Overview
Beyond the Board and Planner, StretchTasks gives you three focused queues that answer three different questions: What just came in? (Inbox), What am I doing now? (Today), and What's coming? (Upcoming). Used together they form a simple, reliable daily rhythm.
Inbox — capture and triage
The Inbox holds every task with the Inbox status — work you've captured but not yet triaged. New tasks land here by default. Inbox is your staging area: the goal is to process each item by giving it a status, a due date, and (if it belongs to one) a project.
Steps to clear the Inbox:
1. Open Inbox from the left rail.
2. Open the top task.
3. Decide its next step: set a status (Today, Planned, Upcoming, Waiting, Blocked), a due date, and a priority.
4. Optionally add it to a project and apply labels.
5. Move to the next item until the Inbox is empty.
Today — execute
The Today queue shows what to work on now. It includes tasks explicitly set to the Today status and any task due today, ordered by priority first (Urgent at the top), then due time. This is the view most teams keep open during the workday.
Steps to work Today:
1. Open Today.
2. Work top-down — the ordering already reflects urgency.
3. Complete tasks with the check action as you finish them.
4. If something can't be done today, reschedule it (drag it in the Planner or change its due date).
Upcoming — look ahead
The Upcoming queue lists tasks with a due date today or later, ordered by due date. It's your forward view — use it to spot busy days early and pull work forward when you have capacity.
Steps to plan ahead:
1. Open Upcoming.
2. Scan for clusters of work on the same day.
3. Pull anything you can start early into Today, or spread due dates out to balance the load.
Concrete example
Daily rhythm in practice: at 9am you open Inbox and process the six tasks that arrived overnight — three get scheduled for Today, two go to Upcoming with due dates, one is Blocked waiting on a vendor. You switch to Today, which now shows your scheduled work in priority order, and you clear it through the day. Before logging off you glance at Upcoming and notice Thursday is overloaded, so you pull one task forward to Wednesday.
Tips
- Treat Inbox Zero as the daily goal — an empty Inbox means every task has a home.
- Keep Today open as your working view; it's the single best "what now?" answer.
- Use Upcoming on Friday to plan the next week and avoid Monday surprises.
FAQ
What's the difference between the Today queue and the Today status? The Today status is a label you set on a task. The Today queue shows tasks with that status plus any task due today, whatever its status.
Why is a task in Upcoming but not on the Planner's Today lane? Upcoming includes everything due today or later. If a task is due tomorrow, it appears in Upcoming and in the Planner's Tomorrow lane, not Today.
Do completed tasks appear in these queues? No — completed, cancelled, and archived tasks are excluded. Find finished work in Reporting.
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