How unfinished to-dos roll forward

Carry-over moves any to-do you did not check off onto the next day, on its own, until you either do it or delete it.

Why you'd care#

This is the behavior the whole product is built around, and it is the one people misunderstand first.

Every other to-do app makes yesterday's failures your problem this morning. You open it and find a list of overdue items in red, and the first thing you do is triage a plan you already made once. Carry-over removes that step. Unfinished work is simply on today, in the ordinary list, looking like everything else.

The point is not that Twos nags you less. It is that you only ever plan a to-do once.

What moves and what does not#

This is the whole rule, and it is worth being precise about.

An unchecked to-do does not travel alone. It takes its indented block with it: the notes underneath it, the dashes, the bullets, the sub-to-dos, whether they are checked or not. A to-do with five steps written under it arrives on today as a to-do with five steps written under it, in the same order and at the same relative indentation.

That is why the rule is about position rather than type. A note sitting at the top level of yesterday stays on yesterday. The same note indented under an unfinished to-do comes along, because it is part of that to-do rather than a record of the day.

Everything else is a record of that day and stays put, which is what makes past days worth reading later.

A to-do that carries over is the same thing, not a copy. Its tags, its note, its reminder and its history all come with it. Check it off in three weeks and it will sit on that day, not the one you first wrote it on.

Turning it off#

Carry-over is on by default. Turn it off in Settings → Lists & Things → Carry over unfinished to-dos.

With it off, unfinished to-dos stay on the day you wrote them, and you move them yourself. Some people prefer this because they want each day to be a closed record. It is a real preference, not a wrong one, but be aware that nothing will remind you those to-dos exist unless you go looking.

Going further#

Carrying reminders too. A to-do with a reminder whose time has passed is a separate case, because moving the thing does not automatically move the alert. Settings → Calendar & Reminders → Carry over reminders rolls overdue reminders onto today as well, so an alert you slept through does not quietly stay in the past. It is off by default, because it changes when you get notified, and that is not a decision to make for you.

A block lands flush left, even if it did not start that way. If an unfinished to-do was itself indented under something that stays behind, say a finished parent to-do, it would otherwise arrive on today indented under nothing. Instead the whole block shifts left so the to-do sits at the top level, keeping its own internal shape.

Collapsing changes nothing. A collapsed to-do carries its hidden children exactly as an expanded one does. What you see is not what decides this.

"Carried over N times" counts the to-do, not the riders. The counter on a thing tracks how many days that to-do itself has rolled forward. The notes and sub-items travelling underneath it do not each get their own count.

Doing it by hand. You do not have to wait for the next time you open the app. A past day that still has unfinished to-dos shows a carry over button, to the left of the list actions button. Press it and that day's unfinished to-dos move onto today, each with its indented block.

To move only some of them, select the ones you want, on a day or in the To-dos view, and move them to Today. See selecting many things at once, which is much faster than one at a time.

A to-do that has carried for two weeks is telling you something. Usually one of three things: it is not actually a to-do, it is too big to be one thing, or you are not going to do it. All three are fine. Delete it, break it up, or move it to a list where it can wait without following you around.

Tips#

• If a to-do keeps arriving and you keep ignoring it, put it on a list instead of a day. Days are for this week.
• Indent the working notes for a to-do underneath it rather than beside it. They then follow the to-do forward instead of being stranded on the day you wrote them.
• Checking a to-do off records it on the day you finished it, so your past days end up being an accurate log of what you got done. That is worth more than it sounds a year later.
• Carry-over runs when you open the app, not on a server at midnight. It moves unfinished to-dos from the last day you used Twos, not from every past day. For an older day, open it and press the carry over button.

If it's not working#

My to-dos did not carry over. Most often carry-over is off. Check Settings → Lists & Things → Carry over unfinished to-dos. If it is on, open the app and give it a moment, because the roll happens on open rather than overnight on a server.

A note carried over and I did not expect it. Two causes, in order of likelihood. It was indented under an unfinished to-do, so it travelled as part of that block. Un-indent it to the top level and it will stay put next time. Failing that, it is a to-do that does not look like one, which happens when the checkbox style is set to something subtle. Check its type in thing types.

Only part of my block came across. Carry-over reads the day in its written order to work out what is nested under what. A list sorted alphabetically, or auto-sorted, files a to-do and its notes into different places, so the parent and child are no longer adjacent. Sort the day chronologically if you rely on nesting.

Something carried over but its reminder did not fire again. That is the separate setting. Turn on Settings → Calendar & Reminders → Carry over reminders.

A to-do from an older day did not come across. Carry-over only moves to-dos from the last day you used Twos. Open the older day and press the carry over button to bring its unfinished to-dos to today.

Related#

• Today, the page all of this happens on
• Select many things at once, for clearing a backlog in one move
• Set a reminder, for when a to-do needs to speak up rather than wait