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 from the app under Settings > Tasks.
Below is a breakdown of each field and how it impacts task scheduling:
Defaults for new Tasks
Priority & Up Next
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.
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 to inform your schedule.
Duration
The default duration that Reclaim will schedule for Tasks when they're created.
Split up Tasks & event duration
You can decide whether Tasks will be split up into multiple events on your calendar by default, or not.
For when Reclaim needs to break up longer Tasks into smaller blocks, set the default minimum and maximum event duration for how long you want to spend working on it at a time.
You can always adjust these settings on a per-task basis as well.
Hours
You can set whether you want Reclaim to use your Personal or Working (Solo Work) hours by default when creating Tasks.
Start delay & 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.
General Task settings
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.
Task cooldown for split Tasks
Control how longer Tasks that are split up are spread across your week.
If you don't want to schedule as many Task sessions as possible, there are a few alternative options to choose from to suit your work style:
30 minutes: for when you want short breaks to do other Tasks or Habits, but then wish to get back to work on your highest priority Tasks.
1 hour: for generally spreading out your Tasks and mixing up your day, but still focusing on your highest priority Tasks.
2 or 4 hours: for when you want to limit your working time to one or two sessions on the same Task each day.
Once per day: when you want to prioritize variety and only spend a single working session on any single Task per day.
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: