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Todoist’s recurring tasks are an efficient way to automate the scheduling of repeating tasks or to create long-term habits.
However, if you’ve already used Todoist, you’ve seen that there’s no direct menu to create repeating tasks in this app; instead, there’s a faster and more efficient way.
To create recurring tasks, just type your task with the recurrence, like “Write report every Monday,” and Todoist’s NLP will schedule it to repeat.
However, many users encounter a frustrating issue: future recurring tasks don’t show up until you mark the current one as complete. This can be inconvenient for those who want to see all their recurring tasks upfront.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the process of how to create recurring tasks in Todoist, explain the reason behind the common issue of future tasks not appearing, and offer a workaround to ensure that you can see all your recurring tasks at once, without waiting for the current one to be completed.
Recurring tasks in Todoist are a great way to automate and simplify creating routine tasks. A recurring task repeats based on the interval you define, and you only need to set it up once.
For example, you might set up a task like “Write weekly report every Monday,” and Todoist will automatically create the next instance after you mark the current one as complete.
Here’s a breakdown of how recurring tasks work in Todoist:
Now, let’s start by creating a simple recurring task in Todoist. Follow these steps:
Here are some Screenshots explaining the process of how to add recurring tasks in Todoist
Here’s the problem many of us Todoist users have faced: future recurring tasks don’t appear in your task list until you complete the current task. So, if you’ve set up a task to repeat every Monday, you won’t see the next Monday’s task until you mark the current one as complete. This behavior may feel restrictive if you want to plan your tasks ahead of time.
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The reason for this design is that Todoist tries to keep your task list clean and focused; by not displaying future tasks until they’re due, Todoist avoids cluttering your task list with tasks that are not yet actionable.
It only shows tasks that need your attention now. While this can be helpful for some users, it can be frustrating if you want to plan out future tasks or see all your recurring tasks at once.
Fortunately, there’s a workaround to solve this issue.
If you want to see all your recurring tasks immediately (without waiting for the current task to be completed), you can manually create and bulk import your future recurring tasks into Todoist. Here’s how:
Instead of relying on Todoist’s automatic recurrence system, you can manually list all the future instances of your recurring tasks in a text file. Here’s how to do it:
Choose your text file and upload it. Todoist will automatically create separate tasks for each of the dates listed, and they will all appear in your task list immediately.
Now, when you enter the upcoming section of Todoist, all your recurring tasks will appear.
You can add extra organization to your tasks by including labels (e.g., @work, @personal) and priority levels (e.g., p1, p2) in the text file. For example:
Write weekly report 2025-02-21 @work p1
Write weekly report 2025-02-28 @work p2
This will assign labels and priorities to each task when imported into Todoist.
Check out our comparison on Todoist vs Trello 🔍.
If typing out all the dates feels tedious, you can use AI tools like ChatGPT to generate the list of dates for you. For example, you can ask, “Give me all the Mondays for the next 6 months,” and ChatGPT will generate the dates. You can then copy and paste them into your text file for bulk import.
To ensure that you can see all your upcoming recurring tasks, use the Calendar View in Todoist:
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Creating recurring tasks in Todoist is an excellent way to stay organized, but the default behavior of only showing future tasks after you complete the current one can be frustrating for some users. By using the bulk import workaround, you can manually create future recurring tasks and view them all at once. Additionally, using Calendar View with the “Future Occurrences” setting can also help you keep track of upcoming tasks.
With these tips and workarounds, you can take full advantage of Todoist’s recurring task feature and ensure your task list remains organized and easy to manage.
If you want an easier-to-use task management app, check out this Flowsavvy review.