Start a project from a template

A template is a whole project: its sections, its tasks, their sub-tasks, priorities and dates. Applying one makes all of it in a couple of seconds. Nothing is created until you press the button, so you can read the whole outline first and change your mind.

Open the gallery

Four ways in, all of them the same gallery.

• The + beside Projects in the left rail, then From a template.
• The Templates button above the task list, then Browse project templates. The rows above it are the single tasks you saved, which are a different thing.
• Templates, beside the + on the Projects heading of the Tasks home page.
• Inside a project with nothing in it, Browse templates under Get inspired.

Categories run down the left on a desktop and across the top on a phone. Popular is the short list most people start with. For advisers, For managers, Agency ops and Founders and small business hold the ones written for this kind of work. Search matches names, descriptions and the tasks inside, so “claim” finds the claim follow-up even though that word is not in its title.

Read it before you use it

Opening a card shows what the template is for, how to use it, and under What it makes, every section and every task. Sub-tasks sit indented under their parents and each date is written out, like “in 3 days” or “every Monday 9:00”. The priorities and labels the template carries come with it.

The field at the bottom is the project’s name. It starts as the template’s own name. Most templates are worth renaming to the client, the case or the piece of work in front of you. Use template makes it.

It can be undone

The message that appears when a template lands carries an Undo. It removes the tasks and the project it just made, and nothing else.

Choose the day the dates land on

Every dated task counts from today unless you say otherwise. On a template with dates, the Dates block lets you pick a day and say which end of the template that day pins.

Pick starting and day one is the day you chose, with everything counting forward from it. Pick finishing and the last dated task lands on that day, with the rest counting backwards. Use finishing for anything with a fixed date at the end: a wedding, an event, a launch, a completion date.

The outline switches to real days as soon as you pick one. The line underneath gives the span the project will fill, and warns you when part of it would land in the past.

Fill a project you already made

Open an empty project and choose Browse templates under Get inspired. The button then reads Add to <your project>, and the sections and tasks land in that project rather than in a new one. A section it would add that you already have is reused, never duplicated.

Have AI write one

Make one with AI is the first card in every list. Describe the project in a sentence or two, pick List or Board, and it writes a template in the same shape as the rest of them.

1. Say what the project is for, roughly how long it runs, and anything that must not be missed. The examples under the box are there to start from.
2. Read what comes back. It sits on the same page as any other template, marked Written by AI, and it can be wrong.
3. Ask for a change sends it back with what you want different. Everything you did not mention is kept.
4. Save to My templates keeps it. Saved templates appear under My templates and follow you to your other devices.
5. Use template makes the project, exactly like any other.

There is a limit

Twelve AI templates per account per ten minutes, and each one takes a few seconds to write.

Save a project you built

Any project can become a template. Open its ... menu in the left rail and choose Save as template. It keeps the open tasks with their sections, sub-tasks, priorities, labels and dates, and it makes those dates relative to the day you use it, so a task due in ten days stays “in ten days” and a weekly repeat keeps its weekday. Anything already completed is left out, because a template is what there is still to do.

The result lands in My templates, ready to use again, to hand to AI to adapt, or to fill an empty project with.

After the project lands

• Drag its tasks onto the timetable to give them an hour rather than just a day.
• Assign the ones that belong to somebody else. The template stays yours; assigning is how the work reaches a teammate.
• Change how the list is drawn when the template’s order is not the order you work in.

Routine packs

Routines have the same idea under a different name. On the Routines page, Packs opens 24 sets of ready-made routines that belong together: Adviser basics, Prospecting engine, Health foundations, Home upkeep, Things to stop. Pick a pack, untick anything that is not yours, and add the rest in one go.

Every routine in the pack arrives with its cadence and its target already set, the way the New routine window would have set them.

Managers get one more control on that page. Picking people under Or set it for your team puts the routines into their own lists, marked as set by you, and they are free to change or delete them afterwards.

FAQ

Can I send a template to a teammate?

No. A template stays with the person who made it. Assign the tasks instead and they land in your teammate’s list. Routine packs are the exception: a manager can set one for the team.

Can the assistant do this for me?

Yes. Ask it for a project and it lists the templates that fit, then makes the one you pick. Because it writes to your account, it asks you to confirm first. See what you can ask the assistant.

Does a template make a list or a board?

Whichever it was written for. The card says List or Board before you use it, and the project opens that way. You can switch it afterwards, and it stays switched for that project.