Tasks

A task is a checkbox in a note

Any line in any note that starts with - [ ] is a task. Tasks (⌃2) collects them from your whole vault, and every change you make there is written into the note the task lives in. Ticking a task in Tasks ticks it in the note and adds the date it was done.

Adding a task

Type into the bar at the top of Tasks and press Return. The chip beside it picks the note the task goes into, Tasks Inbox unless you choose another. As you type, MindLake colours what it has understood and previews the date, priority and tags it will write. A date word it chose not to read stays plain, so you can see that it was left alone.

From any other app, the command bar (⌥⌘K) adds a task the same way: type the line and choose Add as a task, or type /task and the line.

Suggestions as you type

Typing #, @, +, ~, ^ or ! lists what it accepts: your tags, people, folders and notes, the priority words, and the date words with the day each one means. ↑ and ↓ move, ⏎ or ⇥ takes a suggestion, and ⎋ closes the list. #, @, + and ! stop at a space; ~ and ^ carry on for a few words, so ^next week and ~ICB catch up work.

The task language

Dates

A lead-in such as by, due, on or before is ignored, so “by Friday” is Friday. Phrases like next week, 12 Oct or in two weeks are always read as a date. A single word like friday, today or tomorrow only counts when you use it as one: after by, due, on, before or until, or at the end of the line, where trailing tags, people and priorities do not count as words. It is not read as a date when it starts the line (“Monday standup agenda”), describes something (“the friday deadline”, “tomorrow’s agenda”) or is in quotes.

When MindLake is unsure, it underlines the word and offers a button such as “Make it Mon 28 Sep”. Taking it puts ^ in front of the word, which is what you could have typed yourself: ^ before a date word makes it the date whatever the wording, as in ^friday or ^next week.

No date on purpose

backlog, someday, one day, no date, sometime and whenever mean no date at all, and win over a date word in the same line. They also make the task Backlog (⏬), so it sits under Backlog, not No date. If the line gives a priority as well, that priority is kept and the task sits under No date.

Priority

“Book urgent care for Dad” keeps its words: urgent in the middle of a line is part of the task.

People, tags and where it goes

A person’s handle is their first name, or first.last when two people in your vault share a first name. Set your name in Settings ▸ Brain and your name, your initials, “me”, and a transcript’s near spelling of your name all mean you, unless the word is someone else your vault already knows. The same name decides which tasks are yours in the Tasks view’s Mine; without it, every view shows every task.

How a task is stored

Pay the invoice 12 Oct p1 #finance ~Clients

- [ ] Pay the invoice #finance 📅 2026-10-12 ⏫

The stored form is plain text, so any tool can read it: 📅 for the due date, ⏳ for a scheduled date, ⏫ 🔼 🔽 ⏬ for high, medium, low and backlog priority, 🔁 for a repeat rule, and ✅ with the day a task was done.

The Tasks view

• Whose: the person button in the title bar picks Mine, Waiting on others or Everything. Tasks opens on Mine and keeps whichever you choose. A task is yours when it carries your name or no @name at all; Waiting on others is every task whose @names are all other people. With no name set in Settings ▸ Brain, all three show everything.
• Group by due date, priority, folder, tag, person or note. By due date, tasks fall under Overdue, Today, This week, Later, No date and Backlog. Backlog holds the Backlog tasks with no date, as a section and a board column after No date; a Backlog task with a date still goes by its date. A task also counts under its note’s tags.
• Sort each group smartly (priority, then due date), by due date, priority, name or when the task was added. Sorting by priority puts Backlog tasks last, after those with no priority.
• Filter by priority, tag, person, folder or when a task was added, and show or hide completed tasks. Search (⌘F) matches the task, its note, its tags and its people.
• Layout: cards, rows or a one-line list, or a board with a column per group.

Hover a task for buttons to edit it, date it, see its details (scheduled date, repeat rule and tags), talk about it (the waveform) and open its ••• menu, which adds a task above or below, sets quick dates and priorities, has Move to backlog (Take out of backlog on a Backlog task), duplicates, sends to chat, has Talk about it, goes to the note or deletes. The right-click menu has Talk About It too. A task with more than two tags shows one chip that counts them; click it to add or remove tags.

Editing opens the task in a card: its line as text, and under it chips for the note it lives in, a Date menu of quick dates, a Priority menu and a + Tag menu of the tags your vault already uses, then ✕ to cancel and ✓ to save. Clicking the note chip saves what you typed and opens the note at that task; otherwise nothing is written until you save.

The title bar says where you are: Tasks, then Inbox or Board, Mine or Waiting on others (left out while Everything is on), the grouping, your search or “Filtered” while a filter is on, and the number of tasks showing. With no search or filter on, an empty Mine says “Nothing in Mine. Switch to Everything to see the rest.”

With several tasks selected, a bar offers Complete (or Reopen), a due date, a priority, tags, Send to Chat and Delete. Send to Chat, on one task or a selection, opens the AI chat with those tasks in it. Edit ▸ Undo names the change it will take back.

The preview pane

Choose Preview from the title menu of the panel on the right. As you select a task, the panel shows the note it came from, scrolled to the task with its line marked, so you can check tasks gathered from different notes without leaving the list.

Talk about a task

The waveform button on a task, Talk about it in its ••• menu or Talk About It on right-click opens a new chat that is already listening, and tells the assistant the task’s line and the note it is in. Ask what the task is for or what the note says around it, or ask to change its date, priority, owner or tags, or to tick it. The assistant makes the change by editing that one line in the note, says in a sentence what it changed, and listens again. The conversation works as described in Voice.

It needs AI features on and a working chat connection. A task in a locked note is refused, because the assistant never reads locked notes.

Tasks in Calendar

Settings ▸ Tasks ▸ Show dated tasks in Calendar, off by default, puts each open task with a due date into a calendar MindLake makes called MindLake Tasks, as an all-day event. It goes in the same account as your other calendars, so it shows in Calendar, on your phone and anywhere else that account reaches. Only tasks due within the last month or the next year are included.

• It is one way: editing the event does not change the task, and the next update puts the event back.
• Nothing is written to a calendar you already had. Turning the setting off removes every event it made.
• It uses the calendar access MindLake already has for Schedule; Reminders are not used.

Action items from transcripts

When MindLake summarises a recording, the action items it finds go into the note as tasks under an Action items heading. Each one runs through the task language, so the owner becomes a person and “by Friday” becomes a due date, and it shows up in Tasks straight away.

• “By Friday” counts from the day of the meeting, not the day you summarise it.
• The summary is told your name from Settings ▸ Brain, so an action agreed for you with nobody named is yours.
• An item can carry its importance (⏫ or 🔽) and an indented line under it giving the reason. Its steps become indented sub-tasks.
• Something suggested or left open is kept too, as a Backlog task.

## Action items
- [ ] Send the deck to the board @kyle 📅 2026-10-02 ⏫
    The board meets on Tuesday and wants the Q3 numbers first.
    - [ ] Pull the Q3 numbers
- [ ] Ask about a second supplier ⏬

See Transcripts and speakers. On iPhone, Tasks shows the same checkboxes and you can tick and add them there too.