🧩Task

Introduction - What is a task in Motion?

Tasks are the building blocks of Motion. They’re not just items on a to-do list — they’re actionable units of work designed to be scheduled, completed, and tracked.

In Motion, a task meets three essential criteria:

• Actionable → Can you actively do something to complete it? (e.g., write a report, review a design, send an email).

• Duration → Do you have a rough estimate of how long it will take (30 minutes, 3 hours, etc.)?

• Deadline → Is there a logical endpoint or time it needs to be done?

These criteria keep your tasks clear, manageable, and aligned with your goals. Without them, you risk creating vague items that don’t move work forward — Motion’s task engine thrives when each task is concrete and schedulable.

In this tutorial, we’ll walk through how to create and manage tasks in Motion, from one-off items to recurring and chunked tasks. By the end, you’ll know exactly how to capture, organize, and complete tasks in a way that fits seamlessly into your day.

At a Glance

• ✅ Understand what counts as a task — and what doesn’t.

• ✍️ Create and edit tasks directly in Motion.

• 📦 Break down big work into chunked tasks.

• ✔️ Mark tasks complete and manage visibility of finished work.

• 🔁 Set up recurring tasks for repeatable work.

• 🆕 Ways to create a task

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Ad-hoc tasks

Understand What Counts as a Task and What Doesn’t

In Motion, not every item belongs as a task. Tasks must be specific, actionable, and time-bound — otherwise, they’ll clutter your workflow or end up in the wrong place. Let’s break it down.

✅ Examples of good tasks

These are clear actions you can start and finish within a defined time:

• “Email client about contract renewal.”

• “Draft Q3 project summary (2 hrs).”

• “Update Salesforce with new leads.”

❌ Examples of non-tasks

These are too broad, inflexible, or belong elsewhere in Motion:

• “Product strategy” → better as a project with multiple subtasks.

• “Team sync” → better as a meeting (since it happens at a fixed time).

• “Research AI tools” → needs breaking down into smaller actions (e.g., “Review 3 AI tool case studies”).

Walkthrough Examples

Example 1: “Pick up kids from school”

• ✅ Actionable: Yes, it’s a clear action.

• ❌ Deadline-Driven: No, it can only happen at one fixed time (3:15 PM).

• Conclusion: This is an event, not a task.

Example 2: “Write up the Q3 financial report”

• ✅ Actionable: Yes, writing a report is a concrete action.

• ✅ Deadline-Driven: Yes, it has a due date (end of Q3) and an estimated duration (3 hours).

• Conclusion: This is a task — Motion can schedule it flexibly before the deadline.

💡 Pro tip: When you’re unsure, ask yourself: “Can Motion move this around in my schedule?” If it has to happen at one fixed time, it’s an event. If it can be slotted flexibly, it’s a task.

Creating a task in Motion

1. Click the + New button.

2. A Task Modal will appear, where you can specify various task details, including:

   1. Title: Provide a clear and concise title for the task (e.g., "Write Q3 financial report")

   2. Priority: Define the task's priority (e.g., ASAP, high, medium, low).

   3. Duration: Specify the estimated duration of the task.

   4. Schedule: Determine when the task should be scheduled, including its frequency: one-time or recurring [learn more here].

   5. Chunk (if applicable): Break the task into smaller chunks if necessary.

   6. Start Date: Determine the earliest time the task can be started.

   7. Due Date: Establish the task's deadline.

   8. Hard Deadline Toggle: Indicate if the deadline is fixed or flexible

   9. Status: Define the task's current status (e.g., to-do, in progress, completed).

   10. Label (if applicable): Assign relevant labels or tags to the task.

   11. Workspace: Assign the task to a specific workspace [learn more here].

   12. Project: Link the task to a specific project if applicable [learn more here].

   13. Stage: Assign the task to a specific stage in a project workflow (e.g., Planning, Review, Execution).

   14. Folder (optional): Organize the task into a folder within a project. You’ll need to select a project first, then choose the folder associated with it.

   15. Custom Fields (if enabled): Add custom attributes (e.g., budget, department, or other team-defined fields).

   16. Attachments: Upload files, links, or docs relevant to the task.

   17. Activity: View or add updates, comments, or history related to the task for team visibility.

Chunked tasks

Chunked Tasks — Breaking Big Work into Manageable Pieces

Some work is too big to finish in one sitting. That’s where chunked tasks come in — they let you break down large tasks into smaller, schedulable blocks that Motion can place on your calendar.

Why Chunked Tasks Matter

• Keeps tasks realistic → Instead of “Write research paper (10 hrs),” you can split it into manageable pieces.

• Helps Motion schedule smarter → Motion can spread chunks across days instead of blocking your entire calendar.

• Keeps momentum high → Small wins keep you moving forward without burning out.

Example

• Big task: “Write research paper (10 hrs).”

• Chunked into: 2 hours

Motion then schedules each chunk into available time slots, ensuring steady progress toward your goal.

How to Create a Chunked Task

1. Create a new task in Motion.

2. In the Duration field, enter the total estimated time (e.g., 10 hrs).

3. Click on Min chunk.

4. Define the chunk size (e.g., 2 hrs per block).

5. Motion automatically breaks the task into multiple scheduled blocks, spreading them across your calendar.

💡 Pro tip: Use chunked tasks for work that’s mentally heavy or time-intensive — reports, design work, research, or studying. They’re perfect when you want steady progress without overwhelming your schedule. (Refer to breaks in this auto-scheduling how to guide)

Complete and manage finished tasks

Complete and Manage Finished Tasks — Stay Organized Without Clutter

Finishing a task feels great — and in Motion, checking it off keeps your schedule accurate. Once it’s complete, you also control whether it stays visible or disappears from view.

Why this matters

• Keeps your workspace focused on what’s still active.

• Lets you review progress when needed without drowning in clutter.

• Frees Motion to reschedule what’s left efficiently.

Examples

• ✅ Mark a report task complete → it’s removed from your active list.

• 🔁 Complete a recurring task like “Check inbox”

• 👀 Switch on visibility at the end of a week to see everything you’ve accomplished.

How to do it

1. Find your task in Motion (Agenda, Calendar, or Task list).

2. Click the green checkmark to mark it complete.

3. To control visibility, use the Show tasks / Completed toggle in your Calendar view.

4. In your calendar view, click on Display options

5. Toggle the tasks in calendar / completed tasks

6. Motion remembers your choice so you always see tasks the way you want.

💡 Pro tip: Keep completed tasks hidden during the day to reduce distractions — then switch them on at the end of the week to celebrate your wins and double-check nothing slipped through.

Recurring tasks

Recurring tasks can save you time and effort by automating the scheduling and management of tasks that need to be done on a regular basis. Recurring tasks are great for those tasks or obligations in your life that repeat on a specific cadence (daily, weekly, bi-weekly, etc).

For example, if you have a daily meditation practice you can create a recurring task that repeats each day to accommodate your meditation. Simply create the recurring task once, and boom— it’s scheduled in perpetuity with just the click of a button.

With Motion, you can easily set up recurring tasks to ensure you never miss a deadline or forget an important task.

Create a recurring task

How to create a recurring task

1. Navigate to the Calendar view → Open your Motion calendar.

2. Click the + New button (or use the shortcut Option+Space / Control+Space on desktop).

3. Open the recurring settings → In the task modal, click Recurring button (top right corner)

   1. Set the frequency → Choose how often you want the task to repeat:

      1. Daily (every day)

      2. Weekly (once a week)

      3. Monthly (once a month)

      4. Custom (e.g., every 2 weeks, every 3 months, etc.)

   2. Define when it repeats

      1. For daily tasks, you can select “every day” or “only on weekdays.”

      2. For weekly tasks, choose which day(s) of the week it should repeat.

      3. For monthly tasks, pick the day of the month (e.g., the 1st, 15th, or last Friday).

4. Save your recurring task → Click Create Task to lock it in.

Important details to note about recurring tasks

Recurring tasks on the calendar are indicated by the cycle symbol. To update a Master recurring task, click Edit to activate the fields in the task modal.

🔑 Master Task vs. Child Tasks

• Master Task

  • The original task that defines the recurrence pattern.

  • Any updates you make here (e.g., title, assignee, project, labels, recurrence settings) will apply to all future child task instances.

  • To open it: click on a recurring task → select Edit in the top right corner → this opens the Master Task.

• Child Task (recurring instance)

  • Each scheduled occurrence of the recurring task.

  • You can only edit status, duration, and deadline for that single instance.

  • Changes made here do not affect other instances or the Master Task.

💡 Example: If you have a recurring task called “Weekly Report” every Friday:

• Updating the Master Task title to “Weekly Team Report” will rename all future occurrences.

• Marking a single Child Task as Completed only applies to that week’s task — future tasks remain unchanged.

Ways to Create a Task in Motion

You can create tasks in Motion from multiple places, depending on how and where you work. Regardless of how a task is created, all tasks follow the same workspace rules and are automatically scheduled by Motion once created.

1. Create a Task with the + New Button

Click + New in your workspace and select Task. Add task details: title, due date, duration, assignee, and priority, then save. Motion schedules the task based on those details and your availability.

2. Create a Task Inside a Document

Tasks can be created directly within Motion Docs:

• Type /task to insert an inline task

• Highlight text and select Create Task

You can review and edit task details before saving. Once created, the task is automatically scheduled like any other task.

3. Create a Task Inside a Project

Tasks can be added directly within a project. Project context is applied automatically, and Motion schedules the task based on its parameters and your workload.

4. Create a Task with AI Chat

Use AI Chat to ask Motion to create a task. AI Chat will confirm the required task details before creation. Once created, the task follows the same auto-scheduling rules as any manually created task.

5. Create a Task from AI Agenda

Tasks created from AI Agenda are added directly to your workspace and automatically scheduled.

6. Create a Task from Email

Send an email to [email protected] to create a task. Motion will:

• Use the email subject as the task title

• Use the email body as the description

• Assign the task to the sender

The task is then automatically scheduled based on your availability.

7. Create a Task from AI Notetaker

After a meeting ends, AI Notetaker identifies action items discussed during the call and suggests them as tasks.

You can review, edit, approve, or dismiss each suggestion. Motion provides suggested task parameters, which you can edit before or after approval.

⭐ Important to Understand

How a task is created does not change how it is scheduled. Auto-scheduling is handled by Motion’s core scheduling system, not by the creation method.