2080 helps you focus on what matters. One element of this is differentiating between what you can do, right now vs. the rest – without having to spend hours manually updating everything just to reflect reality. That is why your tasks are assigned a completion status – fully automatically.
This means you don’t actually have to manually set a Task’s status. Instead, it can only be set indirectly. Here’s how it works, and how you can manipulate a task’s status.
Available
This is the default status for a task, unless further details are provided that make it something else. Available translates to: “there is nothing blocking this task from being performed, whether that’s time that needs to pass or another task that needs to be completed first.” In the Getting Things Done (GTD) Method, this is known as a “next action”. Using Focus Mode filters out every task except for ones that are available, so you have an actionable overview of things you can do right now.
Of course, there can be other factors that inhibit a task’s availability, like a place you need to be at, a tool you need to have access to, or a person you need to be with. In GTD, this is called a context. By using Tags in 2080 to indicate what a task’s context is, you can then apply these as filters in Focus mode to narrow down as needed.
Scheduled
These are tasks that have a “Start date” set in the future. In other words, there’s a certain amount of time that needs to pass before it becomes available. Once “Start date” equals today, the task is set to Available.
Waiting For
A task is set to “Waiting For” if the “Assignee” is someone other than yourself. This indicates you’re waiting for someone else to get this done.
Blocked
A task is “Blocked” when another task needs to be completed, discarded or deleted first before this one can be started. If it has no Start date in the future, it will be set to Available once the Blocker is released. If it does have one, it will be set to Scheduled. If it has an Assignee other than yourself, it will be set to Waiting For.
Completed/Discarded
These are two different statuses with the same implications – they both ‘release’ dependencies, but by having the values separate you’ll be able to see and reflect on what you actually did (“Completed”) and what you considered but decided against (“Discarded”).
In order to assign completion status, 2080 checks every task for any of the conditions to be met from the bottom-up, considering the list above. For example, even if a task meets all the conditions to be “Waiting For”, if another task is blocking it, its status will still be Blocked. This ensures that you’re left with only truly actionable tasks that you can focus on.
