Recurring tasks in Task Board

[tu2-atmanand]

To implement this feature correctly in Task Board, will need to answer some questions and finalize few things :

• Should it behave similar to Tasks plugin, when moving it from today's daily note to tomorrow's daily note ?

• If a task has been schedule to repeat every day. Then should it be shown on all the columns, in the Time based workflow board? (The board which consists of Today, tomorrow, yesterday type of "dated columns")

• If a task has been given this property, '🔁 every day', that means it should appear on every dated column. And also, it will get the corresponding date as its due date value. Similarly, if this tasks has been missed, then it should appear in the 'Overdue' column with the corresponding date as its due date. If it was missed, many times, then there will be multiple copies of it inside the tasks.json file, under overdue column.

• For the dated columns like Future, where, tasks from say, tomorrow to next 7 days are shown. In this column, these tasks should appear only once, or not appear at all ?

[pcause]

Not sure what the first point means. If a task is scheduled 3/1 and not completed, on 3/2 it should be overdue and another new item should not be generated for 3/2. To me recurring means a new item gets created when the existing item is completed. The fact that you haven't done something on the scheduled date is important and if you haven't done it it is unlikely case that you want to do the action twice on the next day. For example if you have an item "brush your teeth at 8am" and you didn't brush your teeth yesterday you aren't going to brush them twice today at 8am.

I think this answers all the questions.

[tu2-atmanand]

Not sure what the first point means

Actually I was referring to the feature, where you get a button, kind of, using which you can move/postpone the task for next day in the daily notes. But I think this doesnt apply to recurring tasks.

This gave some better insights about recurring tasks, as I never used them. I always interpreted recurring tasks as sort of habits tasks. So, here is what I have concluded and which can be implemented in Task board :

• If a task is a recurring task and its not completed on the intended day, it shouldn't be shown under the Overdue column.
  • Question : So this tasks should not be shown under all other non-dated columns too. Like, say a particular task
• If the recurring tasks has been completed, then a new tasks should be created with the same content, by only changing the due date. (For now lets keep it with only due date, rest of the properties like scheduled will make this complicated).
  • Question : If the tasks is inside a daily note, then should the next task be created in the same note or the next day note (or the day based on the recurring interval) ?
  • Problem : This going to make copies of the recurring tasks inside the Completed column. Need to decide here, whether a recurring task should be shown under Completed column or not. #decision

[pcause]

You can look at the tasks plugin as it has dealt with these issues.

• if not completed on intended day it SHOULD be shown as overdue on later dates.
• new instance of a recurring task created in the same not and either above/below the instance just completed (option for above/below).
• each instance is completed, so perhaps an option to show recurring tasks in completed column or not. maybe a better idea is to limit how old tasks in the completed column can be so that the completed recurring can be shown for a user chosen interval. this might be best as when you are doing a weekly status report you have that in front of you but the following week last weeks item is not shown.

[tu2-atmanand]

Thank you @pcause for sharing these ideas!

For the second point, I wont be elaborating much, as I have explained my plan with recurring tasks in my below comment. So lets discuss further for first and third point :

• So here (also the same with completed tasks), if the user has missed a task(s) which is scheduled for every day. Then that will create too many copies of the tasks in the Overdue column. Your solution of giving a new setting option can be also applicable here as well to avoid seeing all these copies. And this solutions seems to be the only possible solution as of now. Will still try to see if something better solution comes up.
• Here also the same solution will be applicable, of creating a setting option. But, whether this should be a new setting or same setting option should be used is the question. Another solution will be after implementing this FR. Where there will be an option on whether to show all instances of recurring tasks or not. For filtering recurring tasks only for specifically recurring tasks will be too much work. Perhaps a common range of time interval where all applicable tasks will be visible might be a better solution.

[tu2-atmanand]

There seems to be a lot of things will need to consider here while integrating this recurring tasks feature. I feel, these are some of the psychological tricks, which Tasks plugin has implemented meticulously, and thats why its so famous. So, to integrate this specific feature, this workload can be divided into two things :

• Management of recurring tasks : So, after going through the huge documentation of Tasks plugin, as much as I could. And also with my previous interactions with the maintainers of this plugin. I have gained a lot about the significance of this specific area of recurring tasks. And, I didnt thought there are so many things happening when you use a recurring tasks, like the due has to be updated, a new tasks should be created, etc. So, in the best interest of this plugin and considering the roadmap, I think since, I am also providing as much integration with the tasks plugin (not through APIs), it will be a good idea to leave this management work for Tasks plugin to handle. Its of no use to simply reinvent the wheel, since Tasks plugin is also used by millions of users, they also dont have to compromise anywhere, so every works well and integrated. So, decision here will be to not do any development in terms of managing the tasks.

  • Another important point is that, if you have enabled the Tasks plugin, and if you click on any recurring tasks, Tasks plugin will do all the things you have set it to do, like creating the next task. So, if I as well, integrate this functionality in this plugin, it might create two copies of the tasks. So, best way to handle this will be, when you click on the checkbox of the task from Task Board, ill simply have to inform the Tasks plugin about the same and the issue will be solved. So the management part can be easily handled with this proper integration.

• Displaying/Monitoring of recurring tasks ; Coming to Monitoring these recurring tasks, as I have also raised some questions in my above comment. I think these are the issues, Task board has to focus on right now. So, will be proceeding this discussion on trying to answer these question with the best possible solution.

[pcause]

didn't know tasks would do the work on creating new tasks if one used task board as well. It seems that that also leaves little to do with management except the completed issue discussed above. Although, if one uses tasks and sets the "on completion delete" that will also get rid of the completed task in completed. Still think it is worth time limiting how long a completed recurring task that doesn't have the on complete delete stays in the completed column.

[tu2-atmanand]

This also makes sense, as keeping a log of all the completed tasks is also important. Ignoring the "on complete delete" concept, because if any task has been deleted, then Task Board will also going to delete it from its cache. So, for logging all these tasks wont be possible, in the context of recurring tasks specifically. But yes there is a feature request which will going to store all your previously completed tasks, even though you have deleted them from your notes. along with option to clear out the whole history. This will help to keep a better log.

So, its possible to keep all the completed recurring tasks in the Completed column. But filtering recurring tasks within certain range can be implemented in the second stage of the Column filters FR.

[tu2-atmanand]

Okay! Ignore all - only my - previous comments in this discussion. Because those are from the time, when I was completely unaware of how a recurring task used to work inside Tasks plugin.

Now, that I have gained a proper knowledge, let me break down on how this feature can be implemented inside Task Board. My subsequent comments will elaborate the same.

[tu2-atmanand]

Recurring task vs Habit task

First, its very important to have a clear distinction between a recurring task and a habit task. I have always used various apps on my phone to create habits. The way this apps used to work is, you create a habit, which kind of looks like a task and then, when you click on the checkbox of the task, it use to mark that one as complete. But here, based on the occurrence rule, you can see the habit task present on all those days. For example, if you have created a habit task, say, "Take bath" and the occurrence rule set to it is "everyday". Then these habit task will be visible on every day column (if you are using a weekly view). Now, once you mark this task complete, it doesnt do any automation thing here, it simply puts a tick mark in the checkbox. If you have missed this habit in any previous days, you can see the report in a weekly view or in monthly view, on which days you have missed to take bath.

Because of this I got very confused on how Tasks plugin has implemented it. So, now the question is, should Task Board consider this "recurring task" as a "habit task" ?

The final answer for this will be : NO
Habit tasks are something else, they are to track your habit and its better to use other plugins which has done a fabulous job for providing this functionality in Obsidian. So all the following features wont be included inside Task Board, which I mentioned earlier :

• A recurring task with the rule, repeat everyday, wont be shown under all the dated type column. It will only be shown under the column which it belongs based on its start, schedule or due dated type column. So a recurring task will be also considered as a normal task only. The recurring rule is to be used for the automation action later based on the checkbox click event.

[tu2-atmanand]

Implement recurring task feature in stages

Stage 1 - Let Tasks plugin handle everything

• For now, simply resolve the issue, [BUG] clicking a checkbox on a recurring time doesn't introduce new date #220. So that the recurring tasks do not breaks when they marked as completed through Task board.
• Now, all the automation part will be handled by the Tasks plugin. But the only discomfort users will have to face is, while adding or editing any task through the Task board's AddOrEditTaskModal, users wont get any field to add this recurring task rule to their task. they will still need to use the editor and the suggestion feature of Tasks plugin to add this recurring property to their task.

[pcause]

This is what I'd expect as a Tasks user. If I don't complete the recurring task today I am not expecting to see 2 instances tomorrow; one for yesterday that is overdue and the one for today. There is the difference in concept between a calendar item spanning multiple days and a recurring task. The calendar items shows on each day because it happens without my taking any action. A task has an action to be taken to trigger the next instance.

In tasks, you can say that an item repeats every day or every day when done. I think most folks don't use this distinction but you could use this to deal with habit versus non habit tasks. A non habit task would have the "when done" in the recurrence, while a habit task wouldn't. If I miss a day for a habit task on Monday on Tuesday you would silently "complete" the task and that would generate the Tuesday task and the Monday won't appear and the logic that shows the task on days from Tuesday forward works.

This would require a warning to folks who want to use both Tasks and Task Board to make the distinction and for their non-habit tasks always add the when done, which I suspect they don't now.

[tu2-atmanand]

Yes exactly, thank you for taking stand on this approach. This what I also felt will be the best approach.

Now, coming to the Habit tasks, I think thats a whole different game. The most important feature a habit task management tool should have is progress report tracking. Currently thats not in the plan of Task Board and this has been done very well by lot of other plugins. So its simply better not to re-invent all those things in Task Board. And also because, I feel, people usually dont keep normal tasks with their habit tasks. Even though for perfect time management they will definitely like to see it on their calender. But those tasks can be kept in different files, so Task Board wont interfere with them. And the other plugins who are managing these Habit tasks can do their job. And the Calender plugin, if people are using separately, such as day planner plugin. This plugin can show both these normal tasks from TaskBoard and the habit tasks. So user can create a normal task based on their free time on a particular day.

[tu2-atmanand]

I would like to try if there is a popular and best plugin for Habit tasks management and then provide the best integration support for that as well in the future.

[tu2-atmanand]

Done! Tasks plugin integration for Recurring tasks has been implemented.

Even better, in Task Board you can put sub-tasks and description to your recurring tasks, which is not supported in Tasks plugin yet.

[tu2-atmanand]

Stage 2 - A recurring task is an automation action

In Task board, the Action feature is on the roadmap : #58

So, this recurring tasks can be understood better, if we see them as some sort of automation action. When a task, set as a recurring task, has been marked as completed then an action will be triggered and the subsequent next action will be executed. In this case, its creating the same task again but with modified, date property (either start date, schedule date or due date). And Tasks plugin is also doing the same thing. It triggers a action when user clicks on the checkbox of that task. And then all the options such as whether to the keep the old task or not, whether the advancement of the date should happen from the due date or from the completion date, etc kinds of rules can be set to this action.

So, to efficiently integrate this recurring task feature inside Task Board, will need to wait for the FR #58.

Once the later FR has been implemented, here is how users can use it :

• Users can either add the recurring property using Tasks plugin or using Task board plugin.
• If user has entered the recurring property through tasks plugin, then task board wont interfere with it.
• Now, a special button will be provided inside the AddOrEditTaskModal, by clicking this button, another modal should open.
• In this new modal, user can select what kind of action it is. For now lets select its a recurring action. Then user will be asked to enter the start-date and end-date of this recurring action. Then select the repeating period.
• Following options can be provided for repeating period : Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly, Custom.
  • For Weekly and Monthly : A new field will be populated to select which days of the weeks this task should be repeated. Users can click on Monday, Tuesday, etc. and when the task is marked as complete, the next task will be created accordingly. Similarly, user can select which days of the month this task should repeat, if selected monthly. And only those specific date will be added as the next due-date (for example), when the task is marked as complete.
  • For Yearly : A new field will be populated to select which months of the year this task should be recurring to.
  • For Custom : User can enter the recurring interval in terms of days. For example, if user wants any task to be repeated on alternate days. Or after every two days. then this option will be the most suitable one.

I feel compared to the Tasks plugin approach of using Natural Language to give this recurring rules, which I personally feel is getting way complicated. For example, one of the rule present in Tasks plugin docs is, '🔁 every 3 weeks on Friday'. This is very confusing for me to understand. And although the above implementation looks very complicated and mathematical for normal users to understand. I think, the goal should be to make things logical and simpler to understand rather than trying to make them easier.