Natural-language entry
Type "Call Alex tomorrow at 3pm p1 #sales +Website" and the date, time, priority, tag and project are lifted out of the title and set on the task. Free on every plan.
By ToDidIt Product TeamUpdated
A task you have to fill in a form for is a task you do not capture. The point of this is that the whole thing is one line: you type the sentence you were already thinking, and the date, time, priority, tag and project come out of it.
Type "Call Alex tomorrow at 3pm p1 #sales +Website" and you get a task called Call Alex, due tomorrow at 3pm, at P1, tagged sales, filed in Website. The words it used are taken out of the name, so you are left with the task rather than the instructions.
Tip
Nothing is applied unseen. Every value it pulls out lands in the visible field for it while you are still typing, so you can see what it decided before you press Enter.
Four things, typed anywhere in the name, in any order.
- Dates and times, in the shapes people actually type: tomorrow, next Tuesday, Friday at 9, 3pm, in three days, May 12, this weekend.
- Priority, as p0 to p4, standing on its own as a word. Case does not matter.
- Tags, as #sales or #follow-up. They start with a letter and can hold letters, numbers and hyphens. Use as many as you like.
- Project, as +Website. Names with spaces work, so +Client work files it there rather than in a project called Client.
Tip
Typing #design when no design tag exists creates it. Stopping mid-capture to go and file a new word is how a shared vocabulary dies. If your role cannot create tags the task still saves, and you are told which ones were skipped.
The fastest way to trust this is to watch the fields fill in as you type. Open the capture box and type each of these, without pressing Enter, then look at the controls underneath.
Type "Pay the invoice friday at 9".
Open the appThe due date and time fill in, and friday at 9 disappears from the name. A bare day with no time sets the date only and leaves the time empty.
Add " p1" to the end.
The priority control moves to P1. Delete it again and it goes back to where it started, because the parser only owns a field while it is the thing that set it.
Add " #billing".
It appears as a tag chip. If your workspace has no billing tag yet, saving creates it.
Add a + and one of your project names.
The project picker moves to it. Press Enter and the task files there, named just Pay the invoice.
Read these as typed on a Wednesday morning.
- Call Alex tomorrow becomes *Call Alex*, due tomorrow, with no time set.
- Do the thing 3pm becomes *Do the thing*, due today at 15:00.
- Standup monday becomes *Standup*, due the coming Monday, never the one just gone.
- Review in 3 days becomes *Review*, dated three days out.
- Email #sales #urgent #q3 becomes *Email* with all three tags.
- Deploy +Website tomorrow p0 #release becomes *Deploy*, in Website, due tomorrow, at P0, tagged release.
Nothing, on every plan including Free, and it never spends a To-Did. It is pattern matching that runs in your browser rather than a model call, so it is instant and there is no budget to think about.
It works in Quick Capture, the ⌘ K box, which is where tasks get typed. Because the parsing is local, the only part that needs a connection is saving the task.
You will see it before it matters, because every value lands in its own visible field while you type. Anything wrong is one click to change, and a field you set by hand stays put unless you go on to type something that parses as that same field.
If a word you wanted in the name keeps getting taken, set that field by hand instead and the name is left intact.
- A date that has already passed this year lands next year. In September, *May 12* means next May, not four months ago. Task dates point forwards.
- Only the first priority counts. *Fix p1 p2* files at P1 and leaves *p2* sitting in the name, which is your clue that it was ignored.
- An unmatched +name creates nothing. Mistyping +Webiste leaves the text in the name and the project alone. A tag is a word, but a project is a container with members and settings, and inventing one from a typo is a different kind of mess.
- Not everything is a date. *End of month* and other loose phrases are left alone rather than guessed at. If it did not turn into a chip, it did not parse.
The short answers.
- Do I have to use it? No. Every field is still there to click, and typing plain prose does nothing surprising.
- Does it use AI? No, and that is why it is free and instant. Smart Due Dates is the AI one, and it suggests rather than parses.
- Can I put a real # or + in a task name? Yes. # followed by a number, like *Review PR #1*, is left alone, and a + that matches no project stays put.
- What if I only type tokens? A task named just *#sales* keeps that name rather than saving blank.
Similar readings
Everything below is in the Happiness Center.
Quick Capture
⌘ K from anywhere opens a capture box that wins even while you are typing somewhere else. One field and Enter by default, with everything else a switch away.
Smart Due Dates
Ask Didi to propose a due date based on the task's priority and what else is already on your plate. 1 To-Did, charged only if you accept it.
Due dates and times
An optional date, an optional time, and a timezone that follows your profile. Overdue and due-soon rows are tinted so you see them without reading them.
Tags
A shared workspace vocabulary you can put on any task, type while capturing, and filter by anywhere.
Priorities
Five levels, P0 through P4, plus none. P0 is drop-everything and wears a flame; P1 is the one that earns confetti when you finish it.
Creating and running a project
A project is a name, a description, and a task list tabbed by phase, with an Active tab and a Log tab so finished work does not clutter the working view.