Add link to a note (Parent, or Project to which the task belongs) as Task attribute

[ainselx]

Tasks are often created in Daily notes or in a dedicated Project note.
It is convenient to have a single view in one of the notes, combining all the tasks which belong to a single project or theme.
The problem is that the Task does not "know" about the project it belongs to. What is available - is only a file in which the task has been created.

Task property specifying the note (usually a project), to which the task belongs to, will solve this.
Ideally - a context dependent dropdown with note name suggestions as you type - similar to the [[... behavior.

Would be ideal - if there would be an option to Group tasks by that property value.

Would be great if this property will be available at this screen and will also be minimizable similar to the Schedule related properties.

[claremacrae]

Hi @ainselx, Many thanks for the suggestion.

In case it helps, here are some examples of ways that I do this sort of thing (if I understand what you are asking).

All tasks in a folder

When I have a project that is bigger than one file, I create a folder for it, and then I create one file at the top of the folder that has a list of all the tasks in the folder.

Example

Here is an example of the tasks block I might use for that. It shows all the tasks in my folder of information about the Tasks plugin:

```tasks
not done
path includes Obsidian/Customising Obsidian Behaviour/Obsidian Plugins/tasks
# hide backlink
sort by due date
sort by description

group by folder
group by filename
group by heading
# hide task count

short mode
```

Templater template

Because I do this quite a lot, I have created a Templater template that I can paste in to a file, that generates this text, automatically detecting the file's location.

Some notes about the template below:

• Originally I found I was modifying the templates quite a bit, and by putting in the begin and end comments, it was possible to find all uses of a template in my vault and re-apply the template. Tedious but it worked
• I like displaying my task blocks in callouts, for visual appeal.
• I set up a few custom callouts with different colours for different contents, hence the tasks-in-this-file callout name

%% >>> Begin Template Block '_templates/Tasks Templates/L - Tasks in This Folder.md' %%

## Tasks in This Folder

> [!tasks-in-this-file] Tasks in this folder
> ```tasks
> not done
> path includes <% tp.file.folder(true) %>
> hide backlink
> sort by due date
> sort by description
> group by heading
> # hide task count
> ```

---
%% <<< End Template Block '_templates/Tasks Templates/L - Tasks in This Folder.md' %%

[claremacrae]

@ainselx If the above doesn't help, then it would be helpful to have a concrete example of what you mean. Like some markdown text, showing what you mean by a project. Is it a file, or folder, or tag, or YAML attribute? Or something else?

Thanks in advance!

[ainselx]

hello @claremacrae and thank you for a great and detailed answer, appreciated!
I think i understand your approach (and how the plugin is tailored to help this).
It is very useful as example! This is not something that will work in my case however :(

Let me try to give a more detailed overview of my (and quite some of my friends) use case to explain my "ask" better.

Logically all tasks either belong to

• Projects (one off constrained unique set of activities)
• Areas or Habits (e.g. regular chores, something you do continuously as part of a lifestyle, etc.)

I will mostly concentrate on the Projects part, however Habits part also have some weight.
In Obsidian it is convenient to plan a project in a project note. I.e. create a note for each Project, say named [[Project-Deliver System X]] and then do the initial breakdown of the project tasks directly in this note.

Then, if you have several Projects running in parallel - it is helpful to have a "Map of Content" note on top, collecting all of your Projects and their tasks. Ideally in a nice grouped by structure per project and/or schedule.
This so far has been falling well with your example above and Tasks plugin will do great here.

Project note is convenient to keep project metadata and do original breakdown of the tasks. However it may be more convenient to create and change tasks via Daily note (or sometimes other notes - e.g. you may want to create a task under the Person note or while writing a zettelkasten note).
For me - Daily note is my go-to place to plan my day, rearrange the tasks within the day, may be have some tasks rescheduled/moved to another day and so on.
In many cases new Project tasks can be created during the day on the fly in the Daily note, moved to some other day, followed up, etc.
It is of course possible, but not quite convenient in every such case to open the Project Note and put the task there, add the date for it and so on.
Also i'm

• planning task execution time and order within the day and the order is sometimes important
• alterating project tasks with regular "habits" tasks
  above is not possible if you pull the tasks to a daily note through plugin view.

So if to specify my goal/ask in a bit bloated User story format:

As a person handling many personal and work projects simultaneously
I want to

• create the tasks in whichever note is convenient (though mainly daily notes or "project" notes)
  and
• have a representation of all the tasks related to one project in the Project note
  and
• have a representation of all the tasks related to all my projects in a single Projects MOC, grouped by the project they belong to

In order to

• conveniently create and rearrange the task in the daily context
  and
• be able to see full summary of the active project tasks during regular review (for a specific project) and for all projects.

[ainselx]

I'm attaching some files which should help clarify my text above.
Entity diagram to illustrate above

and shortened/simplified examples of my Project Note, Project MOC and Daily note:

• Typical Daily note: 2022-06-03.md
• Projects MOC:WORK PROJECTS.md
• Project Notes:
  -- SPRJMR.md
  -- SPRJOA.md

[elight]

Interesting. I have a tangentially related idea about associating tasks by tags to define the relationship between and order of execution of tasks.

[elight]

Including link so as not to be obtuse.

[ainselx]

yup, that's one way of doing it.
I'd still vote for the [[Project]] attribute rather than tag, mainly because

• this is my workflow that i like %)
• basic bit of information in Obsidian is a Note, using tags to reference anything related to a specific project is like building a second structure over something that is already in the bones of notes and their relationships via links.

no pressure ofc, just my point of view.

[claremacrae]

The thing I'm learning is that Tasks is an incredibly flexible tool, and many people use it in many different ways. I feel it's important that any changes and additions are designed in a way that they don't enforce - or seem to enforce - a particular structure or style or vocabulary of working.

[elight]

💯

[claremacrae]

Thank you @ainselx. From your description, I would have thought that doing a search for description includes SPRJMR and similar would have given you what you want?

[ainselx]

Indeed, that's what i do now as a workaround for a specific project note and description includes SPRJ for a general note containing all the projects. And that's exactly why i have introduced prefixes to the tasks.

This gives me a list of all tasks related to SPRJ projects which is not bad, however it's just a plain list sorted by description.
Would have been much nicer and viewer friendly though - if this list could be grouped by project similar to current available grouping by file/folder/header.

[claremacrae]

Aaahhh right, in all the helpful examples of projects and structure, I think I may have missed the fundamental request here.

Am I right in thinking that the request is for something like:

group by linked-note

[ainselx]

Pretty much. Not only group though, but also search ofc.

[claremacrae]

I've started a new discussion to gather opinions on what the first version of this feature should look like:

#728
Add ability to filter and group by linked note(s)