Some blocks are one thing. Others are seven.
A block called “tax return” is not a task, it is a wall. Open it and give it a microtasks checklist: an ordered list you tick off as you go, living inside the block rather than in a separate app you have to remember.
Included in Pro and the 7-day no-card trial.
A count on the label, so a glance is enough
The block wears a quiet done-of-total count. The desktop label lists the next few still open, each with its own box, so you can tick one straight from the dial without opening anything.
Every kind of block qualifies
A solid working block, a non-blocking or reference band, and a block waiting in your Inbox, which lets you break something down before it has a time.
You do not have to write the list yourself
In focus mode, a block with no microtasks yet offers Break this down, and one tap gets you a list. From the palette, /microtasks lets you say what you want out of it (just the writing bits, I only have an hour). Either way the list is drafted from the block’s name, its length and its focus rhythm, so it fits the time you have, and nothing is written until you accept the proposal. In Ask AI, one line does it too: “break writing into steps” gives 3 to 7, and “check off the outline” ticks one step by its text. Said to the dial by voice, a step change applies at once with an Undo.
They follow the day into your reflection
Each one carries into your reflection in the state you left it, and on a one-off block you can send just the unfinished ones to your Inbox in a tap, with an undo. The morning email lists what is still open under your next block.
A breakdown of one block, not a task manager
No due dates and no separate list. Microtasks stay in Reassign, with one exception: on an Inbox item linked to Microsoft To Do, they sync as its steps, text only. It is not a Todoist replacement and it is not trying to be. Nothing is auto-counted and nothing is scored: Insights reads them back as “Microtask follow-through”, never a streak.
This page is the what and the why. For the step by step, the docs cover the same ground as instructions: Microtasks in the docs →
Questions
- Are microtasks free?
- Writing, ticking, AI drafting, sending unfinished microtasks to your Inbox, and managing them over MCP are all included in Pro and the 7-day no-card trial.
- What happens on a repeating block?
- The list is shared across every occurrence and the ticks stay on the day you make them. Changing the list asks whether you mean this day only or every occurrence; ticking never asks.
