TODOIST TASK MANAGEMENT | Control Your Work in Progress — Organize Active Tasks, Set Priorities, and Reduce Overcommitment

Having a task list does not automatically make you productive. You can capture every responsibility, assign deadlines, and organize projects—and still end up working on too many things at once.

The problem is often not a lack of tasks to do. It is a lack of control over which tasks are active, which should wait, and what deserves attention next.

Todoist can help you make that distinction visible. By combining projects, sections, priorities, labels, and filters, you can build a practical task-management workflow that shows what is underway without losing sight of everything else.

This guide focuses on a specific outcome: building a system that helps you control work in progress instead of continually starting new tasks.

What you will build

By the end of this tutorial, you will have a Todoist workflow for:

• Separating projects and their tasks.
• Distinguishing active work from work that is waiting.
• Identifying the tasks that deserve attention first.
• Creating a custom view of your active work.
• Reviewing unfinished tasks before accepting more commitments.
• Keeping your system useful without turning task management into another job.

1. Understand the structure before adding tasks

Todoist uses several organizing features. Each serves a different purpose.

Feature	Purpose
Projects	Group tasks around a responsibility, outcome, or body of work
Sections	Divide a project into stages or meaningful groups
Tasks	Represent individual actions you can complete
Priorities	Help distinguish more important tasks from less important ones
Labels	Add reusable classifications to tasks
Filters	Create custom views that display tasks matching selected conditions

For this workflow, imagine that you manage a website, create content, and handle business administration.

You could create separate projects for Website Development, Content Production, and Business Administration. Each project can contain its own tasks, while a label can identify the tasks you are actively working on across those projects.

This is useful because your work may be divided among several projects even though your attention and available time remain limited.

Todoist's official documentation explains its filters and the criteria they can use, including dates, projects, labels, priorities, and task names.

Reference: https://www.todoist.com/help/todoist/features/introduction-to-filters-V98wIH

2. Create projects for your main areas of responsibility

Start by organizing your work into a small number of meaningful projects.

1. Open Todoist and sign in.
2. Locate the project navigation area.
3. Choose the option to add a project.
4. Give the project a clear name, such as Website Development.
5. Save the project.
6. Repeat for other distinct areas of responsibility.

Use project names that describe a body of work rather than every small action. For example, Content Production is usually more useful as a project than creating a separate project for every article.

Do not create dozens of projects before you understand your workflow. Start with the areas that genuinely need separate organization.

Next, open a project and add a few concrete tasks. Prefer actions that describe something you can actually do, such as:

• Draft the homepage copy.
• Test the contact form.
• Review the mobile layout.
• Prepare the next article.

A task should make the next action reasonably clear. “Work on website” is less useful than “Test the website contact form on mobile.”

3. Divide a project into stages

A project can contain tasks at different stages. Some are ready to begin, some are being worked on, and others are waiting for information or another person's action.

You can use sections to make these differences visible.

For a project such as Website Development, create sections named:

• Ready
• Doing
• Waiting

The exact section names are your own workflow design, not mandatory Todoist defaults.

To create sections, open the relevant project and use the option to add a section. Enter the name and save it. Then place each task in the section that best represents its current state.

Use the sections consistently:

Ready — The task is defined and can be started when capacity becomes available.

Doing — You have committed to making progress on the task now.

Waiting — The task cannot proceed until something else happens, such as receiving client feedback, access credentials, or a required document.

A task should not remain in Doing merely because you intend to finish it someday. That section should represent work you have genuinely committed to advancing.

If you use several projects, apply the same stage names across them. This creates a consistent way to organize work without forcing every project to follow an identical detailed process.

4. Identify active work with a label

Sections help you organize tasks inside a project. A label can help you identify tasks across several projects.

For this example, create a label named active.

1. Open Todoist's label-management area.
2. Choose the option to add a label.
3. Enter active as the label name.
4. Save it.
5. Open a task you have genuinely started or committed to working on.
6. Add the active label to that task.

Repeat for the tasks that belong in your active-work list.

Do not label every task as active. The label is useful precisely because it distinguishes a smaller set of commitments from your entire backlog.

For example:

Task	Project	Label
Test the contact form	Website Development	active
Draft the next article	Content Production	active
Compare future website themes	Website Development	None
Research a possible new service	Business Administration	None

In this example, the first two tasks are active commitments. The other two remain available for later consideration.

The objective is not to make every task urgent. It is to maintain a truthful picture of the work currently receiving your attention.

5. Build a custom filter for active tasks

Now create a view that brings active tasks together, even when they belong to different projects.

Todoist supports custom filters based on query expressions. In its filter syntax, a percent sign followed by a label name selects tasks carrying that label.

For the label created above, the query is:

%active

To create the filter on the web or desktop app:

1. Open Filters & Labels in the sidebar.
2. Select the add icon beside Filters.
3. Enter a name such as Active Work.
4. Enter %active in the filter-query field.
5. Save the filter using Add.
6. Open the new filter and check that the expected tasks appear.

On mobile, open Browse, select Filters & Labels, choose the add icon beside Filters, enter the name and query, and save. The exact controls may vary with the version of the app.

If you cannot find the filter area, check whether it is hidden from the sidebar.

Official instructions: https://www.todoist.com/help/todoist/features/introduction-to-filters-V98wIH

Your Active Work filter should now bring together the tasks you marked as active. Instead of visiting each project to reconstruct your workload, you have one view to inspect.

If the view is empty, check that at least one open task has the active label and that the label spelling matches the query.

6. Add priorities without making everything urgent

An active task is not necessarily your most important task. Labels show which work is active; priorities help distinguish relative importance.

Todoist provides priority levels. Use them sparingly and according to a consistent rule.

For example:

• Priority 1: A critical commitment with significant consequences if delayed.
• Priority 2: Important work that should receive attention soon.
• Priority 3: Normal work that matters but is not currently critical.
• Priority 4: Work with no special priority.

These descriptions are a suggested personal convention, not official definitions imposed by Todoist.

When you review your active tasks, ask:

1. Which task has the greatest consequence if it is delayed?
2. Which task is blocking another person or a larger project?
3. Which task can realistically be advanced with the time and resources available?

Assign priority based on those answers. If every task receives the highest priority, the priority system stops helping you make decisions.

You can also use Todoist filters to retrieve tasks by priority. Its official filter guide includes examples for finding high-priority tasks and combining priorities with date conditions.

7. Control how much work you start

A task system cannot decide your personal capacity for you. You need a rule that stops your active list from expanding without limit.

A simple starting rule is to keep only a small number of substantial tasks in Doing across all projects. For example, you might begin with three active tasks and adjust the limit as you learn how your work actually flows.

This is a personal operating rule, not a built-in Todoist limit.

When you want to start a new task, first inspect your Active Work filter.

• If you have capacity, choose the next appropriate task and mark it active.
• If your active list is already full, complete a task, pause one deliberately, or move a blocked task into Waiting before adding another commitment.
• If a task cannot proceed, record what it is waiting for rather than repeatedly treating it as immediately actionable.

The important distinction is between capturing a task and committing to work on it now. You should be able to record a useful idea without automatically adding it to your current workload.

This rule helps reduce the number of unfinished commitments competing for your attention.

8. Review your active-work list every day

A task-management system becomes unreliable when its information stops reflecting reality.

At the beginning or end of your working day, open Active Work and review each task.

For every item, ask:

• Is this still something I am actively working on?
• Is the next action clear?
• Is the priority still appropriate?
• Is it blocked by someone or something?
• Can I realistically advance it with my available time?

Then update the task.

If it is finished, complete it. If it is no longer active, remove the active label and return it to the appropriate stage. If it is blocked, move it to Waiting and record what must happen before work can continue.

At the end of the week, review the projects as well. Look for tasks that have remained active for too long, repeated postponements, and commitments that no longer justify the effort.

The purpose of a review is to make decisions—not merely to rearrange tasks.

9. Troubleshoot the workflow

My Active Work filter shows too many tasks.

You may be applying the label too broadly. Remove active from tasks that are not genuinely underway, and decide what you will finish or pause before accepting more work.

A task has disappeared from the filter.

Check whether the task is still open and whether it has the correct label. A task that has been completed or had its label removed may no longer appear in the view.

I cannot create a custom filter.

Check that you are using the correct Filters & Labels area and that your app is up to date. Consult the official help page for the current interface and plan availability.

My sections and labels are becoming confusing.

Give each feature one job. Use sections to show the stage of work within a project, and use the active label to identify commitments across projects. Avoid creating a new label for every small distinction.

I keep postponing active tasks.

Reduce the number of active commitments. Make the next action smaller and more concrete, and review whether the task is blocked or simply no longer a priority.

10. Know the limits of this system

Todoist helps you organize tasks, but it cannot automatically determine how much work you can handle, whether a task is truly important, or whether a deadline is realistic.

The active label also requires maintenance. If you forget to update it, the filter can become misleading. A custom filter is a view of the information you have entered; it is not a guarantee that the underlying information is accurate.

The objective is not to build the most elaborate productivity system. It is to create a system simple enough to maintain and useful enough to guide decisions.

Start with a few projects, a consistent set of stages, one active-work label, and one custom filter. Add complexity only when a genuine problem requires it.

Put the system to work

Your first practical exercise is to set up one project, add several real tasks, mark only the work you are currently committed to, and create the Active Work filter.

Use it for a few days. Notice whether it helps you see unfinished commitments more clearly and make better decisions about what to start next.

Productivity is not measured by how many tasks you begin. It depends in part on how reliably you choose, advance, and complete the work that matters.

Official references

• Todoist Help Center — Filters: https://www.todoist.com/help/todoist/features/introduction-to-filters-V98wIH
• Todoist Help Center — Features and task-management guides: https://www.todoist.com/help/todoist/features

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