Reclaim pulls from a set of 'default settings' when you create a new Task in Reclaim or in an integration. These default settings auto-fill scheduling rule fields if you don't specify them for the new Task item.
You can update these default settings for how you want Reclaim to schedule Tasks.
Updating your default Task settings
Manage and update your default Task settings from the Reclaim app under Settings >
Below is a breakdown of each field and how it impacts task scheduling:
Duration
The default duration that Reclaim will schedule for Tasks when they're created.
One-off Task duration
When creating Reclaim Tasks from Slack messages or Gmail, Reclaim uses a special duration since those tend to be shorter follow-ups that may not need as much time. The default is 30m, but you can override it to whatever you'd like.
Hours
You can set whether you want Reclaim to use your Personal or Working (Solo Work) hours by default when creating Tasks.
Priority
Set the default priority level you want to set for new Tasks, as well as whether you want to automatically send them to Up Next.
Up Next
By default, Tasks won't be sent to Up Next, but you can make it so that Tasks automatically get added to your Up Next list by enabling this option. This is especially helpful if you like to manually stack-rank your Task list instead of using Priorities.
Split up Task events
You can decide whether Tasks will be split up into multiple events on your calendar by default or not. You can always select this option on a per-task basis.
Event duration
Set the default minimum and maximum event duration for how long you want to spend working on a Task at a time. This will ensure that Reclaim schedules events that are at least a certain length, and no more than a certain length when Reclaim needs to break up longer Tasks into smaller blocks.
Start delay and due date
You can set the default 'earliest starting date' for a Task as well as the due date you want to use. These are expressed as rolling time windows, so they will always be relative to the when you create a Task.
For example, if you pick 1hr for your Delay start and 3 days for your Due in – all new Tasks will start no sooner than 1h from the time of creation and will be due within 3 days from that time.
Visibility
You can set the default privacy for tasks that are created to either make them private to all others, or to use your default calendar privacy settings.
Tasks that are done scheduling
You can let Reclaim automatically reopen or close your Tasks that are done scheduling after a cooldown period by selecting one of three options here (learn more about auto-close/auto-reopen in here).
When are default Task settings applied?
Default Task settings are automatically updated when you change them under settings.
Note that updated settings will apply to newly created Tasks, but will not change existing Tasks.
Default Task settings are applied to:
Tasks created via the Reclaim app
Tasks synced from Task integrations
Default Task settings are not applied to:
Fine-tune Reclaim's AI for scheduling Tasks
Additionally to all the above settings found under Task settings, there is another preference you can review in General settings to further customize how your Task are scheduled in the calendar.
Here, you can fine-tune how Reclaim's AI finds time for Tasks, Habits, & meetings – taking into consideration additional Task details, like due date and the work remaining to be scheduled for the Task:
Due date & work remaining have little effect: Due dates and work remaining on Tasks will have little effect on how Tasks schedule relative to meetings, Habits, and other Tasks beyond your priority settings. That means that even if a lower-priority Task is due sooner and/or has more work remaining than a higher-priority Task, Reclaim may try to schedule the higher-priority one sooner.
Strongly influenced by due date only: Due dates will strongly influence how Tasks schedule relative to meetings, Habits, and other Tasks. Work remaining will have little effect. That means that lower-priority Tasks that are due sooner may be scheduled ahead of higher-priority Tasks that are due later.
Strongly influenced by due date & work remaining (default): Due dates and work remaining on Tasks will strongly influence how Tasks schedule relative to meetings, Habits, and other Tasks. That means that Tasks that are due sooner with more work remaining may be scheduled ahead of higher-priority Tasks that are due later and have less work remaining.
You can experiment with different settings to find which one fits best with your workflow and schedule.