How to time block in Morgen

Time blocking your scheduled tasks can be a powerful way to plan, allocate, and protect time to work on your tasks. Not that time blocking is a premium feature on Morgen. To schedule tasks in your calendar, whether Morgen tasks or from an integration, you will need a Morgen Pro subscription.

What is time blocking?

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Time blocking is a powerful way to move from managing your tasks in a to-do list, to planning them into your day. Each task, or group of like tasks, is scheduled into your calendar. There are a lot of benefits to time blocking:

1. Help you plan to devote time to your most important tasks

2. Protects time from being booked by others

3. Sets time bounds for how long a task should take (though don’t be too hard on yourself if your estimate isn’t quite right)

4. Makes it obvious when you have to many tasks to complete in not enough time, forcing a reprioritisation

In Morgen, scheduled tasks are easily distinguishable from events in your calendar, since tasks all have an empty box next to the title, just waiting for you to check it off when the task is completed.

Scheduling tasks from your task manager:

The most common way to schedule tasks in your calendar, is to do so from your task lists.  

On desktop you can do this by simply opening your task list from the left navigation. Then drag and drop any task directly on to your calendar.  

If you specified a task duration when you created the task, the task will be sized for that amount of time when dropped into the calendar. If you haven’t set a duration, it will by default be 30 minutes. You can then adjust the length of the scheduled task by dragging the bottom of the scheduled task up or down.

On mobile, open your task lists from the check mark in the bottom nav. Swipe right on any task to open the orange calendar icon. This will open a calendar view. Simply select the duration you want the task to be, then tap on the calendar where you want it to be added. Tap done to schedule the task.

Create a task right in your calendar:

Alternatively, just like a calendar event, you can create a task directly from your calendar.  

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On desktop, simply click the location on your calendar where you want the task to be scheduled. The event/task widget will open. Select Task from the top right corner of the widget, or in the title, type ‘task’ then space to convert it from an event to a task.

You can then add all the details about the task, including the duration, associated notes with links you may need to complete the task, and priority level. Note, by default, tasks created in the calendar will be added to your Task Inbox. You can change this to add it to a specific task list instead.

On mobile, if you are in your calendar view, tap the + in the bottom navigation. This will open a new event or task. Tap Event at the top, then add all the other details. Tap Save to create and schedule the task.  

You will notice that when you drag a task from your task list into your calendar, it no longer appears in the task list and only on the calendar. If you prefer to also see the scheduled task within its task list too, simply select ‘Show Scheduled Tasks’ from the task manager settings. These tasks will now be displayed with a small calendar icon to signify that they have been scheduled.

Create and schedule a task from the command bar:

Finally, on desktop, you can also create and schedule a task from the Morgen command bar. To do so, from the command bar create a task and specify the timing.  

For example, I just typed “create task new guide today at 4pm for 30 minutes in work calendar” in the command bar, which scheduled a new task.

Create multiple work sessions for a task

Some tasks may be completed in one work session, however, other instances may take longer. In those instances, you may want to add more instances of that scheduled task.

On desktop, the quickest way to do so is to simply copy and paste the task. Select the first instance of the scheduled task, copy it (CTRL C), then click elsewhere in your calendar, and paste it (CTRL V). The copied task will be of the same duration, but can be adjusted by moving the bottom of the scheduled task up or down.

Alternatively, you can set up a recurring task, specifying the frequency of the recurrence as well as how many instances. This is done within the task widget, and only once it is in your calendar.

Note, you cannot set up recurrent scheduled tasks from mobile yet.

Schedule recurring tasks:

To create recurrent tasks in Morgen, you must schedule the first instance of the task. Then, within the scheduled task details, you can specify the recurrence pattern you want to create, be it every week, every month, every 25 days, etc., as well as how many instances should be scheduled.

Note that each instance of a recurrent task is unique, so you can add different notes to each one, making it easier to plan what needs to be done in instances where the task changes over time.

Protect the time:

Like events, you can choose whether to make your scheduled task busy or free. If busy, this time will no longer be seen as available in your Scheduling Links, Open Invites, or Team Availability, so long as they are scheduled in one of your Busy Calendars.  

This can be changed in each task, but you can also set the default in your Morgen Preferences with Transparency of Scheduled Tasks.

Choose the calendar:

When you schedule a task, it is now being added to a calendar. If you have more than one calendar connected to Morgen, you can decide which calendar the task belongs on.

In your Morgen preferences, you can choose a default calendar for all scheduled tasks. This can then be changed at an individual task level.

Set notifications for a scheduled task:

For important scheduled tasks, you can add additional notifications to remind you that it’s coming up to be delivered on your desktop. You can learn how to set multiple notifications in this guide.

Find a scheduled task:

Once a task has been scheduled, it can be quickly found using Morgen search. Simply search a key work from the task, pick past or present, and you will see a complete list of all possibly related tasks and events.

Once your task is complete:

When your scheduled task is complete, click on the empty checkbox. It will now appear in the calendar with the checkbox and dissapear from the task list. It will be listed in your task archive.

Want to learn more? See time blocking in action on Morgen: