Notion Sub-Tasks & Dependent Tasks! To-Do List Setup Tutorial 2023

Whether you are Notion beginner, or a power-user this Notion To-do list set-up tutorial will show you how how to get organized with The new Notion sub-items and dependencies features: A full Notion Tutorial for your ultimate task manager in 2023! 📢 Sign-up to the Notion From Scratch email list for more soon: bettercreating.com/notion-fro...
This Notion task manager build includes a Today view, dependent tasks & an awesome report formula!
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🎥 VIDEO CHAPTERS:
00:00 Notion Sub-Tasks & Dependencies: The Ultimate 2023 To-Do List Feature?
01:59 Quick Notion To-Do List: Database Build
04:29 Setting up Sub-Tasks & Sub-Items in Notion
08:55 Setting up Dependent Tasks & Dependencies: Notion Timeline
11:51 Dependent & Blocked Tasks Reporting Formula
15:38 Dependent Tasks Report Fomula: Pause To Copy
15:56 Create A Filtered Do Today View in Notion for Sub-tasks
19:24 Going Further with Notion Task Management
👋 BETTER CREATING
Hi, I'm Simon and I'm collecting great ideas, tools and tech to help you live your best productive and creative life: On this channel you'll find all things Notion, well designed productive tech, & great ideas on business & self development. Other than doing this, I work as a freelance creative in theatre and film and love motorcycles, coffee and minimalist design.
#Notion #todolist #BetterCreating
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[@BetterCreating]

Hi all - Really loving these tricks for setting up sub & dependent tasks in Notion: I love it - what do you think? 📢More coming soon integrated into my Notion From Scratch series so sign-up to the email list for more: bettercreating.com/notion-from-scratch

[@BetterCreating]

@@dirkhellstern1496 Hi Dirk - thank man! -😊 well it's tricky - Jan and Feb are a perfect storm of changes that had to happen suddenly: I'm working 12 hour days at moment as I've also been (deep breath): recruiting new editors, making a video a week, developing the 2023 Life OS template for March (which informs my approach to integrating sub-tasks and dependencies), moving my entire sales platform and mailing list system to new providers since the ones I was using either closed or became very expensive, launching an icon pack next week, managing sponsors and developing a freelance theatre project. haha! I'll be calmer in March! Cheers - thanks for the support and for following along!

[@JairJacom]

very instructional video and very well explained. I did find an issue on the rollup 'blocked by' I did not find a percentage by group in Notion. Is this an option no longer available?

[@paulstanley8088]

First, great video--well shot, edited, and your post production is spot on. The screen zooming is perfectly timed and seamless showing exactly what it needed just in time. Second, I appreciate how much content you get into so little time. You are just about the only creator where I look at the video length and wish the video was LONGER. Third, your scripting is brilliant. You don't bury the lead, you get to the point and you use the minimum number of words to get to the point. Fourth, thanks for NOT calling properties "properties" and calling them anything else. I bought your template, and I'm working to integrate it into what I've already developed. For example, I've not used sub-tasks because of some of the problem you identified (and fixed). This video gave me some good insight. Thanks for posting!

[@BetterCreating]

Amazing - just the kind of feedback I hope for! thanks for watching and welcome!

[@goeffreyfremain1260]

Hi Simon ! I just discovered your channel while i struggled to apprend Notion. But with your help and approach i finally set up my build with comprehension ! Thanks a lot for your work !!! I hope you will do a video concerning sub tasks for project and google calendar. Can't wait ! Bye !

[@AlyMikos]

Wow! Simon you are the productivity coach I’ve been looking for. You’re combing all the frameworks and systems I’ve been trying to understand and implement in my personal and professional life. I find your content so valuable and look forward to your future posts. Thank you!

[@mikejaydavies]

I love your approach. The final key Notion really need to add, is true recurring tasks!

[@BetterCreating]

Absolutely! That and the fabled Google Calendar Sync from last year! :)

[@zugrath16]

A quick workaround is to set it up in a database template. Create a template and then set "Repeat" to whatever intervall you like. An item will be auto-generated in the database at that time. So essentially a recurring task :). Then you can specify in the template that it should always be linked to the parent task you want automatically

[@glcavett91]

Your explanation for associating sub-items with parent items was a life saver! Yours was the only video that I could find to walk me through the process. Thanks!

[@BetterCreating]

You are so welcome! Awesome to read! Thanks :)

[@theblandstudios]

I just found Notion and I love it! Thank you so much for a great tutorial. :)

[@BetterCreating]

You are so welcome!

[@antoniocucciniello6010]

That was so detailed and amazing thank you! I learned so much about notion in this video

[@BetterCreating]

Great stuff! Thanks

[@miaobergs]

Thanks Simon for a great tutorial. Valuable content and easy to follow. Of course I'm starting to subscribe to your channel, looking forward to more awesome Notion stuff that will boost my productivity. ❤

[@BetterCreating]

Amazing! Thanks and welcome to the community!

[@Eilanina]

Brilliant, thank you very much for this tutorial, extremely useful!

[@BetterCreating]

Glad it was helpful!

[@ChristianZenker]

I just buyed recently a "Ultimate Productivity Planer" for Notion because I though it would help. In the end it was filled with repeating stuff and most did not worked well without fixing a lot of it. I started building a Productivtiy Planer now myself and with the help of this video, my own one is already miles better. Thanks for your great video, appreciate it.

[@user-tk7rz3bq6g]

Thank for your tutorials! Great work and great hair by the way!

[@BetterCreating]

Why thanks.

[@keszycki]

You earned a new loyal subscriber! Great video!

[@BetterCreating]

Thanks Pal! Welcome. :)

[@justnaturalcake1]

This is super exciting! I'm currently at the start of video ready to recreate this in my Notion!

[@BetterCreating]

Best of luck!

[@justnaturalcake1]

I finished the video yesterday and added my own ideas aswell 🙌

[@GilesPierreGaleMag-osara]

IM A FAN 💚 Using notion as my work task list and roadmap its very helpful.

[@BetterCreating]

Great to hear!

[@kevocos]

The big problem with Notion in this case is there is no automatic rescheduling of task should a preceding task be delayed. For context I'm referring to illustration of a project on a Gantt Chart. In a project its very, very common for a task end time to slip or be delayed in a project, and then subsequent task start dates are require to be rescheduled accordingly. Where there is slippage early on in a project its not unusually for 100 subsequent task to be delayed and require rescheduling. Automatic rescheduling of those tasks is the most basic of functions. Clickup, Monday and others do this natively, out of the box without ANY fuss, and they have done for many years. I work in Construction Project Management and without this feature Notion is useless for me. Notion is great, its just frustrating that it can't do this basic function.

[@johno4377]

The dependency option does allow dependant tasks to be moved with a task, so you could move it in the timeline view back a few days and subsequent tasks would also move. There is an option so that tasks do not overlap. This doesn't work with sub tasks though so if you move a task, I don't think the sub tasks don't move with it.

[@ThePodcastStudioMiltonKeynes]

Great stuff mate! Thank you! I wonder if this would be a good set up for my film agency? We have me filming stuff, a business partner that likes a look in, and another person who runs social media management tasks?... You think this set up would work well for that? Wonder if you could have those tasks populate from google calendar etc?

[@rjvidalt1]

Excellent stuff!!!

[@BetterCreating]

Thank you kindly!

[@JenniferKennedy-dz9mf]

thank you for this - I started using Asana, but would really love to streamline what apps I have open. Trying to decide whether it is worth the effort to go through this to put into my notion, which is how I capture my notes and ideas.

[@DynamiteTony]

Your videos are very slick.. nice work.

[@BetterCreating]

Thanks! Welcome the channel!

[@anrock6460]

well done

[@pamelaorozco764]

I LOVE YOU YOU ARE THE BEST NOTION TEACHER

[@BetterCreating]

Thanks so much!

[@centrogroup2421]

Your way of explanation is wonderful . I loved more your accent.

[@BetterCreating]

Thank you! 😃

[@prateekbhardwaj9943]

i liked ur keyboard sound, which keyboard/switch u r using?

[@paulmaad]

First of all thanks for the gr8, ur boss man ! Is it possible to have Default expanded sub-tasks ? It's kind of annoying to always have to expand parent task when we arrive in the to-do list.

[@jovialhazel]

This is an amazing video for me (beginner) to build my notion Thank you very much

[@BetterCreating]

Awesome! Thanks - yeah check out my Notion from scratch series playlist too for a good beginners build along :)

[@jovialhazel]

@@BetterCreating wow great 👍🏼 Thank you so much for making such wonderful videos Very helpful I’ve subscribed and can’t wait to learn more from your channel

[@t0nyxgq]

Hi Simon, thanks for the informative video! Quick question: Once I put in the work to create a nice list with sub tasks, I want to use it as a template to duplicate the entire list and subtasks within the same data base, is that possible? So far, when I duplicate, the subtasks have 2 parents instead of 1.

[@Umesh_Badri]

Another quick question - after creating sub-tasks, the invisible drop down button appears in the filtered tasks view only if the filter is set to due today. If there's no filter for due date (say upcoming tasks view), the invisible drop down button doesn't appear. Is there a way around this as it'll save time to update multiple fields in the table view rather than opening & closing each sub-task page to update.

[@tarazwicker8113]

in the last section where you show how to make sub tasks show up in "do today", it seems the same to me. either way you had to hit the carrot toggle to see the subtasks. Is there a way to see sub task only and not the parent task? also- is the dependent task option only available for subtasks, or can it be used for parent level tasks

[@jonathanermey1941]

Simon - Thank you for this! When I complete a task in the DO TODAY view, the top-level project item stays visible but has no action to be taken (No more tasks to complete today). I would expect any parents to disappear once I complete the tasks. What am I missing? I have followed all of your steps exactly and messed around with it myself, but it seems there is not an easy way to do this. Thoughts?

[@carlossanzsalcedo7269]

Hi great video! I'm wondering if one can see subtasks in the board view in a specific way, I want to order them depending on the status. I mean I can have a task that is in progress, subtask 1 which is "In progress" and subtask 2 which is "Not started". I want to see in columns based on status, the task and subtask 1 would be in "In Progress" and subtask 2 should be in "Not started". The way it seems to work is based on the status of the task but the subtasks are not ordered. Can that be achieved by any means?? Thanks for your time and content.

[@Achey5202]

Hi Simon. Great video. I love the idea of creating the blocked by report, but unfortunately the percent complete option is not showing for me. It only shows these options. Show original Show unique values count all count values count unique values count empty count not empty percent empty percent not empty Any thoughts on the reason why?

[@nae1781]

Thaks for this and the rest of the videos. I did an upgrade to the la filter so the if the subtask is done doesn't show in today callout.

[@BetterCreating]

No worries - yes - filters are tricky to add subtasks to views - you likely need to use roll ups to reference parent tasks or projects. I’m releasing a video on the Notion From Scratch series in the next week or so that might help! :)

[@ThisSmartHouse]

Love the series, I use your Notion system to run my channel and life. Quick question, don't you need to add another level of if statement to your Actionable formula to check if there is a subtask? I added this to mine and now everything is red waiting. This would filter out tasks that don't have subtasks.

[@BetterCreating]

Interesting - mine seems to be working with the final adjustment of which way around you set the Waiting and Action statements in the formula...

[@BetterCreating]

Thanks for using the system and the comment - will look at this further :)

[@ThisSmartHouse]

@@BetterCreating I could have missed something. I will play around with it.

[@KrystalBella]

First time looking at notion for tasks and I’m def overwhelmed from the video. Idk why people would use this for tasks instead of asana. It’s so much easier. I need to be an expert to work this omg 😱

[@BetterCreating]

This is definitely a more advanced build feature. But you can genuinely just generate a task list and project database with their auto setup and start using it too! Or download a template and away you go. The reason you would? It can be integrated into custom features specific to your work and business: that’s why people love it; Asana but built specifically for your use case. :)

[@masterswordgamer2154]

How did you insert the command below the view title for the last section of the video? On my view there’s no line to write commands below the title

[@shanemckoy6123]

Drop those updated videos ASAP!

[@BetterCreating]

Doing my best - I have to products launching at moment thou so it’s hard to fit in! :)

[@escapeshattu4841]

Hey man. I watched your videos. Loved your creativity. I need to reach out to you. How?

[@Umesh_Badri]

Hey Simon, thanks for sharing this really handy trick! Is there a way to set up sub-tasks to automatically inherit select meta data from their respective parent tasks? eg. project name, etc.

[@Umesh_Badri]

I understand that both Sub-tasks & Parent-tasks are essentially part of the same database and hence might need to add additional roll ups for collecting this info, but that would mean duplicating the same property for this purpose. Is there a better way?

[@BetterCreating]

Yeah I think this is the only way to start doing that - it’s tricky as it’s not a full sun task set up yet - I want to be able to find a way to create a parent task template that includes reformatted sub tasks… but can’t find a way yet !

[@Digital.Done.Right.]

@@BetterCreating this is exactly what I need. I write three blog posts each week and then there are graphics which need to be created and the social posts copy needs to be written. Always repeating the same process. As well the due dates for each are usually the same intervals. A template for this would be just 🤩

[@user-hz2qr1en2l]

if im creating subtasks in a project template with notion built in feature how can I get those tasks to also show up on my task database?

[@shanemckoy6123]

Instead of showing sub-tasks as a section within a tasks page could you create a database that shows all the sub tasks? I'm trying to do this but it doesn't want to show me any of the sub-tasks

[@kimcramer]

Is it possible to get subtasks to show up on the Calendar in Notion?

[@brownmiester]

"It seems that subtasks are now supported in the TODAY view and "do today". Do you know how I could set this up so that there are some tasks that are actionable before and up until their due date, and others that are only actionable on their due date? What's the best way to set this up?"

[@Alfred-Henry]

@BetterCreating I've tried many times to create the "blocked by report" property and use it as you did. However, when I check off the subtask, it doesn't show 50% done. It stays at zero until all the subtasks are done, then it shows 100%. What seems to be the problem? Can you please help me with it? It's really bothering me.

[@belovedasif01]

Watching from BD🇧🇩

[@BetterCreating]

Great to have you :)

[@user-np7hi9kb6b]

Hi, if I want to create a second database called "Project" that I'll link to my to do database, how can I make sure that each time I create a project, a view of the to do list database is created and automatically linked to the project I've just created? Is this possible?

[@BetterCreating]

Hi - yes easy to do; edit a database page template The projects database and insert a filtered view of your task database inside that page filtered by the template page you are on (top option in the filter list of the tasks database view you insert) - this will then duplicate each time you create a new project and stay filtered by the new project! I’m pretty sure I demo this build in this series (Notion From Scratch) ! Cheers! Simon

[@user-rv5wl1bi7q]

Hey, I love the video. Very useful! I have problems with the formula in the Blocked tasks Reporting Formula. I do type it just like you in the video, but it doesn't let me "enter" and use the formula. Can anyone help with this? Would love to use it!

[@BetterCreating]

Double check your haven’t named your columns differently to mine - even if one of your column titles in the database you are referencing in the formula is slightly diff or has a lower / uppercase character it won’t work…

[@user-rv5wl1bi7q]

@@BetterCreating Thank you!! I will try :)

[@Solis_Occasum]

Can you create a task template that generates a parent task with pre-defined sub-tasks? For example: Projekt [a] Sub-task 1 [a] Sub-task 2 [a] Sub-task 3 [a] Sub-task 1,2 and 3 are all the same across the parent tasks.

[@Umesh_Badri]

This would be a useful feature to have. Would this be possible Simon?

[@sdsavvy1]

Wouldn't this just be a new template that contains your pre-defined sub-tasks?

[@BetterCreating]

Would love to do this but I don’t believe it is possible to create a relation that is generated via a template: it just means you relate it to the template and the other is not generated at same time. Maybe it is possible to create a sub task and drop it into the parent so you would just drop it into a filtered database view to set it up. But not worked out a way to do this yet.

[@mahreenmunir5645]

What is the difference between Do On and Deadline? Where do your deadlines appear?

[@BetterCreating]

Deadline is hard deadlines you have to hit, do on is planning out your days to take action. I create a calendar view and list view for deadlines with a linked database on my home screen so I can reference them. :)

[@ThePodcastStudioMiltonKeynes]

@@BetterCreating Any video on this set up? Thansk again mate!

[@BetterCreating]

@@ThePodcastStudioMiltonKeynes About to release the next episodes of my Notion From Scratch Series this month - so look out for those - more on these techniques and recurring and sub-task set up coming in those. :)

[@juliansuarez6673]

So you can't use dependencies feature if you haven't create the sub tasks?

[@BetterCreating]

No - Dependencies work in any database as standard. :)

[@jackiechan27]

I wish that you were able to help solve my problem. I just found out about subtasks! - issue is that - the toggle drops down and I can add a sub-task and then another subtask to that and it's all beautiful (looks the same as regular tasks items in regular databases (just able to hide them now and add to do lists under the to do lists lol - BUT - when I go out of the page and come back in....now alllllll of the sub-items I created are no longer under the toggle of the parent task. - they are all now scrunched up together in one block as if I'm just writing out regular notes. It has the arrow pointing and says "sub-item" as the name, but I can't get it just stay under each parent item toggle. I wish someone could help me!?!?!

[@oregonhomeowner]

@jackiechan27 Please post if you found a solution preventing the sub tasks from always collapsing. I just want to see them stay open when I re-open the table. Thx

[@devarni]

Why are subtasks not visible in the calendar and only in the timeline view?

[@BetterCreating]

I wonder - maybe you can turn subtasks off on the view - and see them if filtering differently.

[@user-op9ic2xe9g]

This is one of the best Notion Tutorial for beginners

[@johno4377]

The problem I have with this is that at 15:08 when you have marked off "buy cat food" and "wash food bowl" as done, it is still showing in the "blocked by" column even though these tasks are no longer blocking. It's a shame that tasks marked as done aren't removed or hidden from the "blocked by" column. Do you know of any formulas that could essentially do "If status = done, clear entries under 'blocking' " Edit: ChatGPT says you can't actually remove the contents of a relation property using a checkbox property so this might not be possible.

[@RishiKumar-nz1tp]

Why the condition is less than 1 (< 1) in the below formula that you used? Shouldn't it be less than 100 (< 100)? if(prop("Blocked by Report") < 1, "🔴 Waiting", "🟢 Actionable")

[@pascalepoppins]

Thank you for these tricks. Implemented it, but I was annoyed at some tasks who were written as "Available" when they were not (because I may not have all details of what needs to happen before, or I don't want to start working on it yet, but it needs to be in the database anyway...), so I created one task that I called Hodor, and use it to block any task like this. Any Games of Thrones fans will get why... 🫣