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Focus Lists: All, Today, Starred, Scheduled, Done, Inbox

Use Focus Lists to find tasks across your lists by date or status. All, Today, Starred, Scheduled, and Done appear at the top of the lists panel. They show tasks from your own lists without moving them.

With a hardware keyboard, ⌘1 to ⌘5 jump between them and ⌘0 opens the Inbox.

Inbox​

The Inbox is your GTD inbox, the place where new and un-triaged tasks land while you are capturing fast and thinking later. It appears above the Focus Lists once Getting Things Done® Inbox is turned on under Settings > Tasks > New Tasks. Unlike the others, it is a real list.

While it is on, captures made in the app, through Quick Add, the share sheet, or Shortcuts go to the Inbox unless you send them somewhere else. Mail to 2Do uses the Default destination list chosen in its own settings.

Aim to leave Inbox empty at the end of each review: give every task a real list, and dates, tags, or an action as needed.

Because it is a real list, the Inbox can also be divided into sections. After a large capture, Auto-Create Sections can group its tasks for you on a device with Apple Intelligence, which makes them quicker to triage.

tip

Treat Inbox as a genuine inbox and drain it during your daily review. Anything that has sat there for a week is something you have been avoiding deciding on.

All​

All shows every active task across every list, which is what you want when you are scanning everything at once or running a search across the whole system.

By default it holds back:

  • Tasks in a list you have excluded from All.
  • Tasks hidden by a paused tag. See Tags.
  • Tasks hidden by Smart Scheduling because their start date is still in the future.
tip

Combine a Focus List with a search for sharper views. Open All and type type: hiprio AND duethisweek to answer "what high-priority work is due this week, across everything?". See Smart Lists.

Excluding a List from All​

To keep a regular list's tasks out of All, change that regular list's settings. For example, you might exclude a Someday list or a list of reference material. All itself has no Edit command.

  1. In the lists panel, touch and hold the name of the regular list you want to exclude, such as Home or Work.
  2. Tap Edit.
  3. Under Exclude From, turn on All.

You can still open that regular list to view and edit its tasks. The tasks stay in that list and no longer appear in All.

Smart Scheduling​

By default, a task with a future start date stays hidden from All, Today, and its own list until that date and time arrives. This is Smart Scheduling.

To see scheduled tasks before they start, use either option:

  • Open the Scheduled Focus List in the lists panel to see tasks with future start dates.
  • To show scheduled tasks while viewing another list, tap the clock button in the sort bar above your tasks. A short message confirms Show Scheduled or Hide Scheduled. With a hardware keyboard, you can also press ⌘K.

The clock button appears only when the current view contains scheduled tasks. It does not appear in Scheduled or Done. Showing scheduled tasks does not change their dates.

Sorting one of your lists by Start Date also shows its scheduled tasks, even when they would otherwise be hidden. See Just a Start Date.

A list that looks empty because its scheduled tasks are hidden shows a message with a button to reveal them.

Today​

Today is the daily working list. A task lands here when any of these is true:

  • It is due today, with or without a due time.
  • Include overdue items is on under Settings > Today & Lists > Today List, so past-due tasks carry forward until you complete them.
  • Include 'Still Working On' tasks is on and the task has a start date of today or earlier.
  • Include starred items is on, so every starred task appears here.
  • It has a duration whose lead-up window covers today.

See Dates and Durations.

Adding a task while Today is open can preset its due date to today so the task stays in view. That is Use today's date in the Today list, under Settings > Tasks > Default Due Date.

To see what you have finished during the day, turn on Show tasks completed today in the Today list under Settings > Today & Lists > Today List. Tasks you complete today then appear in the Done group at the bottom of Today until midnight, whatever their due date. The setting is off by default.

Excluding a List from Today​

In the lists panel, touch and hold the name of the regular list that contains the tasks, tap Edit, and turn on Today under Exclude From. This removes that list's tasks from Today without turning off their alerts. Today itself has no Edit command.

The exclusion switches are available for ordinary lists, including Inbox. Focus Lists such as Today, and saved Smart Lists, do not have these switches.

Starred tasks can still appear in Today if Include starred items is on under Settings > Today & Lists.

Why Tasks Show Up in Today Before Their Due Date​

A task appearing in Today early is almost always one of three things:

  1. It has a duration, which creates a working window before the due date.
  2. Include 'Still Working On' tasks is on and the task started today or earlier.
  3. It is starred and Include starred items is on.

See the FAQ entry Why are tasks due tomorrow showing in the Today Focus list?.

Starred​

Starred collects every starred task across every list, which makes it a quick answer to "what am I focusing on right now?".

To star a task, touch and hold it, open Priority, then tap Star. You can also tap the control at the right edge of its row to reveal the priority strip and tap Starred, drag the task onto Starred in the lists panel, or press S with a keyboard attached.

See Stars and Priorities.

Scheduled​

Scheduled shows tasks whose start date is still in the future, including those that Smart Scheduling hides in other lists. It has no clock button because it already shows these tasks.

Dropping tasks on Scheduled asks for a start date and applies it to all of them. See Drag and Drop.

Done​

Done shows what you have recently completed. Use it to review the day or the week, and to reopen anything you completed by mistake.

How far back it reaches is set by Show completed tasks for under Settings > Tasks > Completed Tasks, which also holds Apply rule to sub-tasks and Auto-delete completed tasks.

When Done holds 500 or more completed tasks and Auto-delete completed tasks is off, opening it shows a Growing number of completed tasks prompt once. Yes opens that setting; No changes nothing, and your completed tasks stay as they are.

Excluding a List from Done​

In the lists panel, touch and hold the name of the regular list whose completed tasks you want to exclude, tap Edit, and turn on Done under Exclude From. This can be useful for shopping lists where you do not need to review completed items in Done.

Per-List Focus Settings​

Separate from the Focus Lists, each of your lists has its own Focus Filter: a set of conditions that narrows the list to what matters right now. Tap the Focus button on the sort bar to switch it on, and touch and hold it to choose the conditions.

The same choices are available for every list in one place, under Settings > Tasks > Focus Mode. The options are Overdue, No Due Date, In Progress, Today, Tomorrow, This Week, Next 3 Days, Next 7 Days, Next 30 Days, Next 6 Months, Next 12 Months, High Priority, and Starred. See Focus Filter.

Sync Exclusion​

Beyond Focus List visibility, a list can be kept out of sync entirely. Touch and hold the list, tap Edit, and turn on Exclude From Sync. The list and its tasks stay on this device only. If the list was already syncing, 2Do deletes it from the server and from your other devices, so use this deliberately.

Counters Next to List Names​

Each list row has room for two numbers:

  • Overdue on the left, in red: tasks, projects, and checklists whose due date has passed.
  • Not Done on the right: dated and undated tasks, projects, and checklists you have not completed. Sub-tasks are not counted here; their counts sit on the project or checklist itself.

What actually appears is set by Counts on lists under Settings > Today & Lists > Counts: None, Overdue items, or Overdue + Undone. The same section holds Include Smart Lists, which you can turn off if you have several complex Smart Lists and want counting to stay quick, and Undone counts should include Overdue tasks.

Not Done is an unfinished-task count, not a count of tasks due today. When Undone counts should include Overdue tasks is on, overdue tasks are already included in it, so adding the two numbers would count them twice. The app icon badge uses its own option under Settings > Alerts & Badge.

The digits roll when a value changes, so a count moving is easy to notice.

Indicators on List Names​

A list's color band changes to mark a list you have excluded from All, a Smart List, a locked list, and a list published to or subscribed from Wi-Fi. A small glowing dot appears when the list holds a task due today (white) or an overdue task (red); it never appears on All, Done, or Scheduled. See Lists and List Groups.

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