Todoist Repeating Tasks

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.

Just type the recurring date into the task field using natural language — like Take out the trash every Friday at 9 am. Todoist will figure out the rest. Todoist will figure out the rest. 💡 Tip: You can create recurring tasks that are a little more complicated — like every other Saturday, every third Tuesday, and even every Wednesday.
Todoist (link to Todoist website) is a highly flexible, web-oriented task management service offered by Doist (link to Doist website).Todoist is available across all platforms. As you start to use Todoist regularly, you may find that you want the ability to create a template of tasks you do regularly.
In Todoist, you can make sure you never miss a thing by adding due dates and/or times to your tasks. You can even create recurring or repeating due dates like “Send Mom a birthday card every July 19” and “Take out the recycling every other Wednesday”. How to set a due date (or a recurring due date).

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

Remove the date, save the task, and re-add the date. Delete the task and create a new task with the same name and date. This has happened on multiple separate recurring tasks that I have and in both cases, the tasks used recurring dates with 'every!' If change those dates to 'every.' The issue seems to go away. Using recurring and repeating tasks in Todoist is a great way to save time and stay on top of tasks that happen more than once.The basic set up is the same a.

How to set dates in Todoist

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

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

Write	To get
tod	Today’s date
today	Today’s date
today at 9	Today at 09:00 (or 9 am)
tom	Tomorrow’s date
tomorrow	Tomorrow’s date
tomorrow at 21:00	Tomorrow at 21:00 (or 9 pm)
next week	Next Monday (or what you have specified as the start of the week in settings.)
end of month	The last day of the current month
next month	The first day of the next month

Specific dates

Write	To get
25 feb	25. February current year
feb 25	25. February current year
25th	The 25th day of the current month
feb 13 2019	13. February 2019
13.02.2019	13. February 2019
13/02/2019	13. February 2019
2019/02/13	13. February 2019
02/13/2019	13. February 2019
13-02-2019	13. February 2019
2019-02-13	13. February 2019
02-13-2019	13. February 2019

Specific days

Write	To get
mon	Next Monday
monday	Next Monday
tue	Next Tuesday
tuesday	Next Tuesday
wed	Next Wednesday
wednesday	Next Wednesday
thu	Next Thursday
thursday	Next Thursday
fri	Next Friday
friday	Next Friday
sat	Next Saturday
saturday	Next Saturday
sun	Next Sunday
sunday	Next 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

Write	To get
every	Every day, week, month, etc
every 2	Every other day, week, month, etc
every other	Every other day, week, month, etc
every 3	Every third day, week, month, etc
every third	Every third day, week, month, etc
every 4	Every fourth day, week, month, etc
every fourth	Every fourth day, week, month, etc
every 5	Every fifth day, week, month, etc
every fifth	Every fifth day, week, month, etc
every 6	Every sixth day, week, month, etc
every sixth	Every sixth day, week, month, etc
every 7	Every seventh day, week, month, etc
every seventh	Every seventh day, week, month, etc
every 8	Every eighth day, week, month, etc
every eighth	Every eighth day, week, month, etc
every 9	Every ninth day, week, month, etc
every ninth	Every ninth day, week, month, etc
every 10	Every tenth day, week, month, etc
every tenth	Every 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

Write	To get
every 1st	Every 1st of the month
every last day	Every last day of the month
every other monday	Every other Monday
every morning	Every day at 09:00 (9 am)
every evening	Every day at 19:00 (7 pm)
every weekday	Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday
every workday	Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday

Setting start dates for non-recurring tasks in Todoist

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:

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.
Register the task with due date every day from <start date> to <due date> .
Register the task with a due date and set a reminder for the start date.

Start and end dates for recurring tasks in Todoist

Write	To get
every day starting december 01	Every day from 1st of December
every day ending december 01	Every day starting today, ending 1st of December
Every day for 4 weeks	Every day starting today, ending in 4 weeks
Every day for 5 months	Every day starting today, ending in 5 months
Every day from 01 december to 10 december	Every 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

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

Filtering on Due dates

Query	Shows
due today	All tasks due today
due before: Jan 15	All tasks due before January 15
due after: 01/15/2017	All tasks due after Jan 15th, 2017
due in 2 day	All tasks due in two days
next 10 days	All tasks due in the next ten days
overdue	All tasks that are overdue
recurring	All tasks with recurring due date
no date	All tasks without a due date
!no date	All tasks with a due date

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Natural language for entering task due dates, priority, tags and project

Pascal Zweipfenning

One of the great features of Todoist is the possibility of entering tasks using natural language including labels, due dates and the project. All can be added without a single click. This and the mobile app is one of the reasons I switched back to Todoist (hopefully for a short period).

Oldest

Tom

Geethanadh Padavala

I don't think this is complete, it just gives a quick short cut, todoist does a lot that we can do everything on a single line, that is the only reason i can't switch out of it to anything else :(

Mary M Cavanaugh

I don't understand how the clickup team can consider these requests to add natural language task creation as 'complete!' The 'slash entry' method is a step up from having to click on each entry item, but it is still very time-consuming and confusing.

This is one of the 4 areas where ToDoIst WAY outperforms clickup, and for that reason I am keeping my subscription to Todoist active while I try converting to clickup.

(fwiw, the other 3 places where Todoist way outperforms clickup are (2) Views (completely customizable, multi-level sorting/filtering, etc); (3) Simplicity & space-efficiency of how task lists & details are displayed (clickup is so freaking complicated, with checklists & subtasks & comments & descriptions.... at least let the user choose what s/he wants to see!); and (4) ease & usability of tags.

Frank Arnold

Todoist is the best example how it should work.. write: 'buy bread 12.4 14:00' and it will create the task with time and reminder. Add something like 'every day/month/year' and you set a recurring task.

The idea with the command trigger '/' is not bad but it's not the same as people expect from a native language parser.

Stéphane

@Frank Arnold: yes, Todoist is the master of this game :)

Stéphane

Slash command is not exactly a 'natural language' even if it can definitely speed up the process of creating task :)

Todoist Repeating Tasks 2

However, do you plan, for example, to support something like :

'Read an article starting in 2 days every 3 days for 1 months p2 !my_list #label1'

'Read an article' with due date in 2 days, that repeat every 3 days until 1 month with a priority normal, with label 'label1' and set in the list 'my_list' ?

Londya England

is it possible to say 'in x work days' or 'weekdays'?

marked this post as

Todoist Repeating Tasks Download

complete

August 1, 2018

Rick Reumann

This would be very helpful for us. Often times I want to create a quick task based on an 'issue found' status and it's a pain to have to open the task just to set the status. It would be nice to have it like you do for 'priority' or 'due date' and jus a quick toggle directly from the list view. Thanks!

Jorgen

Todoist Every

@Rick Reumann: Just to clarify, if you do this from the 'New Task' popup, you can set a status there. I'll be renaming this to specifically be for inside List View. :)

Rick Reumann

@Jorgen: Exactly! Funny, I was never using that . I'll start entering it from there.I was always using the 'new task' right next to the list in the list view.

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