How do I change my tasks by talking to the Assistant?

Type or say what you want in the chat, for example “add a task to call Emily tomorrow at 4”. The Assistant answers with a Proposed change card, and nothing in Tasks, Goals or Reminders changes until you press the card’s main button. Reading your tasks needs no card.

The Assistant is a Beta: it works, and we are still improving it. Tell us what you notice.

#What you can ask

• To look: what is on today, tomorrow or this week, what is overdue, what has no date, what you finished, or when you are free. Your goals, your reminders and the week report too.
• To add: a task from a sentence, with its day, time, length, deadline, category, goal or priority if you say them. A reminder, such as “remind me to call Mike every Friday at 9”.
• To change: rename a task, move it to another day or time, change its priority, mark it done, open a finished one again, or remove one.
• To plan: say the day is too much, and it proposes today’s three and which tasks move to tomorrow. To start a goal: name it and say what has to happen, and it proposes the goal with its first tasks.

When something is missing, it asks one plain question at a time, such as how long a task will take, with answers to press and a box to type or say your own. If several tasks fit your words, it asks which one. See the time and reminder fields for what a task can hold.

#Reading your tasks

Ask “what are my tasks today?” and the Assistant answers with one short line and then the tasks themselves, as rows with their time, priority, category and goal. A list longer than 20 ends with a link such as 5 more that opens Tasks.

• Press a row and it opens in place, showing its details and the buttons To do, In progress, Waiting and Done. Those buttons are your own press, so they change the task at once, with an Undo for ten seconds.
• Open in Tasks, inside an opened row, takes you to that task on the Tasks page.

#The Proposed change card

When a request changes something, the card is headed Proposed change, or Proposed changes when it holds several, and carries the line “Nothing changes until you choose”. A sentence says what it will do, such as “I will create:” or “I will move:”. Under it come the details: the title, when, deadline, reminder, repeat, category, goal and priority.

• A card with several tasks has a tick box beside each. Untick one and it stays out, and the button’s count follows, as in Move 3 tasks becoming Move 2 tasks.
• The main button names the action: Create, Move, Mark done, Remove, Set my day, or Create the goal and 5 tasks.
• Edit, on cards that can be adjusted, opens a small form. Save keeps your changes and the card waits for the main button. The second button in the form saves and presses the main button in one go.
• Cancel leaves no trace. A Remove card makes Cancel the default, and finished tasks are never removed.
• A card more than a day old says “This was proposed more than a day ago. Check it, then confirm again.”, and its button reads Confirm.

#After you press

• The link depends on what was made: Open Tasks, Open Reminders, Open Goals or Open the goal for a goal the card created.
• Undo reverses the change, and the card says “Undone. Everything is as it was.” It stays for a short while, and the card tells you so with “Undo works for a short while.”
• A removed task waits 30 days in Recently removed, as it does when you remove it yourself. See where your tasks live.

#When it does not work

This card can no longer be used. Ask me again to make a new one.

That did not work. Try again.