Timebox (grouping scheduled tasks) (AKA Akiflow Slot)
Not long ago, Morgen added the possibility to create tasks as small as 5 minutes, which was great.
However, it became a challenge to add several smaller tasks to the calendar. The calendar either gets cluttered, or you have to adjust the time display resolution to 5 minutes, making it impossible to view a full day without scrolling up and down the window on a typical monitor.
As a solution, I wish it were possible to create timeboxes as an alternative type of event. One could then drag and drop tasks into the timebox. The time box could be expanded to view all the tasks in greater detail. If I need to rearrange the day, instead of moving each task to another time slot, I could just move the whole timebox. The timebox could also be labeled.
This feature would solve both the time resolution problem and the clutter problem. It would speed up the process of rearranging tasks and events. It would also support the popular time boxing and task batching technique.
For example, I could gather several small email-related tasks from different projects (lists) and add them to a time box. When the Morgen team adds task tags, this will become even more effective.
I’ve added a quick sketch of how it could look.
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Comments18
Vince Chaney
Mar 20, 2024
This is well done in Akiflow if you’re looking for a potential implementation. They call them slots.
Marco Ancona (Morgen co-founder)
Nov 21, 2023
Nice idea that I would like to explore with some proof of concept. If I understand it right, the time box is just a block on the calendar that can contain several tasks, right?
mic
Nov 21, 2023
Marco Ancona (Morgen co-founder): Or a task by itself, or a task with (attached) subtasks, yeah. I like to call it "taskboxing" because clarity :-)
skoglundjonas
Nov 22, 2023
Marco Ancona (Morgen co-founder): Hi! Yes, that’s how I picture it. A neater way to arrange small tasks or events. And with the possibility to move everything to another spot in the calendar.
As said, this will solve both the clutter problem with small tasks and more visually support time boxing.
Roam Stead
Jun 27, 2024
Marco Ancona (Morgen co-founder), this technique is most effective when used to group smaller(or sub-dividable) tasks of a similar type into a block of dedicated time. This reduces context switching while allowing one to work in a continuous flow on tasks that may be parts of entirely different projects. It can also be used to block time for different sorts of tasks that must be performed in a particular location, or with a particular tool.
The feature would be most useful if a time block could automatically populate itself with tasks of a particular category or tag(s) from across projects/platforms. Something like a special event type with it's own filters/task search that will fill up the available time with tasks that meet the set criteria and arrange by priority/due date/whatever is selected.
Joris Degen
Oct 18, 2023
I like that idea. This feature could also be slightly more general. Like „grouping“. Selecting tasks that should form a group and then being able to batch edit this group and maybe switch between showing just the group or the individual tasks in it.
Sharon K
Mar 20, 2024
Joris Degen yes! Like maybe if you have a bunch of random events at 5 minutes it could box them into a 25 or 30 minute calendar event with the individual tasks linked within.
Aug 13, 2025
Danny Hatcher (Customer Support)
Apr 24, 2025
Dante Poe To clarify, you aren't looking for subtasks or tasks lists but using a recurring task with smaller tasks inside it's description that you can tick off.
Is that correct?
I have my morning routine as individual 5 minute recurring tasks so I can check them all off.
Garrett
Jan 14, 2025
Danny Hatcher (Customer Support) Is this something that could be almost like a frame but without AI planning functionality?
Danny Hatcher (Customer Support)
Jan 14, 2025
Garrett I use frames to mimic this. When I zoom in [ and ] keys, and then look at the Frame I can see all of the smaller tasks in a time slot.
Showing tasks in an 'edit' window I feel will be more task dependencies.
Garrett
Jan 14, 2025
I love this!
Mario
Nov 27, 2024
That's a game changer for me.
This missing functionality was the reason for me to leave Morgan for Akiflow.
They have done it niceley and call it "timeslots".
Below is an example. I would love coming back to Morgen because some functionality I miss in Akiflow. And now, I just wanted to check-out what happened in Morgen (appreciating this promising post).
One feature Akiflow has, is to replan any outstanding tasks to any future timeslot. With a single click all open elements move automatically. That's nice.
I use it as already described by others with repeating timeslots on various weekdays (e.g. do private financing & admin every wednesday evening or I do repairs for my apartment or car every saturday mornings). If I didn't finalize some actions I can easily move them to next week's timeslot. However, I can also move some very important tasks to my "ASAP" timeslot or my "projects" timeslot I have for example every Friday evening.
Another important functionality is to copy the reccurance of the timeslot to the individual tasks (if I want this). I could open the task and copy the reccurence from the slot with a single click.
Last but not least I wish Akiflow or Morgen could sort the tasks within a timeslot by criteria that matters to me (e.g. starting time or priority). Currently that's missing.
As already requested below I plan my typical week by planning weekly tasks and timeslots (in case there are several tasks in a time frame). Doing urgent phone calls every morning before deep work is one more example. Having kids, my productive time in the evenings is quite short and many unplanned requests are coming in. It helps me to allocate repeating time slots for my various life areas to every evening. One of the biggest advantages is to balance sufficient time for my different life areas with more clarity.
Here is my related post for it:
https://morgen.canny.io/feature-requests/p/time-tracking-potential-integration
I wish Morgen could do this as well.
Oct 15, 2024
Danny Hatcher (Customer Support)
Oct 5, 2024
I feel like this is very similar to this timebox feature request: https://morgen.canny.io/feature-requests/p/timebox-as-an-alternative-event