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Overview: What Reclaim Tasks are, and how to create and use them
Overview: What Reclaim Tasks are, and how to create and use them

New to Reclaim Tasks? Start here to learn about what they are, and how to use them to manage your to-dos automatically.

Updated over 2 months ago

What are Reclaim Tasks?

Reclaim Tasks help bridge the gap between your always changing to-do list and your calendar – so you can make sure you have the time defended to work on your important items before deadlines come up.

Automatically block flexible time for your Tasks before due dates around everything else you have going on, break up longer projects into manageable chunks, and even integrate your favorite project management apps to sync to-dos to the calendar.

Create a new Task

Creating a new Task is easy, and can be done from within the Reclaim app, as well as across other native integrations.

Creating a Task in Reclaim

  1. From anywhere in Reclaim, click the + New Task button in the upper right corner.

  2. Fill out the scheduling rules requested in each field.

  3. Click Create to start scheduling the Task.

You can also use keyboard shortcut 'C' to pull up the Task creator form from anywhere in the app.

You can also create a new Task by clicking or dragging a time directly on the Planner. Tasks created on the Planner will automatically lock in place. This gives you more control over exactly when you want to work on a specific Task.

Creating a Task in Slack, Google Calendar, & Raycast

You can also create new Tasks outside of Reclaim with an app for Slack, a Google Calendar add-on, and a Raycast extension for Mac users.

Check out these docs to learn more:

Create a Task directly in Google Calendar

Create a Task using Slack

Create a Task using the Google Tasks integration

Create a Task from your Mac desktop with the Raycast extension

Task scheduling rules

When you create a new Task, you will see a form where you can fill out your scheduling preferences for how you want the event to schedule in your calendar.

Task name

Set the name of your Task that will display as the event title on your calendar.

A Task name is the only required property Reclaim needs to create a new Task. If you do not fill out the additional fields, Reclaim will use your default Task settings set under Settings > General > Default Task settings to fill these in. Learn more about default Task settings in this doc.

If you want to provide more specific scheduling preferences for the Task, you can customize these additional properties:

Priority

The priority at which you want Reclaim to defend the Task around your other events. Higher-priority Tasks get scheduled sooner than lower-priority ones.

By default, new Tasks are set to High priority (P2). You can update this your default Task settings under 'Priority'. Learn more about prioritizing your Tasks in this doc.

Duration

The total time needed to complete the Task. A minimum of 15 minutes is required.

By default, Reclaim will use the Task duration set in your default Task settings.

Due date

The date by which the Task needs to be scheduled on your calendar.

By default, Reclaim will make the due date 3 days from now.

Earliest starting date

If you don't want to start on a Task before a certain time, you can tell Reclaim to start scheduling the Task after a specific date.

By default, Reclaim will assign this start date for you depending on the due date you select.

Minimum event duration

The minimum amount of time you want to work on a Task at a time.

By default, Reclaim will use the min and max durations set in your default Task settings.

Maximum event duration

Set the maximum amount of time you want to work on a Task at a time.

By default, Reclaim will use the min and max durations set in your default Task settings.

Reclaim will use the max duration to 'space out' your Tasks when they get scheduled on your calendar. This prevents Reclaim from scheduling a bunch of Task blocks after one another.

Hours

Select the hours during which you want Reclaim to schedule this Task from your Working, Meeting, Personal, or Custom hours.

Learn more about setting up your Scheduling Hours here.

The icons to in the bottom left of the creator offer a few additional settings for your new Task:

Notes

Click the 'notepad' icon to add a note that will display on the calendar event for the Task. This field supports markdown formatting so you can customize it with headers, lists, hyperlinks, images, and more.

Visibility

Click the 'eye' icon to toggle visibility settings for how you want the event to show to others viewing your calendar. Manage this setting in your default Task settings.

Send to Up Next

Click the 'arrow' icon to set whether you want to send the new Task to Up Next. Up Next are scheduled ASAP before everything else on your task list, overriding priority.

Learn more about using Up Next for Tasks in this help doc.

Sync Tasks from project management apps

Reclaim also integrates with popular project management tools to automatically sync your tasks to the calendar – so you can find the best time to work on your projects, by priority, before their due dates.

Get started with integrations to ClickUp, Todoist, Asana, Jira, and Linear from your integrations page in the app, and learn more in our Task integrations help doc collection.

Schedule Tasks to different calendars

You can use your Hours settings to schedule Tasks directly to different calendars when they use your Working, Personal, or Custom Hours. This is a great way to maximize availability on your primary calendar, and organize your to-dos across personal or other professional calendars.

Tasks using these time policies will then schedule to the selected target calendar.

Simply select your target calendar under your work and personal Hours settings. You can also create new Custom Hours to schedule Tasks to additional calendars for things like side gigs, different clients, or any other use case.

Tasks using these time policies will then schedule to the selected target calendar.

To add additional calendars to your Reclaim account, head to your Calendars page and learn more about setting your Hours in this article.

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