Task Management Skill

File Structure

• tasks/ - Items with specific due dates that need to be completed
• ideas/ - Projects and ideas without due dates (someday/maybe)
• templates/ - Reusable task templates (e.g., blog post checklist, event prep)
• memories/ - Reference items and context (not actionable)
• bugs/ - Issues and problems to fix
• completed/ - Archived one-time tasks that have been finished
• import/ - Temporary folder for reviewing imported items before moving to appropriate folders

Task File Format

Each task is a markdown file with YAML frontmatter:

---
type: task | idea | template | memory | bug
due: YYYY-MM-DD
tags: [tag1, tag2]
---
# Task Title

Task content here.

Required Fields

• type - Categorizes the file for organization:

- task - Actionable item with due date (goes in tasks/) - idea - Project or concept without deadline (goes in ideas/) - template - Reusable checklist or structure (goes in templates/) - memory - Reference/context item, not actionable (goes in memories/) - bug - Issue or problem to fix (goes in bugs/)

Optional Fields

• due: YYYY-MM-DD - Due date (required for tasks, optional for ideas)
• completed: YYYY-MM-DD - Completion date for finished one-time tasks
• recurrence: monthly | quarterly | weekly | biweekly | yearly - For recurring tasks
• recurrence_day: N - Day of month for recurring tasks
• status: in-progress | noodling | someday - For idea files only (not used in tasks/)
• tags: [tag1, tag2] - Categorization tags

File Organization Rules

tasks/

• One-time tasks: When completed, add completed: date and move to completed/
• Recurring tasks: Stay in tasks/ permanently, update due: date when complete (never move to completed/)

ideas/

• Use status field to track progress:

- in-progress - Actively working on this, but no specific deadline yet - noodling - Thinking about it, exploring, might become in-progress - someday - Parked for later, not active now

• When an idea gets a due date, move it to tasks/

templates/

• Copy template, add due date and specifics, save to tasks/

memories/

• No due dates, no action required
• Meeting notes, documentation, decisions made

bugs/

• Can have due dates or not
• Track technical issues, website problems, system bugs
• When fixed, add completed: date and move to completed/

completed/

• Contains finished tasks with completed: date
• Keeps active tasks/ folder clean
• Never put recurring tasks here

import/

• Set type: field during review
• Move to appropriate folder based on type

Recurring Tasks

Recurring tasks include:

• Instructions section explaining how to update when complete
• History section to log completion dates
• Never move to completed/ - stay in tasks/ permanently

Example:

---
type: task
due: 2025-01-15
recurrence: monthly
recurrence_day: 15
tags: [admin]
---
# Monthly Report

## Instructions
When completing this task:
1. Update the `due:` date to next month
2. Add completion date to History section

## History
- 2024-12-15: Completed
- 2024-11-15: Completed

Task Creation Guidelines

CRITICAL: Preserve user's exact text formatting

When the user provides notes, content, or task details:

• Use their EXACT text - preserve capitalization, punctuation, line breaks exactly as given
• Do NOT capitalize the first letter if they didn't
• Do NOT add periods at the end if they didn't include them
• Do NOT add section headers like "## Notes" unless they provided them
• Do NOT reformat or "clean up" their text in any way

Simple tasks

Just the essentials:

• due date
• tags
• minimal notes

Complex tasks

Include:

• Checklist section
• Notes section
• Resources/links section (if needed)

Recurring tasks

Include:

• recurrence field
• Instructions section
• History section

Idea files

Include:

• status field (in-progress, noodling, or someday)
• tags
• notes/description
• No due date (if it gets a due date, move to tasks/)

Tagging Conventions

• Always add tags when creating a task. Never leave tags: [] empty.
• To pick tags, find similar existing tasks and reuse their tags. Before creating a task, grep tasks/ for files with related topics (e.g. for a speaking engagement, look at other speaking tasks; for an event, look at other event tasks) and use the same tags they use. This keeps tagging consistent across the project.
• Only invent a new tag if no similar task exists.
• Use semantic tags that describe the task category, context, or project
• Keep tags lowercase and hyphenated for multi-word tags
• If the context is ambiguous, pick the best-guess tags from similar tasks and proceed (do not ask); Teresa can correct them if needed