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Projects and Checklists

2Do has three structures for breaking work into smaller pieces: Projects, Checklists, and Sub-Tasks. They look similar but serve different purposes. This page explains how they differ and when to use each.

Tasks​

A Task is the basic unit. It can carry notes, dates, alerts, tags, a location, an action, and sub-tasks — a quick inline checklist that lives entirely inside the task. Sub-tasks are best when the children are tiny and only meaningful in the context of the parent: "Pack: passport, charger, headphones." If you want each child to act like a real task with its own due date, alarm, or tag — use a Project instead.

Projects​

A Project is a parent that contains real tasks. Each child task carries its own properties — its own due date, alarm, tag, action, and so on — and shows up individually in your Focus Lists.

A project containing several tasks

Use a project when:

  • You have a goal made of multiple actions that don't need to happen in order.
  • The individual actions deserve their own tags, dates, or alerts.
  • You want each action to appear in Today on its own due date. Examples: Plan the conference talk, Hire a new designer, Refresh the kitchen.

Creating a Project​

  • File > New > New Project (⌥⌘N)
  • The + button in the toolbar, using its dropdown to pick New Project.
  • Select existing tasks → File > New > New Project from Selection (⌥⇧⌘N) to bundle them under a new project parent. The same command is on the task list's right-click menu under New.

Project View​

When you're inside a project and want to focus only on the work inside that project, toggle Task > Toggle Project View (⌥⌘J). The rest of the list collapses out of the way and you're left with just the project's tasks.

Sorting Inside a Project​

A project or checklist keeps its own sort order, separate from the list it sits in. Select it (or any of its sub-tasks), right-click, and use the Sort Project submenu — it reads Sort Checklist for a checklist — to sort its children by Status, Priority, Start Date, Due Date, Creation, Note, Title, Tag, Location, Duration, or Manually, ascending or descending.

So a list sorted by due date can still hold a project whose steps stay in the manual order you dragged them into. The submenu only appears when a project, checklist, or one of their sub-tasks is selected.

Collapsing Projects​

Projects and checklists expand and collapse in place:

  • C (Task > Collapse Project) folds the selected project.
  • ⌥⌘↓ / ⌥⌘↑ expand or collapse every project in the list at once.

Collapsed or not, a list's projects and checklists are always reachable from the disclosure triangle in the Lists Panel.

Checklists​

A Checklist is also a parent — but checklists hold items, not full tasks. A checklist item has a title and can be marked complete, but it doesn't carry its own dates, alerts, tags, or actions. The whole checklist behaves like one task in your Focus Lists. Use a checklist when:

  • You have a sequence of small steps that only matter together.
  • You don't want each step to clutter Today on its own. Examples: Packing list, Pre-flight checklist, New-hire onboarding steps.

Creating a Checklist​

  • File > New > New Checklist (⌃⌘N)
  • The + button in the toolbar, using its dropdown to pick New Checklist.
  • Select existing tasks → File > New > New Checklist from Selection (⌃⇧⌘N).

Converting Between Types​

You're never locked into your first choice. Task > Convert lets you switch:

  • Task → Project — promotes the task; existing sub-tasks become full child tasks.
  • Task → Checklist — converts sub-tasks into checklist items.
  • Project → Checklist — collapses children into items (you'll lose per-task properties, so 2Do warns you first).
  • Project → Task — turns the project into a single task with its children flattened into sub-tasks.

Behavior in Focus Lists​

  • Project children appear individually in All, Today, Starred, etc., wherever their own dates and properties qualify them.
  • Checklist parents appear as a single item in Focus Lists, regardless of how many items they hold.
  • Sub-tasks of a regular task appear inline under the parent and are not surfaced separately.

Tips​

tip

Start with a regular Task. Promote to a Project only when you find yourself wanting to put dates or alarms on a sub-task.

tip

Checklists are perfect templates. Duplicate a checklist (⌘D) when you need a fresh copy for the next trip, the next launch, or the next onboarding.

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