Introduction to Firetask
Firetask is a modern task management app designed to help you focus on what matters most. Built on proven GTD® concepts and enriched with methods like Kanban and the Pomodoro® Technique, Firetask provides a clear, structured way to capture, organize, and review everything you need to get done. With its clean design, flexible views, and seamless iCloud sync across iPhone, iPad, and Mac, Firetask keeps your tasks in one trusted system so you can free your mind and work with clarity.
A Quick Tour of Firetask
The Firetask user interface is loosely based the GTD workflow and is generally divided into four main areas:
- Capture allowing you to quickly collect all your thoughts and ideas in a single place, the "Inbox".
- Focus being the go-to-place for getting a quick overview of what happens "Today", what comes "Next", and what you are "Waiting" for.
- Organize allowing you to manage your "General" task list and all projects you are working on.
- More holding the "Someday" list as well as the "Recently Deleted" tasks view.
What is Getting Things Done (GTD)?
Getting Things Done (GTD) is a modern task management methodology created by David Allen. GTD is one of the most widely adopted task management strategies across the globe.
If you don't know how GTD works here are some of the basic concepts:
- Perform a "brain dump" -- collect all your open issues and tasks in your "Inbox"
- Decide whether tasks are actionable, i.e., you want and can complete them yourself, whether you want to delegate them (Firetask provides a "Waiting For" list), or whether they are more of a "someday/maybe" thing
- Organize your actionable tasks into so-called "next action" lists (Firetask provides "projects" for this)
- Assign contexts to indicate, e.g., whether a task can only be done in a certain environment (e.g., you have to be "Home" to do clean up your house; we call this a "category")
- Perform a weekly GTD review where you repeat steps 2-4 on a regular schedule in order to keep your trusted GTD task management system up-to-date
If you want to know more about GTD check out our short Elemental Guide to David Allen's Getting Things Done.
Setting Up Firetask
In general, Firetask is a plug & play app -- you do not need to install anything (on the Mac it is sufficient to drag the app into your Appplications folder), or to sign up for a user account. However, there are a number of things you might want to look into before you add all your tasks to Firetask:
- First of all, if you are a Firetask 3 user you will probably want to migrate your existing data. Migrating your data is easy, but we still recommend checking out our short Migration section below to be on the safe side
- Next you might want to take a look at the Firetask "Settings" in order to check out if you would like to customize one or more of our user interface settings
- You also most probably want to switch on iCloud syncing; please check out the section about syncing further below
- If you want to use our Reminders integration you will need to create a reminder list called "Firetask" in the Reminders app and switch on reminders syncing in the Firetask Preferences area
- Finally, if you are new to Firetask you should check out the "Basic Concepts & Workflows" section below and then decide on how you want to structure your task management using categories, projects, portfolios and checklists
If you want to help us with improving Firetask please switch on crash reporting for 3rd party apps -- both on your Mac and your iOS devices. All information shared is completely anonymized and crash reports help us immensely with bug fixing.
Migrating From Firetask 4
Since Firetask 5 is a new app both on iOS and macOS, we need to move the data from the old apps using a simple export-import procedure. In other words, we "Export" from the old apps and "Import" into the new apps.
In order to migrate data from Firetask 4 to Firetask 5 you will have to complete the following steps:
- Update to the latest Firetask 4 update (iOS version 4.8.1 and macOS version 4.8.4 or later).
- Install the Firetask 5 app on the device you want to migrate the data.
- Start the Firetask 5 app at least once before trying to export the data from Firetask 4.
- Select "Export to Firetask 5" from the "Database" settings view and wait for the export to complete.
- In Firetask 5 go to "Backups" (accessible from the "Window" menu on macOS and via the list navigation "..." menu on iOS) and select the "Firetask 4" backup to restore.
If you are running a promotion version of Firetask 4 for Mac you can download the latest version from our website.
Only migrate your data on a single device to avoid potential data duplication issues.
What Data is Migrated?
The data migration procedure migrates basically all data "as is" with only three exceptions:
- Inbox and Someday tasks that have a project set will loose this bit of information, as Inbox and Someday are now lists and no longer task statuses (as in Firetask 4).
- Scratchpad tasks will be migrated to the Inbox list (as there is no more Scratchpad).
- Deleted tasks will be migrated as canceled tasks.
If you no longer need your deleted tasks we suggest physically deleting all deleted tasks in Firetask 4 before migrating.
What has Changed in Fireask 5?
Our design philosophy for Firetask 5 was to keep the "good stuff" while trying to eliminate common traps and pitfalls that we have seen users of Firetask 4 to encounter sometimes. We also tried to simplify the user interface while at the same time adding a number of new features on the way.
This said, there are quite a number of behavior changes in Firetask 5:
- Navigation has been simplified into a single sidebar tree -- both on Mac and iOS.
- Inbox and Someday are now lists, rather than task statuses.
- There is no Scratchpad anymore -- use the extended focus concepts instead (see below).
- Task status has been simplified to just Not Started (!), In-Progress, On-Hold, Completed and Canceled; to-do status has been extended to match task status values.
- Deleted tasks are now moved to a special "Recently Deleted" view where they are automatically cleaned up after 30 days.
- Categories is no separate view anymore, but instead a global filter that is available across all views.
- Kanban and Calendar are also no views anymore, but implemented as view types that are available for all relevant views (All Tasks, portfolios and project lists) beside the usual List view type.
- Also the Archive has evolved into a new view type called "Journal" that lists completed and canceled tasks in chronological order in the form of a timeline.
- Projects have now a dedicated "Short Notes" field that can be used to add a descriptive subtitle for their overview title bars (in Firetask 4 we used the first few lines of the Notes field).
- Checklists are now called "Templates".
- More consistent, Finder-like inline editing on macOS by first selecting a task in order to activate it and then editing it with a second click.
- More logical keyboard shortcuts such as CMD+. for toggling the inspector on the Mac, CMD+T for adding new to-dos or CMD+D for adding a due date.
- We are now using the "/" for command tagging in task title fields. "#" is now only used for real tags in notes and search. Command tagging now also provides auto-completion support for more usability.
- Syncing is now fully transparent and uses Apple's native CloudKit-based iCloud syncing. Enable syncing as usually in the Settings view.
- Finally, we have consolidated configuration options that sync across devices such as Categories, Tags and Contributors into a new view called "Organizer" (in order to clearly differentiate them from "Settings" that are configured locally for each device). The Organizer can be accessed from the "Window" menu on the Mac and from the "..." menu in the list navigation on iOS.
In addition we have also simplified some concepts that we thought to be over-engineered, e.g., the calendar events utilization does no longer use colors, but only levels of gray and we got rid of a number of settings that we think are no longer relevant for Firetask 5.
What is New?
Firetask 5 comes with a number of new features and improvements:
- Tags. Tags can be provided using the "#tag" syntax as part of task notes -- they can then in turn be used for searching.
- File Attachments. Attachments now also support file attachments in addition to link attachments.
- Extended Focus. Instead of just "In Focus" we now support four dedicated Focus values: Today (comparable to Firetask 4's In Focus), Next (explicitly adds task on the top of the Next list together with upcoming due and scheduled tasks), Agenda and Waiting (same as Next for the Waiting For list).
- Agenda View. An explicit new Focus area where you can collect and manage tasks that need discussing.
- Sorted Lists. All views provide now also sorted list view types "By Due", "By Start" and "By Priority".
- Journal. The Journal view type not only replaces the Archive, but also allows you to add simple journal entries. It also shows status notes.
- Status Notes. You can augment the status of a task with a status note. You can add, edit and view status notes via the task status context menu.
- Portfolio Overviews. You can now also select a portfolio in the navigation sidebar and you will get a list of all tasks in that portfolio grouped by project.
- Context Menu on iOS. Tasks now also feature a context menu on iOS which is streamlined, but consistent to the context menu on the Mac.
- Shortcuts App & Siri. Firetask 5 provides integrated support for Siri and the Shortcuts app.
Note that with the free upgrade option from the Firetask 4 App Store versions you get access to all the general improvements, but not to all new Firetask 5-only features such as file attachments, journal entries, or status notes. Please consider subscribing to Firetask for access to all new features.
Migrating From Other Task Management Apps
Firetask for Mac includes support for importing tasks via CSV files. This is a good way to quickly get most of your task information including notes into Firetask. The import wizard also lets you map CSV columns to Firetask fields, allowing for quite flexible importing.
You can find more information about CSV import in the Mac-only section of this tutorial. CSV import will shortly also come to the iOS version.