Working with Tasks¶
What is a Task?¶
A task in TaskQuark is an activity, work or job to be done. It is the unit of work that can be planned, scheduled, and tracked. Contrary to other tools, TaskQuark makes no distinction between a task and an calendar event, or a task and a “todo” item.
A task has the following information:
Project: the project the task belongs to.
Title: a title or short summary for the task.
State: the current state of the task in the basic workflow.
Priority: the current priority of the task.
Description: a note to explain the task in more detail.
Events: the dates of specific events that occur during the life of the task.
Schedule: the conditions that indicate when to work on the task.
Only the project and the title are required fields. The other fields are optional and can be left blank or take a default value. Depenging on the information you enter, the task will treated different, be shown on the different TaskQuark pads, and synchronized with external tools.
Task project¶
Every task in TaskQuark belongs to a project. When no project is selected for a task, it is assigned to the default project, usually the initial “TO DO” project.
Hint
You can modify the default project for your profile. See Working with Projects for more information.
The task project is used to group tasks so that you can filter them using the sidebar project list.
Task title and description¶
Every task has a title and may have a description. The title is a short description of the task, and the description is a note to explain the task in full detail.
For simple “to do” tasks, the title is enough to describe the task. And there is no need to enter any more information.
Tip
When you have entered the task title use TAB+SPACE to quickly save the task without using the mouse.
For more complex tasks, use the description area to provide more ample information about the task, take some notes, etc.
Task state¶
A task can be in one of the following states:
planning: the task is being planned or still in consideration, but has not been even selected to work on.
todo: the task is ready to work on, but no actual work has started.
doing: the task is being worked on.
waiting: the task is waiting for some external event to happen before it can be worked on again.
stopped: the task has been stopped or canceled, but it is not mark as ended.
done: the task has been completed.
These states are used to indicate the phase of the task in the workflow of the Workpad. This is a basic workflow, with no restrictions in the way you can change a task from one state to another. It only hints the current state of the task, but you can change the state at any time.
In the TaskQuark pads, the task state is shown using different colors and marks, namely:
planning: grey color.
todo: black color.
doing: blue color.
waiting: purple color.
stopped: red color.
done: black color with a strike mark.
Task priorities¶
A task can have one of five priorities, represented by the letters A, B, C, D, E.
There is no meaning for TaskQuark associated to the letters, they are just a way to group and sort tasks.
Note
You can give your own meaning to the priorities, for example:
A = urgent, B = important, C = normal, D = low, E = none
A = bug, B = request, C = improvement, D = repetitive, E = reminder
Task Events¶
The “task events” represent specific dates that occur during the lifetime of a task.
These dates belong to the task proper, regardless of the actual status of work of the task. For example, a due date is a task event, indepedently of the task being in the “doing” or “todo” state.
Tip
Use the task state “doing” to indicate that the actual work has started for this task. You can even start working on a task before the “official” start date, if you want to.
start date: the date the task “officially” starts.
end date: the date the task “officially” ends.
These dates are different from the actual execution or work dates, i.e. when the task was actually started to work on or ended working. You can use the task states to convey the fact that the actual work has started or the task is done.
Leave the start and end dates blank if there are no “hard” dates for the task, i.e. if the task is not bound to a specific date to start or end working on it.
Hint
Examples:
A “registration period for some course” opens by 2020-01-01. This is the start event, but this does not mean that you have started working on that process on that date. It is just the date the registration period “officially” starts. You could start working on the registration process before that date.
due date: the date the task is “officially” due.
Use the due date for actual deadlines, i.e. when the task must be completed. You can use the target date to indicate when you want to have it finished, before the due date.
Hint
Examples:
A certain “presentation at work” is due for some date, but you plan to end some days before. The due date is the date the presentation will be due, not the date you plan to end working on it. Use the target date for that.
target date: a date you expect to have the work done, or plan to work on, etc.
Note
There no special meaning for the target date, it is just a date you can use to plan a “soft deadline”, or when to you want to start working on the task, or when you want to have it finished. The due date is reserved for the “official” date the task is due, regardless of when you want to have it completed.
Work Schedule¶
The Work Schedule section allows providing information about when the task is planned to work ok. It contains the following fields:
Pinned: if a value different from “not pinned” is selected, the task will always be scheduled on the current date, or the next day.
Time: the time of the day to work on the task.
Duration: the amount of time to work on the task .
Weekdays: the days of the week to work on the task.
Day: the day of the month to work on the task.
Month: the month of the year to work on the task.
These fields are used to calculate the actual dates of the repetitions when the task is scheduled to work on.