How to Manage Tasks in Obsidian

Obsidian is an incredibly powerful tool for note-taking and knowledge management. It’s not unusual these days, to use it as a task management tool either. The current state of Obsidian unfortunately calls in for tweaking the setup, since you can end up with hundreds of tasks across many projects, making it hard to stay on top of them and plan your week. With the right setup, Obsidian can help you organize projects, track tasks, and integrate seamlessly with your calendar for streamlined execution.

I’ve tested the best task management setup with minimal  plugins and only the essential integrations to find an optimal workflow that’s automatized and can be visualized in your calendar.

Bringing it all into this guide, I explore how to manage tasks effectively in Obsidian using the Tasks, Quick Add and Templater plugins, with Morgen Calendar integration to ensure no task gets lost and every project is tracked and visible in your calendar.

Benefits of This Workflow

✅ Reduce manual errors – No more forgetting to copy task links or multiple query blocks

✅ See project status at a glance – Filter by due dates, priorities, and statuses

✅ Eliminate duplicate planning efforts – Tasks sync automatically between Obsidian and Morgen

✅ Gain full control over task execution – Combine note-taking with structured planning

‍

Why Manage Tasks in Obsidian

Upsides of managing tasks in obsidian

1. Unified Knowledge & Task Management

,Each project or topic is stored in a dedicated file in Obsidian. Tasks are directly tied to those files, ensuring work stays contextually connected to notes and research.

2. Flexibility & Customization

Obsidian allows complete control over task organization using plugins. Users can design a workflow that fits their needs like research, content creation, or coaching.

3. Local-First & Privacy-Oriented

Since Obsidian is local-first, users maintain full control over their data, avoiding reliance on cloud-based task managers that may have privacy concerns.

4. Automation & Efficiency with a Calendar Integration

The Obsidian integration with Morgen streamlines scheduling by automatically syncing project tasks with a calendar. Essentially, reducing manual effort prevents oversight, and ensures tasks are properly allocated in a time-based view.

5. Tagging & Filtering for Project Management

Users can tag tasks (e.g., #research, #writing, #edit) and filter them dynamically with query blocks, making it easy to track progress and focus on priorities without switching tools.

6. Non-Deadline-Oriented

Unlike traditional task managers focused on deadlines, Obsidian works well for exploratory projects (e.g., research, learning, creative work), which can be adjusted with the right integrations.

‍

Downsides of Managing Tasks in Obsidian

1. Manual Effort & Setup Complexity

Without the Morgen integration, Obsidian users have to manually copy task links, risking errors like pasting into the wrong task or forgetting to update project names.

2. No Built-in Notifications or Reminders

Unlike dedicated task managers (e.g., Todoist, Things, Asana), Obsidian does not send notifications or reminders unless paired with an external automation tool.

3. Calendar & Time Blocking Limitations

Obsidian itself lacks a visual calendar for task planning.

4. Requires Plugins for Advanced Functionality

Core Obsidian lacks structured task management features— you must install and configure plugins to get full functionality. I share some recommended plugins below.

5. Potential for Overhead & Disorganization

If not structured properly, task management in Obsidian can become cluttered. Without clear tagging, filtering, and maintenance, tasks can get lost in scattered notes.

1. Setting Up Task Management

Install the Necessary Plugins

These three community plugins are essential for this setup:

• Tasks – Enables powerful task tracking with due dates, priorities, recurrence, and filtering.
• QuickAdd – Simplifies the creation of structured tasks with pre-defined templates.
• Templater – Allows dynamic content insertion into notes, helping automate project and task creation.

‍

To install these:

1. Go to Settings → Community Plugins

2. Search for each plugin, install, and enable them.

2. Structuring Tasks

Using the tasks plugin makes task creation and editing faster. With the ability to type in a task block, an auto-suggest menu pops up, to help with dates, priorities, tags, and more. I will go through some of the most important ones.

‍

Organizing Tasks with Project-Based Notes

Each file in Obsidian should correspond to a topic or project. Tasks within these files help break down work into actionable steps.

For example, if you are a researcher, content creator, or have a business, you might structure your tasks as follows:

• Research Projects: Collect sources, review literature, and draft findings.
• Content Creation: Scripting, recording, editing, publishing.
• Business Plans: Investor sessions, strategy progress, preparing materials.

‍

Creating Tasks with the Tasks Plugin and Tags

Using the Tasks plugin, you can format tasks with additional keywords or topics to find the tasks you want.

‍

This example includes:

• A task ( - [ ] )
• A due date (📅 2024-03-20)
• Recurring task (🔁 every week)
• Estimated duration (⏳ 1h)
• A tag (#writing) to categorize work

You can find more about tags in Obsidian’s tag guide.

Displaying Tasks Across the Vault

There are several task types I can think of, however, to keep this guide simple, here is the logic for finished and not finished tasks.

The first query is for the remaining tasks. To retrieve the remaining tasks from all your notes dynamically, use a task query block. Type it in any note you’d like to pull the remaining tasks from:

‍

This query will fetch all incomplete tasks across your vault and sort them by the due date, making it easy to track what needs attention next.

You can also retrieve tasks based on priority with this query:

‍

The query creates a table with all your active projects sorted by due date or priority.

The other task type is done tasks, in which you can add a limit of your preferred number, in case you want to avoid clutter:

3. Planing and automating tasks

Now that you’ve set up and structured your tasks, it is time to track them.

The goal was to show the files from various projects as tasks in our calendar to visualize the time allocated to each task, while also managing your overall bandwidth. I used to manually copy task links from Obsidian to time blocks in my calendar, however, this presented several challenges:

• Tasks associated with project files weren’t linked or updated automatically
• Managing different areas of projects, for research, content creation, or coaching was difficult without a structured system
• Without a deadline, exploratory projects, like learning new skills or researching, often lacked dedicated time
• Manual copying and pasting Obsidian links into time-blocked tasks in the calendar led to mistakes, such as pasting the wrong link or forgetting to update task titles

Morgen's integration solves these challenges and makes it easy to directly schedule and display Obisidan tasks in the calendar.

‍

Solved issues

After connecting Morgen to the Obsidian integration, the previously mentioned manual process becomes automated. The possibility of tasks and files grouped up, the visibility of deadlines of various projects, and time-blocking became possible thanks to the sync between both tools.

• Direct Task Syncing: Tasks from Obsidian files appear in Morgen without manual duplication
• All-Day Task Sections: Tasks from Obsidian can be placed in Morgen’s all-day section for bandwidth planning
• Automated Project Tracking: Instead of copying links, Morgen syncs project progress across both tools
• AI Planner Support: Morgen’s AI-assisted planning makes sure no important research or content task is forgotten

‍

Integrating Obsidian with Morgen Calendar

To see your Obsidian tasks in your calendar, you'll need to integrate Morgen. Head over to Morgen’s download tab and create an account.

After installing Morgen, go to Settings → Obsidian Integration, select your vault folder, and connect the two tools. This will enable automatic syncing, allowing you to manage and schedule tasks directly from your calendar.

By dragging and dropping the to-dos from your task list, you can extend the task’s block of time to the appropriate amount, essentially scheduling dedicated time blocks for deep work.

‍

‍

This way, you can maintain a single source of truth for all of your projects, ensuring that ideas are captured, tasks are planned, and deadlines are met. For a full detailed guide on Morgen X Obsidian integration, head over to our Obsidian Time blocking guide.

‍

‍Using Templates for Recurring Projects

Now that you can see and schedule the tasks in your calendar, you can set up recurring tasks. To do so, you will first need to set up project templates with Quick Add and Templater.

Quick Add allows you to instantly create a file in a designated folder and apply a specific template using a hotkey. Then, you can use your Templater folder which has multiple templates for different project types, each containing tasks tailored to their specific workflows.

‍

Setting up Templater:

‍‍

1. Create a Template Folder

In your Obsidian vault, create a folder named Templates (or any name you prefer).

Example :

‍

2. Set the Template Folder in Templater Settings

• Open Settings → Templater (found in the left sidebar).
• Find the “Template folder location” field.
• Click it and select your Templates folder.

‍

3. Save and Restart Obsidian

This ensures your settings are applied.

How to Use Templates

Once your template folder is configured, you can create notes inside with specific templates that you can later use across other notes.

‍

To use this template in your other notes:

• Select a project and open a note → Press Ctrl + P
• Search for “Templater: Insert Template”
• Choose a template from the list

To set up repeatable workflows with appropriate due dats in Templater, you can configure project templates with:

‍

By using the script <%tp.file.title%> in a task, I can automatically create tasks in Morgen that match the file title in Obsidian. This makes it easy to identify which note a task is linked to when it appears in my calendar. For better organization, I use Obsidian tags to indicate the project’s status, such as:

• Research
• Writing
• Editing

‍

Advanced Task Scheduling Workflow

To further automate my workflow, I integrate Morgen's title tag time estimates into my template, ensuring tasks are properly categorized with expected durations. These tags also work with Morgen Frame filters, allowing the AI planner to generate more relevant scheduling suggestions. I assign due dates when a file becomes active, either on the main project task or on a specific source task that I need to review.

Wrapping up

This was a quick Obsidian task management guide, filled with useful plugins such as Tasks to create tasks inside of your notes, Quick Add to quickly make a folder with a template created with Templater. And Morgen integration to make progress on tasks that are important to you through tracking, time-blocking, and visualizing your plans all in one tool. On top of these tools, you’re well-equipped to set up your tasks, filter through them, schedule and time-block them in your calendar, and experiment with advanced functionalities Obsidian offers.