To-do lists start out so small and manageable. A few tasks here, a few tasks there. It’s all so well-intentioned.

But unfortunately, the more you feed them, the faster they grow. Before you can say “Getting Things Done”, your cute little to-do list turns into a stress monster that only serves as a reminder of how much you’re not doing. Not good.

That’s where Todoist filters come in.

Filters let you create and save any task view so you can focus on the right tasks at the right time. That means you can keep getting everything organized outside of your head without getting overwhelmed.

Now there are even more filter options so you can hone in on exactly the right tasks, and save those important task views for easy reference any time. (And they’ll now work exactly the same across all your Todoist platforms, which hasn’t always been the case. Sorry about that 😓 )

If you’ve never used filters before, here’s an overview of how they can help make even the most unruly to-do lists manageable again.

If you’re already a filter pro, read on to learn the new ways you’ll be able to slice and dice your tasks (including some highly requested ones).

(This update is already live on most Todoist platforms and will be rolling out on iOS over the next day.)

Filter for tasks assigned to (or by) a teammate

Delegating tasks in Todoist is a magical thing. In one click, they disappear from your to-do list and you can stop worrying about them. However, the magic only works when you’re confident those tasks have been followed up on.

Now you can easily create a search for tasks assigned to, or by, each of your teammates — ideal for checking on the status of delegated tasks or for effortlessly creating an agenda for your next one-on-one.

Create a filter for assigned to: collaborator name. For example, assigned to: Allan will show all tasks assigned to Allan. Assigned to: others will show all tasks assigned to any of your teammates regardless of who assigned them.

Create a filter for assigned by: collaborator name. For example, assigned by: me will show all tasks you assigned to others.

These new filters are even more powerful when used in combination. For example:

7 days & assigned to: Becky will show all tasks due in the next 7 days that are assigned to Becky.

overdue & assigned to: others will show all overdue tasks assigned to others.

assigned to: Becky & assigned by: me will show all tasks that you assigned to Becky.

assigned to: me & assigned by: Becky will show all tasks that Becky assigned to you.

Filter for unassigned tasks

Make sure nothing falls through the cracks by filtering for all unassigned tasks. You can quickly add tasks throughout the day, then check your “Unassigned” filter to decide who to assign them to later.

Use the query shared & !assigned to create a list of all tasks in shared projects that haven’t been assigned to anyone.

Quick Tip: You can also create a filter for all tasks without a due date (filter query: no date). It’s another handy filter to check on a daily or weekly basis to make sure you never miss something important.

Choose to include or exclude sub-projects

This new filter super power makes it much much easier to create the exact task view you want.

Say you have two high-level parent projects called “Work” and “Personal” with various sub-projects nested under each one. Now you can easily create one filter for all your “Work” tasks including all sub-projects, and a separate filter for all your “Personal” projects including all sub-projects.

Here’s how:

##project name will search that project and all of its sub-projects.

#project name will search just that one project.

Why is this small change super handy? When you get to work you may want to view all your work tasks that are due today. Just create the filter today & ##Work to pull up all tasks due today that are in “Work” and any of its sub-projects. There’s your to-do list ready to go at the start of every day.

Similarly, you can create a separate filter today & ##Personal for all tasks that are in your “Personal” project, or any of its sub-projects, that are due today. You can focus on those when you get home without being distracted by any work tasks on your list.

Filter by the date a task was created

Now you can also create new filters based on when a task was created:

Type in the filter query: created: date

For example, you can use the query created before: -365 days to search for all tasks created more than a year ago. Not that any of us have ever had neglected tasks gathering years of dust in the deep, dark corners of our to-do lists…

Filter for recurring tasks

Just use the query recurring to review all of your tasks with recurring due dates.

That was a lot of filter-y goodness to get through. You can always find a list of filter queries in our Help Center.

Best of luck taming your to-do lists!

– The Todoist Team

P.S. You can also use any of these new filter queries in the Quick Find bar at the top of your Todoist for a fast one-time task search 🔍