What are tasks and task timers in Otto?

Published on July 14, 2024

Table of contents

Tasks

Tasks are just your regular todolists but task timers are tasks that are assigned to a timer. Think a pomodoro timer + todo. You can start using task timers by switching to the "tasks" tab in Otto.

What modes are currently supported?

Currently Task only support - "Sequence" mode. The other mode called "Takdown" has no longer being developed.

Sequence Mode

In the Sequence mode, task timers operate sequentially, one after the other. You can personalize the duration of each timer when creating a task, allowing for a flexible and customized experience. Upon completion, Otto automatically marks the task as done.

Running the task timer

You can run the task timer using 2 ways.

  1. Using the Popup
  2. Using the Command Box

Using the Popup

You can run the tasks using the big yellow play button in the task mode screen.

You can also run individual tasks by clicking on the small yellow play buttons next to the task name itself.

Tasks mode screen

Using the Command Box.

You can also use the Command Box to run tasks.

  1. Open the cmd bar by pressing cmd+shift+o (mac) or ctrl+shift+o (windows)
  2. Select the start tasks session option from the menu.

Tasks mode screen

Creating tasks using the command box

You can use the command box to create tasks. Just use the command @create followed by the name of the task. Currently you cannot specify the duration of the timer so it'll default to 15 minutes.

@create this is a task

Limits on tasks

  • Currently you can only have upto 3 tasks on Free mode. The duration of each task is limited to 15 minutes. If you delete tasks, you can keep on adding more tasks though ;)

  • Upgrading to Otto Pro gives you access to more granular control over how long your tasks will be. And you can run unlimtied tasks to your list at once.


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