Todoist Recurring



  1. Todoist Recurring Subtasks
  2. Todoist Recurring Projects

Recurring tasks: Build lasting habits with powerful recurring due dates like 'Every Monday'. Reminders: Setting a Reminder ensures you never forget important things ever again, you can set up recurring due dates to remind you each and every time. Sub-tasks: Break down your task into smaller, actionable items or add a checklist. Keep track of the next week’s deadlines. Some due dates are aspirational.

Im a UK Todoist user, throughout the year we have bank holidays through out the year, mostly Mondays. Now my work week is Monday-Friday in Todoist, weekends doesn't count to my Karma score. At the moment I have to manually turn on vacation mode the day before I take a day of work during Monday-Friday and sometimes this is missed.

Dates in Todoist can sometimes be a bit confusing. Here you will find a complete overview of the date formats and the ways of using dates in Todoist.

Note: I recommend to bookmark this post so that you can easily find it when you are struggling with dates in Todoist. Make bootable mac.

How to set dates in Todoist

You can set dates in Todoist using the calendar/date selector, or by using natural language.

Todoist

Todoist will automatically recognize and add due dates as you type them into a task name. This feature is called Smart date recognition. You can turn this feature on or off by going to Settings / General / Smart date recognition.

Disabling Smart date recognition for a single task

Sometimes, Todoist’s Smart date recognition can be a source of irritation. Let’s say the task is “Finish monthly expense report” By the time you type “Finish mon” Todoist will have interpreted this as a task named “Finish” that is due on Monday. To avoid this, press backspace or delete on your keyboard, or tap the highlighted word on your phone or tablet.

Natural language formats

Relative dates

WriteTo get
todToday’s date
todayToday’s date
today at 9Today at 09:00 (or 9 am)
tomTomorrow’s date
tomorrowTomorrow’s date
tomorrow at 21:00Tomorrow at 21:00 (or 9 pm)
next weekNext Monday (or what you have specified as the start of the week in settings.)
end of monthThe last day of the current month
next monthThe first day of the next month

Specific dates

WriteTo get
25 feb25. February current year
feb 2525. February current year
25thThe 25th day of the current month
feb 13 201913. February 2019
13.02.201913. February 2019
13/02/201913. February 2019
2019/02/1313. February 2019
02/13/201913. February 2019
13-02-201913. February 2019
2019-02-1313. February 2019
02-13-201913. February 2019
Todoist

Specific days

WriteTo get
monNext Monday
mondayNext Monday
tueNext Tuesday
tuesdayNext Tuesday
wedNext Wednesday
wednesdayNext Wednesday
thuNext Thursday
thursdayNext Thursday
friNext Friday
fridayNext Friday
satNext Saturday
saturdayNext Saturday
sunNext Sunday
sundayNext Sunday

Recurring due dates in Todoist

The only way to set recurring due dates in Todoist is by using natural language. I’m tempted to say that your imagination is the limit but to make it easy to get started, I have made some tables below.

Relative numbers

WriteTo get
everyEvery day, week, month, etc
every 2Every other day, week, month, etc
every otherEvery other day, week, month, etc
every 3Every third day, week, month, etc
every thirdEvery third day, week, month, etc
every 4Every fourth day, week, month, etc
every fourthEvery fourth day, week, month, etc
every 5Every fifth day, week, month, etc
every fifthEvery fifth day, week, month, etc
every 6Every sixth day, week, month, etc
every sixthEvery sixth day, week, month, etc
every 7Every seventh day, week, month, etc
every seventhEvery seventh day, week, month, etc
every 8Every eighth day, week, month, etc
every eighthEvery eighth day, week, month, etc
every 9Every ninth day, week, month, etc
every ninthEvery ninth day, week, month, etc
every 10Every tenth day, week, month, etc
every tenthEvery tenth day, week, month, etc

The use of ! (exclamation mark)

Thanks to the tip from Keith in the comment section, I can list a very useful function that was unknown to me: The format Every! will calculate the next occurrence from when you complete the task. Meaning that if you complete the task later than on the first due date, the next occurrence will be calculated from when you completed the previous task.

Specific dates and days

WriteTo get
every 1stEvery 1st of the month
every last dayEvery last day of the month
every other mondayEvery other Monday
every morningEvery day at 09:00 (9 am)
every eveningEvery day at 19:00 (7 pm)
every weekdayEvery Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday
every workdayEvery Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday

Setting start dates for non-recurring tasks in Todoist

Todoist Recurring Subtasks

Start dates for non-recurring tasks are actually not supported in Todoist. The dates above are all due dates. You have three options to get around this:

  1. Register the start date as the due date. When the task shows up, use the every day until <due date> to make the task repeat until the desired due date.
  2. Register the task with due date every day from <start date> to <due date> .
  3. Register the task with a due date and set a reminder for the start date.

Start and end dates for recurring tasks in Todoist

WriteTo get
every day starting december 01Every day from 1st of December
every day ending december 01Every day starting today, ending 1st of December
Every day for 4 weeksEvery day starting today, ending in 4 weeks
Every day for 5 monthsEvery day starting today, ending in 5 months
Every day from 01 december to 10 decemberEvery day starting 1st of December, ending on the 10th of December

Set due dates in Todoist with Smart Schedule

The Smart Schedule function in Todoist is an AI-based function that helps you schedule or re-schedule your tasks. It learns over time, making better and better predictions. To learn more about the Todoist Smart Schedule function, visit this help article from Todoist.

Dates in Todoist filters

For a complete overview of how to make filters in Todoist, please visit the below blog post.

The ultimate guide to Todoist filters

Here you will find everything worth knowing about Todoist filters. Filters are a great tool, both when you need an ..
Read More

Date formats

  • Given date: 15.01.2017
  • Given date US format: 01/15/2017, Jan 15th
  • Given date and time: 15.01.2017 16:00
  • Given date and time US format: 01/15/2017 4 pm, Jan 15th 4 pm
  • Relative date: yesterday, today, tomorrow
  • Due Date: 2 days (due in the next two days), -2 days, (due in the past two days)
  • Days of the week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Creation dates

  • created:
  • created before:
  • created after:

Due dates

  • due:
  • due before:
  • due after:
  • next X days
  • overdue
  • recurring
  • no date

Filtering on Creation dates

QueryShows
created: todayAll tasks created today
created before: -365All tasks created more than 365 days ago
created after: 01/15/2017All tasks created after Jan 15th, 2017

Filtering on Due dates

QueryShows
due todayAll tasks due today
due before: Jan 15All tasks due before January 15
due after: 01/15/2017All tasks due after Jan 15th, 2017
due in 2 dayAll tasks due in two days
next 10 daysAll tasks due in the next ten days
overdueAll tasks that are overdue
recurringAll tasks with recurring due date
no dateAll tasks without a due date
!no dateAll tasks with a due date


Using recurring and repeating tasks in Todoist is a great way to save a lot of time and to stay on top of all of your tasks that occur regularly, or at least more than once.

When setting up a task in Todoist, to make it recurring you fill out the task information as you normally would, but when it comes to the time / date field you make some small changes.

For example, if you want a daily reminder you would type in “every day” in the date field and it would become recurring every day (remember – every day is ever day, including weekends!). If you only want weekdays you would type in “every weekday”.

There’s lots of date formatting options that gives repeating tasks a lot of flexibility – you can find more of them here on the Todoist date formatting guide.

This is also important to know about if you are using IFTTT and Todoist – you’ll need to make sure you have your date formatting correct or you may run into some real issues.

(You can find out more about integrating IFTTT and Todoist to automate some really handy processes here: IFTTT & Todoist Gmail Automation Article)

Another area where date formatting for recurring tasks can come in handy is setting start and end dates.

As an example, let’s say you had a project with a new task that came up, but you only need reminders through the end of the week. If today was March 23 and Friday was March 25, you would type in “every day ending March 25”. You can also do this for starting dates to set up a recurring task in the future!

Todoist Recurring Projects

Looking for more great Todoist tips?

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Todoist Recurring


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