Sequential projects and areas

The Home renovation project with its tasks grouped under the sections Planning and In progress.

On this page

Every project has a flow that says how its tasks move. Choose it with Flow… in the project's menu, in the sidebar or at the top right of the project:

Parallel, the default: every task can be done at any time.
Sequential: one step at a time, in the list's order.
Area: an ongoing list that never finishes, such as Home or Finances.

Sequential projects#

Only the first open step of a sequential project is available. The steps after it stay in their place, dimmed, with After and the name of the step they wait for. Complete the current step and the next one is ready at once, offline too. A waiting step can still be opened and completed.

The steps are the tasks without a section, in order, then each section. A section is one step: a Parallel section offers all its tasks together, and a Sequential section, or one that follows the project, offers them one at a time. Set a section's own Flow… in its heading or column menu. In a parallel project or an area, a Sequential section offers only its first open task and leaves the rest of the project alone.

What keeps a sequence where it is:

A step that starts later, is blocked by another task or is assigned to someone else is still the current step, so the steps after it keep waiting.
Recurring tasks, habits and tasks parked in Someday never hold a sequence and never wait.
A subtask follows its task: a subtask of a waiting step waits too.

The order is always the list's own order, whatever sort you chose to look at it.

Areas#

An area shows no progress on the All projects page, where its progress reads Area. It is never called Quiet, and it is never listed as without a next action in the weekly review, on the Loop home or in the weekly email. Its tasks work like a parallel project's, and its sub-projects keep their own flows. A top-level area is listed in the Monthly look's Areas step, with or without sub-projects.

Where it shows#

Today puts a waiting step that is due into its folded Blocked group until it's its turn.
Next lists only the current step of each sequential project, and Waiting lists no waiting step.
The filter keyword available lists what you can do now: not blocked, not waiting, not parked and not starting later (see Filters). blocked still means only tasks that wait for another task.
Sidebar and Today counts keep counting every open task.

Under Simple lists in How you work, Flow… appears only on a project or section that already has a flow other than the default, so you can turn it back. The command palette offers Set project flow… in every mode. In a shared project the owner and admins choose the project's flow, and editors a section's.

Scripts and assistants can set flow_mode too: see the API, MCP, the command line and the Markdown vault.

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