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Managing Tasks and Task events on your calendar
Managing Tasks and Task events on your calendar

How to handle common scenarios that you'll run into using Reclaim Tasks, and making changes to Task events on your calendar.

Updated over a week ago

Reclaim automatically schedules events for Tasks on your calendar, and sometimes you may want to reschedule those events, skip them, or tell Reclaim that you didn't actually get the work done. Similarly, you may want to do things like tell Reclaim you got work done outside of the Task's scheduled events, or that you need more time in total for the Task itself.

There are plenty of ways to accomplish those goals in Reclaim. In this doc, we're going to cover:

  • Actions you can take on Tasks and Task events from Reclaim, and;

  • Common use cases you may run into with Reclaim Tasks and how to solve them

Actions you can take on Tasks and Task events

Below is a complete list of actions you can take on Tasks and Task events. Most or all of these are available in Reclaim's Planner, Slack integration, Raycast integration, and Google Calendar Add-on.

Start, Stop, and Restart

Start

Starting a Task will move the first upcoming Task Event to the current time closes to the last 5 minutes. For example, if you have a Task whose first event is scheduled for 2pm, and you press Start at 9:03am, the Task Event will move from 2pm to 9:00am.

You can Start Task events by pressing the ▶️ button from Reclaim's Slack integration, from the Planner, from the Google Calendar Add-on, and from the Raycast integration.

Stop

Stopping a Task will end the current Task Event at the moment the Stop button was pressed. For example, if you're working on a Task Event scheduled from 9am - 11am, and you press Stop at 9:30am, then Reclaim will split the event into one from 9am - 9:30am and the remaining time will be scheduled later.

You can Stop Task events by pressing the ⏹ button from Reclaim's Slack integration, from the Planner, from the Google Calendar Add-on, and from the Raycast integration.

Restart

You can use Restart to bring the Task Event's start time up to the current time. For example, if you start a Task at 9am and then are interrupted for 15 minutes until 9:15am, you can use Restart and the Task event will be rescheduled to start at 9:15am.

You can use Restart by pressing the ⏪ icon from Reclaim's Planner, Slack integration, Google Calendar Add-on, or Raycast integration

Lock/Unlock

You can lock a Task event to prevent it from moving again, or unlock a locked Task event if you want it to resume autoscheduling. Learn more about Locking events here.


You can Lock or Unlock Task events anywhere you see the 🔒 or 🔓 icon, including Reclaim's Planner, Slack integration, and Google Calendar Add-on.

Reschedule

You can reschedule Tasks and Task events in several ways, each of which has a slightly different effect.

Rescheduling via the Reschedule action

Use the Reschedule action from Reclaim's Planner, Slack integration, or Google Calendar Add-on if you want Reclaim to move the entire Task forward in time. This won't just reschedule a single event, it will reschedule the entire Task forward. This is great if you just want to tell Reclaim to push the Task out by a few hours or days.

Rescheduling a single Task event by moving it

You can manually move a single Task event to another time, or adjust its duration, on Google Calendar or the Planner. This will only move that Task event, and it will also lock the Task event in place so that it won't automatically reschedule. This is great if you have a specific time you want to get the work done for a particular chunk of Task duration.

Rescheduling a single Task event by deleting it

You can delete a Task event (whether it's happening now, in the future, or in the past) from Google Calendar and Reclaim will take that as a signal that the event needs to be rescheduled to the future. This is the easiest way to tell Reclaim "not now, do this later" for a single Task event.

Add time

Use this option if you need more overall time for a Task (i.e., you want to add to the total duration of the Task) and Reclaim will add more time to the total Task. You can access this option from anywhere you see the Add time option, including in Reclaim's Planner and the Google Calendar Add-on.

Log work

Use this option if you want to tell Reclaim that you've completed work on the Task outside of its scheduled events (e.g., you did some work late last night and want to reflect that in your Tasks).

This will decrement the total duration for the Task by the amount of work you've logged. You can use this option anytime you see the Log work button, including in Reclaim's Planner and the Google Calendar Add-on.

Mark done

Use this option if you want to tell Reclaim that you're completely done with the Task, and don't need events on your calendar for it anymore. You can mark a Task as done at any time, even if no work has been logged on it, and you can do it anywhere you see the Mark done option, including in Reclaim's Planner, the Google Calendar Add-on, and Slack integration.

Dates

Adjusting your start and due dates on Tasks is a great way to tell Reclaim to get the work scheduled sooner or later. You can adjust the start and due dates for Tasks from anywhere you see an indicator for adjusting dates, including the Reclaim Planner, the Slack integration, and the Google Calendar Add-on.

Send to Up Next

Up Next is a powerful way to tell Reclaim to get something scheduled ASAP, even ahead of your Critical Priority Tasks. You can send Tasks to Up Next anywhere you see the Up Next button, including the Reclaim Planner, Reclaim's Slack integration, and the Google Calendar Add-on.

Delete

Deleting a Task is the same thing as saying "never mind". It will remove all past and future events for the Task, and it will be as if the Task never existed. No work will be logged, and no events will remain on your calendar. You can delete Tasks from anywhere you see the Delete button, including the Reclaim Planner, the Slack integration, and the Google Calendar Add-on.

Bulk editing Tasks

You can make updates to multiple Tasks at once in Reclaim via the Tasks page. This makes it easy to tell Reclaim when you want to take several Tasks at once and:

  • Update the start or due date

  • Update the priority

  • Mark them as done

  • Delete them

Note: because priorities for tasks synced from integrations can only be edited from the source (e.g., tasks synced from Asana can only have their priority edited in Asana, not in Reclaim) you cannot bulk-edit priorities on Tasks synced from integrations.

Common scenarios for Tasks

Below are some common use cases that you may run into when managing Tasks on your calendar. These aren't exhaustive, but they reflect the ones that you'll be most likely to experience.

I didn't do something at the time Reclaim thought I did

If you didn't complete something at the time Reclaim had scheduled it, you can Reschedule it, either by deleting the Task event from your calendar directly or by using the Reschedule action from the Planner, Google Calendar Add-on, or Slack integration.

Delete the Task Event from your Google Calendar or Slack integration. Reclaim will reschedule it to some point in the near future.

Reschedule the Task Event from the Planner, Google Calendar add-on, or Slack integration.

I did some, but not all, of the work at the time Reclaim thought I did

If Reclaim thinks you did all of the work for a given Task event that is in the past, you can adjust the event's duration from the Reclaim Planner or from Google Calendar to reflect that you spent less time. The additional duration will be added to the future to ensure you're still getting the time you need for the total Task.

I did work outside of the time window that Reclaim thinks I did

If you did work outside of the Task's scheduled time, use Log Work to specify how much work you did on the Task and when. This will decrement the total Task duration by the amount of work you log.

I need more time to complete the Task

If you need more time for a Task than what is scheduled, you can Add Time to specify how much more duration you need. This will be added to the Task's total duration and scheduled for the future.

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