This guide takes you from no account to a working setup: a few tasks in your Inbox, one project with sections, and a clear picture of where everything lives. It takes about five minutes.

Sign in

Open app.thisflow.com. There is no separate sign-up: signing in for the first time creates your account.

  • Press Continue with Google to use your Google account.
  • Or type your address under Email and press Continue with email. thisflow sends you a sign-in link. It works once and expires in 15 minutes; if it does not arrive, press Send again.

You land in Today. The first time, a short checklist called Get started with thisflow sits at the top with three steps: Capture your first task, Make a project and Bring your work and your people. Each step ticks itself off when you do it, and Hide getting started puts the list away.

Capture your first tasks

Every list has a quick add field at the top that says Add a task. Press C or Q from anywhere to jump to it, type a line and press Enter.

Quick add reads the line as you type and shows what it understood as chips under the field:

  • Call Anna tomorrow 15:00 becomes "Call Anna", due tomorrow at 15:00.
  • Pay rent every month on the 25th p2 repeats monthly with priority 2.
  • Buy a new lamp @home gets the tag home.

Nothing is required. A task you add without a project goes to the Inbox, so you can capture now and sort later. Quick add also follows the view you are in: a task added in Today is due today. On a phone, the round button next to the tab bar opens the same quick add on top of the keyboard.

The full set of words it understands, in English and Swedish, is in Quick add: the full grammar and on the quick add page.

Make a project with sections

Press Shift+P or choose New project. Give it a name and a colour and press Create project.

  • A project in your personal workspace starts as a plain list: Tasks, with Done folded away.
  • A project in a team workspace starts with To do, In progress and Done, ready for a board.

To add more sections, open the project's ⋯ menu and choose Add section. In the New project dialog, Start from can also copy a project you already have, with its sections and open tasks.

Once the project exists, you can send tasks to it from quick add anywhere: Draft the brief friday #Website launch.

Switch between list, board and calendar

At the top of a project you choose how to see it: List, Board or Calendar. They show the same tasks, so switching changes nothing about the work itself.

  • List: sections are headings. Drag tasks to reorder them.
  • Board: sections are columns. Drag a card to another column to move it. Group by can also arrange the board by Status or Priority.
  • Calendar: a week, with tasks on their due dates. Drag a task to another day to reschedule it; tasks without a date wait in No date.

Today, Inbox and the other views offer List and Calendar; the board belongs to projects.

Open a task in the panel

Click a task, or select it and press E or Enter, and it opens in the task panel. It is the same panel from every view: list, board, calendar, search and notifications. There you add notes, subtasks, a due date, a duration, tags and comments.

A few keys help from the start:

  • J and K (or the arrow keys) move between tasks.
  • ⌘↵ completes the focused task. On Windows and Linux, use Ctrl wherever this guide says ⌘.
  • ⌘Z undoes the last change.
  • ? shows every shortcut.

Work from Today

Today holds what is due today, plus anything overdue in its own calm group. The sidebar takes you to the other places: Inbox (G then N), Upcoming (G then K), Someday and the Logbook of completed tasks. G then I brings you back to Today.

In the morning, Today offers to plan the day with you, and from 16:00 to wrap it up. Both are optional; Plan your day and focus explains them.

When you want to find or do anything without the mouse, press ⌘K for the command palette. Next, you can share a project or move your tasks from Todoist.