Creating Task Lists
Task lists are a handy way to organize your tasks into groups. You can create a new task, milestone, or task list by opening the + Task dropdown for any project. Alternatively, select the "+ New task list" in the bottom left.
Task lists help you structure your work in a way that makes sense for your project. Productive allows you to define what these lists mean within your context, without imposing any predefined structure.
Examples of Task Lists:
Different stages that a task goes through (Backlog, In Progress, Pending review, etc.)
Different areas of a project (Design, Backend Development, Frontend Development, etc.)
Task Layouts
You can view tasks within your project and task lists in different ways:
Adding a Task Directly to a Task List
Click on the + button next to a task list to add a new task directly to that list.
Inline Task Adding
Quickly add tasks without filling in all the details using inline task adding. Click on the editable row at the bottom of every task list and start typing.
Customizing Fields
Customize the task list by removing columns you don’t need and adding the ones you find useful. Click on Fields in the top menu to adjust this.
Moving Tasks and Lists
Within the Same Project
Drag and drop tasks from one list to another, or use this feature to prioritize tasks inside a task list.
In the main tasks module (Project Management > Tasks), where tasks from multiple projects are displayed, drag-and-drop isn’t available.
To use the drag-and-drop functionality, enter a specific project, and you should be able to freely move them between columns.
You can also drag and drop entire task lists to reorder them by importance.
📌 Task lists can only be rearranged within the same project folder. If the All tasks option is selected, dragging and dropping task lists will not be supported.
To Another Project (Beta)
As with moving task lists within the same project, to move them to another project, you need to enter a specific project first and group tasks by task list.
Open the three-dot menu next to the task list name and select Move task list.
📌 Note: Three-dot menu will only be available in List and Board layouts.
Choose the destination project and folder where the task list should be moved.
When moving task lists:
Task numbers will be changed. For example, if task #9 is moved to a project that currently has five tasks, it will be renumbered as #6 in the new project.
Dependencies will only be kept between moved tasks.
Subscribers and task custom fields will only be kept if they're already a part of the selected project.
Worked time will stay connected to both the task and the original budget it was tracked on.
If the destination project uses a different workflow, you’ll need to map old task statuses to the statuses available in the new project.
Select Update statuses to complete the move.
Editing and Archiving
Task lists can be edited. Open the three-dot menu to access all task list editing options like renaming the list, moving it to another folder, duplicating the list, and importing tasks from a CSV template to the list.
📌 Note: When duplicating a task list that contains task dependencies, the dependent tasks will be duplicated as well.
A task list cannot be deleted, but it can be archived. To archive a list, open the three-dot menu and select Archive task list.
Archived lists and their tasks can be restored from the Archived panel in the sidebar.
Exporting Tasks
Export tasks from the task lists in your view to PDF, CSV, or XLS by selecting "Export in table layout view".
Then, adjust the export options you need.
You can also select tasks from specific task lists and download them as needed.
