Your first Project

A Project holds Tasks, which you can group into Sections. Five minutes is enough to set one up, and the Inbox, Today and Upcoming are there before you make any.

Make a Project

Create it

Click the + next to Projects in the sidebar, or run New Project from the Command palette, which ⌘K opens. Give it a name.

Style it

Pick a color and an icon, or an emoji. A Project has one or the other, never both. You can also give it a Start and a Due, which draw it as a bar on a Timeline, and star it as a Favorite.

Open itCreate Project saves it and takes you to its page, which is empty.

Edit a Project later from its ··· menu, on its sidebar row, on right-click or in the page header. The same menu duplicates it, copies its link, and imports or exports its Tasks as CSV.

Deleting a Project moves its Tasks to the Inbox. Its Notes stay, without a Project.

Add Sections

A Section is a named group of Tasks inside a Project, such as To do, Waiting and Done. In the Board Layout, Sections are the columns.

Click Add Section at the foot of the list and name it.
Or hover the gap between two Tasks. An Add section line appears. Click it, name the Section, and every Task below the line moves into it.
Click a Section’s name to rename it. Its ··· menu also deletes it, and the Tasks stay in the Project without a Section.
Drag a Section by its header to reorder it. The Tasks go with it.

Add Tasks

Press Q anywhere and type. # plus the Project’s name files the Task there, as in Call the printer friday #Launch. Quick add syntax lists everything the line understands.

Inside a Project, an Add Task row at the end of the list works the same way. Press ↵ to add a Task and keep the row open for the next one.

Press ↵ on a Task, or click it, to open its details. There you can set:

A title, and a description. The description is plain text that shows as Markdown.
A Due date, with an optional time, and a repeat: daily, weekly, monthly or yearly. A repeating Task moves its Due on when you complete it.
A Start date, which needs a Due, and a Duration.
A Priority, from P1 to P4, and Labels.
Subtasks, one level deep. A Subtask stays in its parent’s Project and Section.
Other Tasks it is blocked by.

Changes save as you make them.

Labels

A Label marks Tasks and Notes across Projects. Make one with the + next to Labels in the sidebar, or on the Filters & Labels page, which gl opens. Give it a name and a color.

A Label’s page lists its open Tasks from every Project. Add it to a Task in Quick add with @name.

The Smart views

Four lists exist from the start and compute themselves.

Inbox holds Tasks that have no Project. A Task from Quick add with no #name lands here, and so does a Task from an email to your Inbox address. You can’t rename or delete it.
Today holds open Tasks due today or earlier, in five groups: Overdue, Morning, Afternoon, Evening and Anytime. The line under its title counts what is left and what is done.
Upcoming holds open Tasks due after today, under Tomorrow, the weekdays, This weekend, Next week and Later.
High Priority holds P1 and P2 Tasks by default. Settings, then Appearance, can narrow it to P1 only.

gi, gt, gu and gr go to them.

Star a Project to make it a Favorite. It then also appears under Favorites at the top of the sidebar, and g 1 to g 9 go to your Favorite Projects in order.

Drag Projects in the sidebar to reorder them. Right-click a page in the sidebar to move or hide it, or open Settings, then Appearance, to arrange the whole sidebar.

Pick a Layout

A Project opens as a List. Its ··· menu switches it to a Board, a Calendar, a Backlog or a Timeline, and Set as default view makes it open on that one. ⇧V steps through them. Using Views describes each one.