Explain the problem as you see it
It is possible but cumbersome and somewhat manual to model something like a recurring task/event in Tana.
Why is this a problem for you?
Instead of using the cumbersome method its easier for me to keep all my recurring tasks in Todoist and have written a Tana paste script to read and move them over every morning.
Suggest a solution
Either an extension of the date field or a new field, attached to DONE/NOT DONE that would change the date to the next occurrence when DONE is checked (and then uncheck DONE).
I really think Todoist's Natural Language style entry is the gold standard for UX on this type of thing:
- every 5 days
- every week day
- monthly on the 1st
11 Comments
I'm partial to Things 3's handling of recurring tasks. You can specify recurrence based strictly on the date, regardless of the state of the previous instantiation, as described above. OR it can be based off the completion date of the existing item—the next day, or 5 days or 3 weeks after the current item is marked done.
It is worth mentioning that this is possible to build now using the Command Node 'Insert relative date'. Like RJ Nestor has done (a demo of it in use here): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ikLbN0JoeY
Personally I think the gold-standard for recurring tasks is TickTick, because it allows you to set the recurrence based on either due date or completion date. Setting it to completion date is useful for things like house chores, or anything that needs to happen on a fixed frequency rather than a fixed date.
The recurring task settings in Amazing Marvin are probably the most comprehensive I've ever seen.
I have already used up my two votes for this month, but this is also an issue (for me) I desperately would like to see solved.
This is too complicated and fish back In order to realize such a basic function .it is a bit worthless
I have to agree with other commenters: building this out manually is a pain and far from an "elegant solution" from a UX perspective. This should come standard and I am sure you and the team are aware of that. I get that people in the Tana environment build personal businesses around selling such solutions to other Tana users, but once you pay for the software, things look differently.
The homepages claims Tana to be "The everything OS", but only if you literally build everything yourself? It's supposed to be "A game-changer for project management", but only if you spend literal hours (plural) to configure it (and then spend many more to maintain it)?
I already used up my votes, but I will come back next month.
Nada for two years? It's super lame and disappointing to have to use multiple tools because of a lack of such basic functionality, get it together.
If Tana add a simple reoccurring tasks system, I will immediately, dump Notion (which I have been using for hmm 5-6 years) and hand Tana whatever cash they desire each month.
I have tested this incredible tool for hundreds of hours, concurrently with my current Notion system, and Tana is better in every way. Every. Way.
Except Notion enables you to have repeating tasks in the form of templates.
A huge amount of my daily, weekly, and monthly tasks are set as automatic recurring tasks in Notion to automate me doing them, so I don’t have to think about them until they show up.
I have tried DIY repeat tasks systems in Tana such as Nestor’s. And what he has created is incredible. But it’s a bit cumbersome what should be a streamlined, basic, included by default, feature.
I so want to use this tool, god, so badly, but I can’t without that feature. And thousands, tens of thousands of people who agree. Tana is probably missing out on tens of millions of monthly revenue just because of this lack of basic feature turning people away from it.
Not sure about the
part, but other than that, yeah. There are other reasons why I, personally, still rely on "Reminders" (the default "task manager" on Mac- and iOS: the simplicity and notifications. The Tana app just takes too long to boot up. Getting to a page inside the app that shows me "anything worthwhile" just takes too long. If I want to quickly check what's due today, the "quickly" part is actually important. I don't accept waiting for +10s from tapping the icon to looking at anything. The other piece is just the fact that rely on notifications for due tasks heavily (with a margin of error, of course). The fact that the Tana app(s) aren't able to send me reminders, in particular on mobile, is a deal breaker.
I am on the paid plan for legacy reasons, so it's not that they are currently missing out on money. It's just that their premise and part of the story telling around "ditch all the silly other apps" just isn't true, regardless of how much they try to tell us about "Flow state" at work etc.
Anyway, amazing product, keep going dick hats!
