Capturing tasks

Capture should be faster than the thought fades. Tasks gives you a quick-add box that parses dates and priorities as you type, a dictation button, and one-click capture from Mail and Chat.

Quick add

1. Open Tasks and click the Add a task box at the top of the list.
2. Type the task — for example Send recap today p1.
3. Press Enter. The task is created, appears in the current view, and opens in the detail panel ready for any extra edits.

Shorthand

Quick add understands a little shorthand, so a date and priority don’t cost you a trip to the detail panel:

You type	What it sets
today	Due today
tomorrow	Due tomorrow
p1	Priority P1 · High
p2	Priority P2 · Medium
p3 / p4	Priority P3 · Low

The shorthand words are stripped from the title, so Send recap today p1 becomes a task titled “Send recap”, due today, at high priority.

Note

Due dates set by shorthand land at 5 PM local time. And a capture made while you’re in My Day defaults to due today even without the word today — so what you just added stays on today’s list instead of vanishing into the undated pile.

Fill in the details

Click a task to open it in the detail panel on the right, where you can:

• Edit the title in place.
• Set Status and Priority from their dropdowns.
• Pick a Due date.
• Add Labels (comma separated).
• Write longer Notes underneath.

Every edit saves as you go — there’s no save button.

Dictate a task

Click the microphone button at the right edge of the quick-add box and speak; your words stream into the box as text. Press Enter to capture, shorthand included. See Voice for how dictation works across Knobs.

Capture from Mail and Chat

You don’t have to leave a conversation to capture the work it created:

• In Mail, open a conversation and click Add to Tasks in the toolbar above it.
• In Chat, hover a message and click Add to Tasks in its hover toolbar.

Both create a task linked back to the source, with the title derived from the thread or message. See Tasks from anywhere for how those links behave.