---
title: What are tasks?
url: https://tideswell.xyz/docs/tasks
description: A task is one piece of work somebody has to do. Here is what they are for, and how a workspace organises them.
---

> Documentation index: fetch https://tideswell.xyz/llms.txt to discover every page before exploring further.

# What are tasks?



A **task** is one piece of work with somebody's name on it and, usually, a date. Fairgreen
Golf Co. uses them for everything from "chase Portside Mills for the lab dip" to "shoot the
autumn lookbook".

If a person has to do it and somebody else is waiting on it, it is a task. Tasks are always
on: every workspace has them, and no admin can switch the module off.

## What does a task actually hold? [#what-does-a-task-actually-hold]

A title, and then as much or as little as the job needs. A description, a **Department**, a
**Project**, a **Cycle**, an **Assignee**, a **Due date** and time, and a **Priority**.

Underneath that it can carry sub-tasks, files, comments, and a note of which other tasks it
is waiting on. Everything except the department is optional, and you can add it later.

**Department is the one field you have to fill in.** It is not filing: it is who is allowed
to touch the task afterwards. That is the single most useful thing to understand about the
whole module, and <Ref to="concepts/who-can-do-what" /> explains it properly.

## Why not a shared to-do list? [#why-not-a-shared-to-do-list]

Because a to-do list holds the work and nothing else. The moment somebody asks "why is this
late", a list cannot answer.

Fairgreen ran their production chase-ups in a shared list for a year. It could say a task
was open. It could not say the task was waiting on a sample that had not arrived, or that
the person assigned had left, or what was decided in the conversation that started it.

A task in Tideswell sits next to the rest of the business. It can be created from a chat
message and keep a link back to it, wait on another task, hang off a project and a campaign,
and put its own file and comment history in one place.

## Where do tasks show up? [#where-do-tasks-show-up]

In more places than you will use at first, which is deliberate: the same task appears
wherever it is relevant rather than living in one list.

* **Inbox**, **My tasks** and **Callbacks** are pinned at the top of your sidebar. These are
  yours, and they are the three you will open every day.
* **Tasks** in the Workspace group opens the module's home, with a **Tasks views** disclosure
  under it holding **Roadmap**, **Calendar** and **Urgent**.
* **Departments** at the foot of the sidebar lists each team, and each one has its own list,
  board and calendar.

Wherever you click a task title, the same panel slides in over the page you were on. You
never lose your place, and closing it puts you back exactly where you were.

## When is something else the better fit? [#when-is-something-else-the-better-fit]

* **A body of work with several tasks under it** is a project, covered in
  <Ref to="projects" />. Projects have a lead, dates, milestones and a progress bar.
* **A plan rather than the work itself** belongs on a project's Overview, where you lay out
  what goes out and when. <Ref to="projects/plan-what-goes-out" /> covers that, including
  turning a plan into a real task when it is time to start.
* **A thing you are tracking rather than doing** is a record. A repair or a fabric trial has
  a life of its own and is not one person's to-do. That is <Ref to="objects" />.
* **Somebody to phone back** is a callback, which is a task-shaped thing with a phone number
  and an attempt count. See <Ref to="tasks/callbacks" />.

## Read this section in order [#read-this-section-in-order]

Start with <Ref to="tasks/see-what-needs-you" /> to learn the three screens you will live in.
Then <Ref to="tasks/create-a-task" /> and <Ref to="tasks/edit-a-task" /> cover the whole
lifecycle of a single task.

After that the pages are independent, so read what you need.
<Ref to="tasks/sub-tasks-and-blockers" /> is worth reading before your first busy week,
because sequencing work is what stops a board becoming a wish list.