How to set up and work in cycles

A cycle is a named stretch of time with a start and an end: a fortnight, a sprint, a month. Tasks go into one, and the lists you already use can be narrowed to it. It cuts across departments and projects, which is what makes it different from everything else in What are projects and campaigns?.

Before you start

Creating, editing and deleting cycles is an admin job in most workspaces, the same tier as campaigns.

The cycle picker only appears once the workspace has at least one cycle, so an empty workspace shows nothing at all about cycles until somebody makes the first one.

How do you create one?

Three ways, all producing the same thing.

• Create next to your workspace name, then Cycle.
• The + Create menu on a department with nothing in it yet.
• Inline from the Cycle picker on any task, without leaving the task.

The New cycle dialog asks for a Cycle name, a Start date and an End date.

Name them so the order is obvious at a glance. "Aug wk 1 to 2" reads better in a picker than "Sprint 14".

How do you put tasks in one?

From the task panel's Cycle control, or from the New task dialog while creating it. See How to edit a task.

A task belongs to at most one cycle. Putting it in a new one takes it out of the old one.

How do you filter your work to a cycle?

With the picker in the header of My tasks, a department, or a project. It narrows the whole list to that cycle.

This is the main reason cycles exist. My tasks filtered to the current cycle is a genuinely short list of what you personally committed to for the fortnight.

On a project, the filter narrows the List and Board tabs. The Progress card keeps counting the whole project, because that is the honest answer to how far along it is.

How do you change a cycle's dates?

With the pencil beside the picker, which opens Edit cycle with the name, start and end. The same panel deletes one.

The pencil is admin-only. If you can see the picker but not the pencil, that is what you are looking at.

What a cycle does not do for you

A cycle is a container and a filter, and it is worth knowing that before you plan a process around one.

Unfinished work stays where it is when a cycle ends. Moving it into the next cycle is something a person does, usually with a bulk action from a list, covered in How to change many tasks at once.

There is no separate cycle screen either: a cycle is always a filter on a list you already have, rather than a place you go.

When is a campaign the better fit?

When the thing has a launch rather than an end date, and when it spans teams working towards one moment.

Autumn drop is a campaign. The fortnight in which three of its tasks happen to fall is a cycle.

Most workspaces end up using both, and they do not interfere with each other. See How to set up a campaign.