# The microtasks inside the block

> Break a task down into microtasks inside the block you already planned: an ordered checklist on Reassign's 24-hour dial, written by hand or drafted with AI.

Published: 2026-07-24. Canonical: https://reassign.ai/resources/adhd-task-breakdown

Break the big thing into small things. You already know it works. *Ship the pricing page* will sit there for a week. *Delete the old hero copy* takes ninety seconds. Same work either way. What changed is that you can see where it starts.

The trouble is where the small things end up. You write them in a to-do app, or a note, or whatever tool spat them out. And now the day holds two pictures of the same work: a plan that knows *when* (the calendar block at nine), and a list that knows *what* (the five small things), and neither one knows about the other. You have to hold both, and the holding is exactly the tax the breakdown was supposed to remove. If the tool that spat them out was Goblin Tools, [the Goblin Tools comparison](https://reassign.ai/resources/goblin-tools-alternative) covers that split in full.

Reassign puts them in one place. A **microtasks** checklist inside the block on the dial, on the hour you already gave the work.

## Break a block into microtasks

Open a block you mean to work through and give it a checklist. Type a microtask, press Enter, type the next. "Pull last quarter's numbers. Create a chart from them. Write the summary." Tick them off as you go, rename one in place, drop one you do not need. On a block that is already on your day, each one saves the moment you commit it: adding a microtask is not an edit to the event, so there is no Save to remember.

The block then wears a quiet **done-of-total** count on its label, so without opening anything you can read how far in you are: two of five, and climbing. On the desktop dial the label also lists the next few still open, each with its own tick box, so you can mark one done straight from the ring.

  
  *Each one saves as you commit it. There is no Save to remember.*

The restraint is deliberate. There are no due dates, no priorities, no separate inbox to triage. A microtasks list is a breakdown of *one* block, not a task manager growing in the corner. The block it hangs on already has a time, so the microtasks do not need one.

## How to break a task down so you can start

The rule that works is not "make it smaller," it is **make the first one physical**. Name the finish line, then write the move you could make in the next ten seconds without deciding anything.

Keep each microtask to one sitting. Stop at five or six; a list of twenty is a second project wearing a checklist. And leave the part you are avoiding until you have ticked two others, because momentum is cheaper than willpower.

None of that is ours. It is the standard advice, and it holds up. The only thing we changed is where the list ends up when you are done writing it.

## The checklist moves when the block moves

We think the split between your calendar and your to-do list is a big part of [why planners get abandoned](https://reassign.ai/resources/why-adhd-planners-get-abandoned): the upkeep of that second surface is where the whole thing quietly dies.

A [block on the dial](https://reassign.ai/resources/why-a-day-is-round) is already a single, movable thing you select, drag, resize, repeat, and sync as one. The checklist rides on it the same way an [area colour](https://reassign.ai/resources/color-coding-your-calendar) or a [focus rhythm](https://reassign.ai/resources/pomodoro-focus-intervals) does, like any other property of the block. Move it to the afternoon and its microtasks go with it. Nothing to re-file.

This matters most for the hardest moment, the one every account of task paralysis comes back to: starting. When the microtasks are attached to the hour, there is no "go find the list, then decide when" in the way. It is nine o'clock, the block you already committed to is right there, and the first small microtask is written on it. The plan carries its own instructions.

Worth separating two things that feel identical from the inside. Breaking a task down helps when you know which task it is and cannot start. It does nothing when several things could be next and you cannot pick, which is [decision paralysis, a selection problem rather than an activation one](https://reassign.ai/resources/adhd-decision-fatigue).

## When you cannot face writing the list, the AI drafts it

Breaking the thing down is itself a job, and on the days you most need it done it is the job you are least able to do. Staring at *Q3 planning doc, 9 to 11* and having to invent five sensible microtasks is its own small wall.

So you can hand that part over. In [focus mode](https://reassign.ai/resources/focus-mode-timer), a block with no list yet offers **Break this down**, and one tap gets you a list you can drop rows from before it lands. In the [command palette](https://reassign.ai/resources/natural-language-day-planning), type **`/microtasks`**, pick the block, and you get a moment to say what you want out of it: *just the writing bits*, *I only have an hour*, *start with the part I keep avoiding*. Send it empty and the list comes from the block alone.

Either way Reassign reads the block's name, its length, and its focus rhythm, and sizes the list to the time you have: a two-hour block gets five or six microtasks, not twenty. If the block is too vague to guess at, it asks you one clarifying question instead of inventing something confident and wrong.

  
  *The steer is optional. Send it empty and the block speaks for itself.*

Nothing is written until you say so, and from the palette the whole batch lands behind a single undo. Drafting with AI is part of [Reassign Pro](https://reassign.ai/pricing); writing your own microtasks is free. If it is a whole head of things you need out rather than one block broken down, that is what [braindump](https://reassign.ai/resources/brain-dump-to-schedule) is for.

## A daily routine whose checklist resets on its own

Put a checklist on a repeating block and the microtasks are shared across every day it runs. The ticks are not. Tick one and it is done for **that day only**, so Monday's progress never leaks into Tuesday.

Change the list itself and Reassign asks the one question that matters: **this day only, or every occurrence?** Ticking never asks, because a tick is always about the day you are in.

The practical upshot: your morning routine, or your shutdown ritual, or the three things a standup always needs, keeps one list you wrote once, and comes back empty every morning, ready to be walked again. No stale checkmarks to clear, no yesterday to undo. The list is the same; the day is new.

## The checklist travels with you into focus mode

When it is time to work, press F on a working block and drop into [focus mode](https://reassign.ai/resources/focus-mode-timer): the real dial cropped to an arc, turning under a marker pinned at now, so the rotation is the countdown. Your microtasks sit right beside it. You work down the list while the arc works down the clock. One screen, nothing else on it. When the work turns up something you did not plan for, you can add it right there.

  
  *The arc counts the block down while you work the list.*

On a phone it narrows further, to **one microtask at a time** over a small progress rail. Swipe to move along it, tap a mark to jump, and ticking the one you are on carries you to the next still open. Focus mode is Pro. The checklist is free wherever else you tick it.

And when you tick the last microtask, nothing happens. No streak lights up, no confetti, no "great job" you did not ask for. That is on purpose. There is no gamification here, anywhere in the app. The reward is the block being finished, and the count reading five of five. Come back tomorrow or come back in a week; the dial just shows today.

## What happens to the microtasks you did not finish

A day rarely empties its lists. When you look back on a block in [reflection](https://reassign.ai/resources/daily-review-planned-vs-lived), its microtasks are there with it, each in the state you left it, so the record is what you got through rather than a tidy summary. One you finished but never tapped stays tappable until the day is locked, because "I did it, I just never tapped it" is the most ordinary thing in the world.

  
  *An unfinished one is still tappable until the day locks.*

If a few never happened on a one-off block, you can send just those to your [Inbox](https://reassign.ai/resources/planner-backlog) in one tap, kept as *what's left* to pick up another day, with an undo if you change your mind. They leave as their own Inbox block rather than dragging the finished ones along. Sending what is left there needs Pro, since the Inbox is a Pro tray.

Over time the same marks read in [Time Insights](https://reassign.ai/resources/mood-and-habit-tracking) as **microtask follow-through**: how much of what you planned in detail you got through, broken down by area. Nothing turns red, and an unticked microtask is just information.

## Claude keeps the list too, over MCP

Because the microtasks are a plain part of the block, they travel over [MCP](https://reassign.ai/mcp). Ask Claude to break your morning admin block into microtasks and they land on the block, right there in the chat. It can read what is done, rewrite or reorder the list, and tick a microtask off by name, either for one day or for the whole series, because it has to say which it means. It can put microtasks on an Inbox block too, before the thing even has a time. Microtasks add nothing to the price of that: connecting an assistant over MCP is part of Pro.

The dial was always a way to see the shape of a day. Microtasks are the same idea at the smallest scale: the shape of one block, drawn where the time is. The [full how-to lives in the docs](https://reassign.ai/docs#microtasks). [Give your next block a checklist.](https://reassign.app) Writing them and ticking them off costs nothing.

## FAQ

### What are microtasks in Reassign?

A microtasks checklist is a short, ordered list you attach to a single block on the 24-hour dial. Open a block you mean to work through, break it into microtasks (pull the numbers, chart them, write the summary), and tick them off as you go. The block shows a done-of-total count on its label, so a glance tells you how far in you are. It is a breakdown of one block, not a separate task manager.

### How do I break a big task into smaller ones?

Name the finish line, then write the move you could make in the next ten seconds without deciding anything. Keep each microtask to one sitting. Stop at five or six, because a list of twenty is a second project. Leave the part you are avoiding until you have ticked two others, since momentum is cheaper than willpower. In Reassign you write that list inside the block you already gave the work, so the plan carries its own instructions.

### How does breaking a task into microtasks help with ADHD task paralysis?

Task paralysis is usually not about the whole task, it is about not seeing the first move. Breaking one block of work into a short, ordered set of microtasks puts the next action in front of you, written down and startable, instead of held in your head. Because the microtasks live on the time you already planned, there is no separate list to find first.

### How many microtasks should one task have?

Five or six is plenty for a couple of hours of work. Each one should be finishable in a single sitting, and the first should need no decisions at all. When Reassign drafts a list for you it sizes it to the block, roughly one microtask per focus interval, so a two-hour block gets five or six rather than twenty.

### Can AI break a task down into smaller steps for me?

Yes. Reassign can draft the whole list. In focus mode, a block with no list yet offers Break this down, and one tap gets you a list. From the command palette, type /microtasks, pick the block, and you can say what you want out of it first (just the writing bits, I only have an hour), or send it empty and let the list come from the block alone. Either way it is sized to the block's length and focus rhythm, and a block too vague to guess at gets one clarifying question rather than an invention. Nothing is written until you accept it. Drafting with AI is part of Reassign Pro.

### Are microtasks free?

Writing microtasks and ticking them off are free for everyone, on every block. The plan, do, check, reflect loop is the heart of the app, so we did not want a paywall in the middle of it. What sits around the edges is Pro: drafting a list with AI, working it in focus mode, sending the unfinished ones to your Inbox, and managing them through Claude. Focus mode, the Inbox, and MCP access are all part of Pro.

### Can I add microtasks to any block, even one with no time yet?

Yes. Any block can carry microtasks, including one still waiting in your Inbox with no time on it. A solid working block, a non-blocking band laid over the ring, and a reference event you only need to see all qualify, and a block keeps its list if you change its kind.

### Can I make a daily checklist that resets every morning?

Yes, and that is exactly what sharing them is for. Put a checklist on a repeating block and the microtasks are shared across every occurrence, so a morning routine keeps one list you wrote once. The ticks stay on the day you make them, so Monday's progress never bleeds into Tuesday and each morning starts fresh with nothing to reset by hand. Changing the list itself asks whether you mean this day only or every occurrence.

### Can I add a checklist to a Google Calendar event?

Not in Google Calendar itself, which has no per-event checklist. In Reassign you can: connect Google Calendar and your events land on the 24-hour dial as editable blocks, and any of them can carry microtasks. The checklist lives on the Reassign block, as a private annotation. It is never pushed back into the Google event, so nothing changes for anyone else on the invite.

### Do microtasks show up in focus mode?

Yes, on any blocking block, which is what focus mode runs on. Focus mode is Pro; the microtasks it shows are the same free ones. They sit beside the turning dial, so you work down the list while the arc counts the block down, and you can add one without leaving the screen. On a phone it shows one microtask at a time over a progress rail, and ticking the one you are on carries you to the next still open.

### What do I do with the microtasks I did not finish at the end of the day?

Nothing automatic happens to them. When you reflect on the day, the block's microtasks are there in the state you left them, and one you finished but never tapped stays tappable until the day locks. On a one-off block you can send just the unfinished ones to your Inbox in a tap, kept as what's left for another day, with an undo. Over time they read in Time Insights as microtask follow-through, by area. It is a reading, never a score.

### Are microtasks a replacement for Todoist or another to-do app?

No. Microtasks are not a replacement for a task app, and are not trying to be. They have no due dates and no separate inbox, because the block they live on already has a time. They are the breakdown of one unit of work, not a place to keep everything you might ever do. If you want a two-way task list, Reassign syncs with Todoist separately, and undated tasks wait in your Inbox.

### Can Claude manage microtasks over MCP?

Yes. Over MCP, Claude can read a block's microtasks and how many are done, rewrite or reorder them, and tick a microtask off by name. On a repeating block it has to say whether it means one day or the whole series, so it can never quietly rewrite every occurrence. It can put microtasks on an Inbox block too. Microtasks add nothing to the price: connecting an assistant over MCP is part of Pro.

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More from Reassign, a 24-hour circular day planner: https://reassign.ai/llms.txt