates

This is the least desirable of the three, but it takes the least amount of technical effort to do. Why? Because you just need to turn off Todoist Karma so that you’re not “penalized” for having overdue items. You also need to make sure you avoid any filters that have “od” or “overdue” in the query.

I used this method for a long time, but I really like what Todoist Karma offers me in terms of momentum and reward. I also don’t want to impose limits on what Todoist can do that aren’t already there (and, yes, Todoist does have its limits). It’s better for me to think outside the box with the existing features Todoist offers and make them work in my quest for start dates than try to fit a square peg into a round hole.

A slot for start dates may come to Todoist in the future. But until it does, I’ve managed to make what Todoist has work for me and create start dates with a little ingenuity and forward thinking.

And now you can too.

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