THIS VIDEO IS NOW OBSOLETE! Notion launched native recurring task features - here's a new video all about them! ua-cam.com/video/xYu4bFcC9v4/v-deo.html
A big disadvantage of that approach is that we lose a record of all the recurring tasks we did in the past, since we are always recycling them for next time. If only Notion would make the "Repeat" option of templates a little bit more capable and customizable...
I was surprised by your comment so I checked the Completed table in the Ultimate Brain Task Manager and you are right. It does list what recurring tasks I completed today, but not past days completed recurring tasks. The email generated by Pipedream will show what was processed each day though.
I think that I wrote it already but have to do it one more time: Frank, you're crazy with amount of knowledge you're giving for free. I feel bad that I didn't buy your ultimate brain product (I just don't have usecase for it) but hopefully will but it just because you did so much for my learning curve in Notion 👍
Just spent the past two days trying to figure out recurring tasks in Notion with your previous video and ended up back with todoist cause it was so complicated 😂 and now there's a new video. Thank you. I'm not sure if I'll use it for now but maybe one day!
Can't blame you! I actually made this automation a while back, but wasn't sure if I should make a full video on it until I realized that a ton of people in our customer community really liked having automated recurring tasks right in Notion. So I decided to polish up the workflow a bit and finally make an updated video.
@@ThomasFrankExplains Thank you so much for all of your hard work and commitment to providing such amazing value! I've watched you for years regarding productivity and now you're also talking more about programming which I'm trying to learn so that's amazing! Thank you so much for such great content! All the best to you and your team as you delve into designing more products and programs.
I like todoist but they lock way too many basic task managment features behind a paywall. Stuff like task reminders and calendar view are basic features, they should not charge a premium for that. Also their logo looks like it was designed by a 5th grader, a stack of checkmarks that look stretched to the wrong aspect ratio.
@@jadonharper1493 It's true that many features are locked behind a paywall but it's definitely convenient especially with the web and mobile apps. Cross platform access is important for task management. On the other hand I've started exploring Tana for note taking and even some tasks and I'm really enjoying it. The fields in supertags are like database fields in Notion but much easier and more intuitive for me. You can check them out by introducing yourself on their slack channel for early access if interested.
Thomas- maybe you could alter your script to make a duplicate instead of just unchecking or resetting the status of the task. That way, this could be more useful for business needs than the requirement of seeing historically completed items. I'm trying to build this myself now. Would this be useful for others?
Thank you so, so, so much for this...I migrated over from Asana and really needed this functionality. I'm no coder, but I managed to get this to work in another template I purchased with this video and the supplemental videos about doing this from scratch. THANK YOU!
Error - Error: Your target database is missing the "Next Due API" property. This workflow requires this to function, and it must be a formula-type property. If you have renamed it in your database, please click "Refresh Fields" at the bottom of the Configure tab above, then set the "Next Due API Property" field manually. If your database does not contain this property, please use one of the templates listed in the "Compatibility" section in the instructions above.
This is the error message, but I don't see any detail on anything you've tried to solve the problem - does your database have that Next Due API property? If you've checked that and it is there, you can open an issue here: github.com/TomFrankly/pipedream-notion-recurring-tasks/issues
I did not update the formulas to 2.0. Now it works perfect, thnx for answering my question Thomas. I bought years ago your Ultimate Brain and Creators Compagnion and they work great, good software, good job!!
Hey Thomas! With the new Notion features that allow formulas for recurring tasks, are you going to recreate the 2nd brain properties to allow the flow to work independent of PipeDream?
Great stuff as always. I'll dig into this again. Since I began using Notion for tasks, my take on recurring tasks is not to deal with them, even though 90% of my tasks are recurring. Instead of one click to complete and change the date of a task as in most systems, I simply click on the date, then click on the new date. 2 clicks instead of 1 and it requires no work. An extra bonus is how easy it is to change the recurrence, which happens often.
Yep! That's the *true* simplest way to do it. The first video I ever made on this channel was most about this method, with the only upgrade being the formula that helps calculate the next due date just to take that mental burden off the user.
Thanks, Thomas! I love Ultimate Tasks and use it every day. Question about recurring task intervals. At work, I have a lot of meetings set up in Outlook that recur monthly at a cadence like "2nd Tuesday of the month." Is there a way to set a recurring task in Ultimate Tasks with this same schedule?
I think you can also do this automation for level 3 if you’re on Apple by leveraging shortcuts to filter in the same way you do grab the date in your next due property and then update the actual date with the date from your formula. Both are really cool though and it’s really cool to come up with innovative solutions to this whilst Notion catch up!
I believe you can, yes! It just makes the workflow reliant on your device being on and connected to the internet, which isn't guaranteed. I'm also not totally sure if you can have it run on a schedule, instead of needing you to manually run it - though maybe that is possible.
@@ThomasFrankExplains Yeah I believe you’re right about the internet connection point - I tend to use a spare iPad that I leave at home and use shortcut automations to get it to run on a schedule. If you exclusively use iOS/iPadOS you can actually get it to run every time you close Notion, but where this isn’t as viable is if you’re on MacOS, hence switching to a run at X O’Clock every day similar to your automation
I have an honest question. Do your Repeating Database Templates create a brand new page every single time? If so, is that a lot of unnecessary digital clutter because for one task, for example, checking of my finances every Thursday, I will have 52 finance pages for my database.
Does anyone happen to know why Notion developers have yet to address this matter? It appears to be one of the most eagerly awaited features for quite a considerable period. 🙂
I have no idea, but my suspicions are: 1. They're currently more focused on AI stuff, given their recent press releases 2. It's probably more technically difficult than we think I know #2 is the case for another hyper-requested Notion featured (scoped permissions in databases), so maybe it's the case here. Now that I'm a bit of a programmer myself, I'm very used to the yak-shaving that often comes with trying to build seemingly simple features.
After a year of failing, I just created a project with 365 tasks. It would be nice if they had a duplicate page on buttons but they don't so I just filter by the task name "Tem", then date formula properties to filter by the dates I want like weekday, month, date, workday. I duplicate those task and use buttons to filter duplicates by created time from original "Tem", move to a new project and edit properties. So far it's not more than 5 to 10 min for each grouped recurring task. I also have a way to have multiple dates on one task but I really like the checkbox feature so I opted out. I hope this helps ☺️.
When I run this with Pipeline the "Type" property formula changes and no longer has "Recurring" in the formula. It changes from "if(empty(prop("Recur Interval")), "⏳One-Time", "🔁 Recurring")" to "if(empty(prop("Recur Interval")), "⏳One-Time", "⏳One-Time")"
🙌🏾 thanks for sharing. How does it work with specific times? Would it work if I'm collaborating with someone in a different time zone? Do they see the same moment in time or does it translate into their time zone with same nominal time? Time zones in Notion hurt my brain.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work with times. We tried really hard to make this work, but the limitations of the Notion API make it pretty much impossible. This is mostly due to Daylight Savings Time - because we have to work with the API, there are situations where the next due date would be across the line that divides standard time and daylight savings time. But there are literally thousands of DST rules all around the word, so we can't compensate for this - and it could lead to times becoming inaccurate.
Is the main difference between the level 3 method and your old video ease of setup? I already set it up when that vid came out and it still works like a dream, so I'm wondering if I should keep using that or switch to this new version.
This is a nice tutorial, I tried out your solution and got to at least update my Done tasks to become undone and move their date, Is the intention to add the tasks in the Inbox view? I try and create them there, set the recurrence and then complete them as done ahead of time, but when I test the API, the automation fails to change it to the next due date. I've tried with weekly and with dailies. (This was me trying on the free template open to all) I admire all the great coding and automation you've done here, but unfortunately its still too clunky to significantly move the needle on my productivity. I hope that Notion releases some better native support for this in the future. But thanks for all the hard work you poured into this 👍
Hi, I just set up this system and realized, it works well with dates but ignores a specific time. Is there some simple hack, or all the formulas and codes would have to be changed?
Thanks for publishing the code to github. Was able to make it work with my Second Brain tasks. Added required fields, updated pipe's variables to use those, and finally can use only Notion and abandon Asana for recurring tasks.
Hey Thomas! I was wondering if you have any insight into whether Notion will allow automation workflows to reference formulas or get more granular with specifics? For example, I had an idea this morning involving a recurring task. I thought of creating a Boolean checkbox that checks if a "Birthday" date property is in the past. If true, it would check a checkbox property. Using this in conjunction with your recurring task workflow, I believe I could use that checkbox to represent a "done" status. This would update a "Next Birthday" formula, so when it updates in Pipedream, it will automatically change the birthday date to the following year. This way, the Boolean checkbox will always remain unchecked until the day after the birthday and activate an automation when the formula is edited. I was wondering how you monitor birthdays or important events with reminders in Notion auto-magically and if you would make a UA-cam video on it. I’m trying not to have to do any manual updates on my side. Right now I just have a formula that shows the date in ascending order in YYYY-MM-DD format so it always appears correctly but that’s as far as I got
I was hoping to find a recurring function in your formulas that allows for scheduling tasks based on a specific day within a week. For instance, the current monthly task function has limitations. When setting a recurrence, it's tied to a specific day rather than a weekday within a week. This makes it challenging to schedule tasks like 'the third Thursday of every month.' Unfortunately, there's no option to set this in either the weekly or monthly sections. Even setting the recurrence interval to every four weeks in the weekly section can be problematic, as months with five weeks would disrupt the schedule.
Yep, the system unfortunately doesn't support recur schedules like that. We added First/Last Weekday of the Month, but we had to stop somewhere. I think I've invested about $50,000 in developer time getting this recurring tasks setup to where it is now, not counting the hours I put in myself! There's a balance in investing more time/money into this, because I expect Notion to fix it themselves at SOME point. (Though I thought it'd be done by now!) For the next few months I need to focus on product refreshes, new content, and Flylighter's launch - but when I get some downtime, one upgrade I'd like to try making to this is letting people use ChatGPT or Claude to write literally any recur schedule they want. I'm thinking I could just give people a normal text field to write something like "Third Tuesday of the Month" and then update the Pipedream script to convert that into an RRULE and apply it to the Due date.
@@ThomasFrankExplains That would be amazing! Thank you so much for being so great at this. I have been watching every video to do the templates from scratch but I am convinced to buy Second Brain not only for expedition but to support your work. You rock!
Thanks so much for this! I am quite new to notion, so this might be silly questions but here goes: if I use another language than English in notion, I will need to change the property names in the code to correspond to the actual names on the properties I use (for example "att göra" in strad of "to do"), right? And if do, I can not use the "magic button" to add code to the workflow if I would like to automate the process? Any suggestions on how to go about this if I need to make changes in the property names in the code? All help most appreciated!
Instead of changing the property names in the code, I'd recommend first setting up the properties and formulas exactly as I've done. Once that's done, you can change the property names, and the formulas that reference them will get updated. Note that this only works for property names - e.g. Due, Recur Unit, etc. For specific options - like "Day(s), Week(s)" etc in Recur Unit, you'll need to translate them both in the actual property and in the Localization Key formula. You can learn more about that here: thomasjfrank.com/notion-automated-recurring-tasks/#faqs-and-reference-guides I'm not sure about the magic button you're referring to!
Maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't this stop all my tasks from ever being completed? Or will pipedream only trigger if I have set a recur interval? Also quick hack: You can change the look of a status property to "Checkbox", so you can switch you setup without loosing them
Correct, Pipedream only triggers on checked-off tasks that have a Next Due date (which will only show if you set a Recur Interval). The automation doesn't touch tasks that are meant to be one-time. Technically, it does un-check your recurring tasks and set them to the next upcoming date. But I find that works quite well!
Anyone who is experiencing this - can you make a github issue? github.com/TomFrankly/pipedream-notion-recurring-tasks/issues Please include any screenshots or full error messages if you can. Additionally, please mention if you're working in a non-English language, or if your properties have odd names.
For me it doesn't show the next due date and it also doesn't show these tasks on the tasks page. Does someone know how this works and what I can do to fix this?
This is super helpful! It seems like "Level 3" requires the previous videos' set up to have the "next due" formula included in the task properties to pull from, correct?
Yep! But you don't need to use the previous video - if you're not using one of my templates, you can get the new formulas here: thomasjfrank.com/notion-automated-recurring-tasks/#faqs-and-reference-guides The ones in the previous video won't work, since Notion has updated to their new Formulas 2.0 language since then.
Thanks for the update. The old way wasn’t updated after some things breaking on Notions end. I hired someone to use Apple Reminders and Notes with Notion, perhaps you are interested in trying it out yourself?
Using your template exactly, but it is saying no tasks to update. I have confirmed the database is correct. UPDATE: Found looking at the pipedream filters that a due date is required on a task. Once added, it worked.
Thomas I want to add a start and end date for my recuring tasks an I am having a really troubling time with the code to get that to work. What can i do to get that code to include the start and end times for y tasks?
Did you have a litttle bug in this JS code ? For me everytime when script kick in it set type formula to "if(empty(prop("Recur Interval")), "⏳One-Time", "⏳One-Time")"
It's not a bug; the script needs to change the formula to that value. Tasks are "recurring" only when you're completing recurring tasks manually, not using this automation: thomasjfrank.com/notion-automated-recurring-tasks/#completing-recurring-tasks-manually
I've noticed the My Day checkbox in your tasks properties. Can you tell me how is it done like is there a revised page version for My Day page instead of doing synced blocks?
That's a little experiment I'm running in my personal copy of Ultimate Brain. I just added a "My Day" checkbox, and then I added some extra filters to my Today view in the Task Manager to show any task with My Day checked, along with any tasks that are actually due today.
@@ThomasFrankExplains As your little experiments is on testing. I'd like to be the beta testing person. Personally, Ultimate Brain has been a game changer for me. However, I lack updates even though I upgraded it to UB 2.0. If you have the time, can you please show it to me how that My Day checkbox works and the new changes made in My Day page? If you're not in the position to refuse, all the better. You are free to refuse anytime as I know you're a busy man. Thanks man for creating UB.
Thank you so much for this! I have a little question, I’m building a system that requires having a list of past “done” dates. So this brings me to make different tasks to keep track of those tasks being done in different due dates. I much rather use your system if there’s any solution on having a list inside the task that shows past “done” days or something like that. Any ideas?
Yep, you can do this! If you look in the Exports tab of the notion_recurring_tasks action, you can see that I export an array called completedRecurringTasks within the $return_value object. That array contains the full record of each completed task, before it is processed. So the due date is whatever it was when you checked off the task. You can use this data to create your log. Add a new step to the workflow, then choose Notion → Use Any Notion API in Node.js. From there, you can add code to build your log. I've thrown together an example code step that will add the due date as a bullet list item in the page body: github.com/TomFrankly/pipedream-notion-recurring-tasks/blob/main/update-log.mjs All you'd need to do is paste that code into the code step, then choose your Notion account from the Configure tab. It's quick and dirty, but hopefully it gets you started. If you want to learn how to customize it to your needs, here's my Notion API crash course: thomasjfrank.com/notion-api-crash-course/
Great video! I added the fields, and then copied the formula from the "Ultimate Tasks for Notion" template and am getting the error: "Due is not defined. [24,27] Localization is not defined. [172,184] Localization is not defined. [252,264]. What am I missing?
This likely means your database is missing properties that the formulas are referencing. If you're building your own system, I'd recommend watching the supplemental video here: thomasjfrank.com/notion-automated-recurring-tasks/#formulas-and-properties
I use OBS, and I record on a 4K canvas. That gives me enough resolution to work with that I can do zooms without things getting too blurry! For the camera, I use a CamLink 4K to bring in my mirrorless camera as a source over HDMI.
I'd recommend joining the waitlist for Flylighter, the app my team and I are building! We'll be adding an email-to-Notion feature soon: flylighter.com/ I'll note that you can't really capture the full HTML, since Notion can't render HTML. You'd just end up with all the HTML code on the page (I've tried this, it's chaotic). But with Flylighter, we've built a really powerful HTML parser that we'll be able to use to send the relevant details from emails to Notion.
Is there any way to allow a non-notion user to 'click' the done button (or otherwise change the status)? I'd love to allow the kiddo to check off his homework/project tasks without needing a sign-in. Like I can publish the page and the database so that they are visible to people with the link, but they can't interact with the buttons/boxes =/
Yes - you can publish the database, and then go back to the Share tab of that Share menu. Once it's published, there will be a new permission group called "Anyone with the Published Link". If you set that to Can Edit, they'll be able to make edits!
You might have an older edition that doesn't include Next Due API. You can use this guide to add it: thomasjfrank.com/notion-automated-recurring-tasks/#formulas-and-properties
@@ThomasFrankExplains Thank you,Thomas.I tried it with Advanced Reccuring Task Dates(2023) and it works. Btw,I would like to thank you(and your team) for your creative work about productivity and Notion a other themes,I appreciate your videos very much since 2020,when I started to watch them.
Came across notion years ago but didn't fully go into it for whatever the reason but coming back for the need an organization in my life since I have gotten SOO much more busy, led me straight back to Notion. Must say I appreciate this video since it hit the nail on the head with what I was looking for, though still looking at other avenues. The reoccurring task was a NEED for me and seeing this video made me explode with excitement xD. Well done on the video and information given and look forward to seeing more videos (subscribed immediately). Question: Unless I missed something but is there a way to have the Kanban status update itself to Done, once the checkbox for a task is ticked? I checked a bunch of boxes last night but forgot to adjust the status so the automation didn't go through. EDIT: I watched the video again so I made sure to use the status instead of the checkbox but for some reason PipeDream gave an error about 2 times and the dates of the task got adjusted by 4 years instead of 1 year.
The automation can't set your Status to Done, as it's intended to do the opposite. Sorry about that! Personally, I'm moving towards only using Kanban Status, and totally getting rid of the Done checkbox. Notion now lets you render Status properties as checkboxes, so it's finally time to stop having two different properties for task status. I'll be covering this in one of my next two videos. As for the Pipedream error, feel free to open an issue here: github.com/TomFrankly/pipedream-notion-recurring-tasks/issues If Pipedream adjusted the task date incorrectly, it's likely an issue with your setup in Notion. All Pipedream does here is read the date displayed in Next Due, and set the Due date to that date.
I'm guessing you aren't using one of my templates if you're missing that property - if that's the case, see this FAQ on adding it: thomasjfrank.com/notion-automated-recurring-tasks/#formulas-and-properties
Unfortunately no; my developer Martin and I have tried to support time every which way. Due to limitations of the Notion API and the existance of Daylights Savings Time, it just isn't possible to support times without the risk of tasks getting set to an inaccurate time, or even the wrong day. Personally, I create Google Calendar events for anything that's recurring and also has a specific time. Hope that helps!
You can probably do it with ChatGPT or Claude, but you'll need to pay for API credits. If you want to do it for free, you'd probably need to look at self-hosting an open-source LLM model. But if you don't have a good GPU, it's gonna be sloooooow
Thomas you are such an amazing man, smart, handsome and recursive, however, you speak waay to fast, you need to practice pauses, because even I can notice you're quite excited about the amazing knowledge you have the kindness to share us, it can be overwhelming if you don't take small pause when you're talking. I say this with all the due respect you deserve. I hope you don't get me wrong. Thank you once again for sharing this amazing content!!!
When i put 1 day and include all the weekdays in you template it propose me with a next due date in 1998. I think the formulas is having a stroke there
Hmm, I can't replicate that. I tried Recur Interval of 1, Recur Unit of Days, and selected all the weekdays. Also tried with the weekend days selected as well. Mind making a github issue with more detail? github.com/TomFrankly/pipedream-notion-recurring-tasks/issues
@@ThomasFrankExplainsI asked another time via support. Its more likely to happen due to Notion calendar being a thing which would require such a feature for using it as a main calendar.
@AlvaroRC96 if there's anything I know for sure, it's that Notion has a lot of talented engineers and a lot of folks who care deeply for what the community wants. So I have to imagine there's a technical reason why they haven't implemented this natively. It frustrates me as much as the next person, to be sure. But now that I have my own experience programming, I know first-hand how a seemingly simple feature can spawn a billion little papercuts, edge cases, etc. For instance, my team and I spent literal weeks of development time trying to support task times in this video's automation - only to discover that it's not possible, due to stupid details around Daylight Savings Time. That's the kind of discovery that takes a long time to get to, and is also hard to satisfactorily explain to users. I'd imagine Notion is dealing with that on an even larger scale...
Excellent Tutorial as a developer myself, I loved your code. But I think there is a tiny little bug here where you defined the formula for recurring tasks. if not can you explain ? [config.type.name]: { formula: { expression: `if(empty(prop("Recur Interval")), "⏳One-Time", "⏳One-Time")`, }, }, must be replaced with that right ? : [config.type.name]: { formula: { expression: `if(empty(prop("Recur Interval")), "⏳One-Time", "🔄Recurring")`, }, },
That's there on purpose. The Type formula should only ever mark a task as "Recurring" if someone is using the manual method from Level 2 - just moving the Due date. This formula just helps prevent confusion if someone checks Done on their task, but doesn't have the Pipedream automation set up. In that case, the task would never appear in their to-do list again. Once someone is using the Pipedream automation, we want the task to always be "One-Time" no matter what.
@@mednoun8609 yeah, I don't like that we have that property at all to be honest. It's there because I included it all the way back in 2019, and I have to make sure my automations work for people who have very old versions of the templates. In future versions of my templates, I'm hoping to simply remove that property. But in old templates, it's all over the filters in every database view - and those can't be updated remotely.
@@ThomasFrankExplains So after testing the workflow, the pipedream AI automatically changes the "Type" property to always be configured as "One-Time". However, that is the only change that occurs. The checkbox for the "done" property does not reset to "unchecked" and the dates do not automatically reset. please help however you can, accidentally stayed up all night watching all your videos and going through code (im a medical student not CS major haha) trying to understand and fix the issue.
THIS VIDEO IS NOW OBSOLETE! Notion launched native recurring task features - here's a new video all about them! ua-cam.com/video/xYu4bFcC9v4/v-deo.html
A big disadvantage of that approach is that we lose a record of all the recurring tasks we did in the past, since we are always recycling them for next time. If only Notion would make the "Repeat" option of templates a little bit more capable and customizable...
I was surprised by your comment so I checked the Completed table in the Ultimate Brain Task Manager and you are right. It does list what recurring tasks I completed today, but not past days completed recurring tasks.
The email generated by Pipedream will show what was processed each day though.
I think that I wrote it already but have to do it one more time: Frank, you're crazy with amount of knowledge you're giving for free. I feel bad that I didn't buy your ultimate brain product (I just don't have usecase for it) but hopefully will but it just because you did so much for my learning curve in Notion 👍
Just spent the past two days trying to figure out recurring tasks in Notion with your previous video and ended up back with todoist cause it was so complicated 😂 and now there's a new video. Thank you. I'm not sure if I'll use it for now but maybe one day!
Can't blame you! I actually made this automation a while back, but wasn't sure if I should make a full video on it until I realized that a ton of people in our customer community really liked having automated recurring tasks right in Notion. So I decided to polish up the workflow a bit and finally make an updated video.
@@ThomasFrankExplains Thank you so much for all of your hard work and commitment to providing such amazing value! I've watched you for years regarding productivity and now you're also talking more about programming which I'm trying to learn so that's amazing! Thank you so much for such great content! All the best to you and your team as you delve into designing more products and programs.
I like todoist but they lock way too many basic task managment features behind a paywall. Stuff like task reminders and calendar view are basic features, they should not charge a premium for that. Also their logo looks like it was designed by a 5th grader, a stack of checkmarks that look stretched to the wrong aspect ratio.
@@jadonharper1493 It's true that many features are locked behind a paywall but it's definitely convenient especially with the web and mobile apps. Cross platform access is important for task management. On the other hand I've started exploring Tana for note taking and even some tasks and I'm really enjoying it. The fields in supertags are like database fields in Notion but much easier and more intuitive for me. You can check them out by introducing yourself on their slack channel for early access if interested.
I've been using this since the video a few years ago! Such an amazing way to do it, you guys hit the ball out of the park
Thomas- maybe you could alter your script to make a duplicate instead of just unchecking or resetting the status of the task. That way, this could be more useful for business needs than the requirement of seeing historically completed items. I'm trying to build this myself now.
Would this be useful for others?
Thank you so, so, so much for this...I migrated over from Asana and really needed this functionality. I'm no coder, but I managed to get this to work in another template I purchased with this video and the supplemental videos about doing this from scratch. THANK YOU!
Love the thumbnail 😅
Error - Error: Your target database is missing the "Next Due API" property. This workflow requires this to function, and it must be a formula-type property. If you have renamed it in your database, please click "Refresh Fields" at the bottom of the Configure tab above, then set the "Next Due API Property" field manually. If your database does not contain this property, please use one of the templates listed in the "Compatibility" section in the instructions above.
This is the error message, but I don't see any detail on anything you've tried to solve the problem - does your database have that Next Due API property?
If you've checked that and it is there, you can open an issue here: github.com/TomFrankly/pipedream-notion-recurring-tasks/issues
I did not update the formulas to 2.0. Now it works perfect, thnx for answering my question Thomas. I bought years ago your Ultimate Brain and Creators Compagnion and they work great, good software, good job!!
Hey Thomas!
With the new Notion features that allow formulas for recurring tasks, are you going to recreate the 2nd brain properties to allow the flow to work independent of PipeDream?
You never cease to impress me Thomas. Thank you so much for the work that you do!
Great stuff as always. I'll dig into this again. Since I began using Notion for tasks, my take on recurring tasks is not to deal with them, even though 90% of my tasks are recurring. Instead of one click to complete and change the date of a task as in most systems, I simply click on the date, then click on the new date. 2 clicks instead of 1 and it requires no work. An extra bonus is how easy it is to change the recurrence, which happens often.
Yep! That's the *true* simplest way to do it. The first video I ever made on this channel was most about this method, with the only upgrade being the formula that helps calculate the next due date just to take that mental burden off the user.
Thanks, Thomas! I love Ultimate Tasks and use it every day. Question about recurring task intervals. At work, I have a lot of meetings set up in Outlook that recur monthly at a cadence like "2nd Tuesday of the month." Is there a way to set a recurring task in Ultimate Tasks with this same schedule?
I think you can also do this automation for level 3 if you’re on Apple by leveraging shortcuts to filter in the same way you do grab the date in your next due property and then update the actual date with the date from your formula. Both are really cool though and it’s really cool to come up with innovative solutions to this whilst Notion catch up!
I believe you can, yes! It just makes the workflow reliant on your device being on and connected to the internet, which isn't guaranteed. I'm also not totally sure if you can have it run on a schedule, instead of needing you to manually run it - though maybe that is possible.
@@ThomasFrankExplains Yeah I believe you’re right about the internet connection point - I tend to use a spare iPad that I leave at home and use shortcut automations to get it to run on a schedule. If you exclusively use iOS/iPadOS you can actually get it to run every time you close Notion, but where this isn’t as viable is if you’re on MacOS, hence switching to a run at X O’Clock every day similar to your automation
I have an honest question. Do your Repeating Database Templates create a brand new page every single time? If so, is that a lot of unnecessary digital clutter because for one task, for example, checking of my finances every Thursday, I will have 52 finance pages for my database.
Does anyone happen to know why Notion developers have yet to address this matter? It appears to be one of the most eagerly awaited features for quite a considerable period. 🙂
I have no idea, but my suspicions are:
1. They're currently more focused on AI stuff, given their recent press releases
2. It's probably more technically difficult than we think
I know #2 is the case for another hyper-requested Notion featured (scoped permissions in databases), so maybe it's the case here.
Now that I'm a bit of a programmer myself, I'm very used to the yak-shaving that often comes with trying to build seemingly simple features.
After a year of failing, I just created a project with 365 tasks. It would be nice if they had a duplicate page on buttons but they don't so I just filter by the task name "Tem", then date formula properties to filter by the dates I want like weekday, month, date, workday. I duplicate those task and use buttons to filter duplicates by created time from original "Tem", move to a new project and edit properties. So far it's not more than 5 to 10 min for each grouped recurring task. I also have a way to have multiple dates on one task but I really like the checkbox feature so I opted out. I hope this helps ☺️.
When I run this with Pipeline the "Type" property formula changes and no longer has "Recurring" in the formula. It changes from "if(empty(prop("Recur Interval")), "⏳One-Time", "🔁 Recurring")" to "if(empty(prop("Recur Interval")), "⏳One-Time", "⏳One-Time")"
🙌🏾 thanks for sharing.
How does it work with specific times? Would it work if I'm collaborating with someone in a different time zone? Do they see the same moment in time or does it translate into their time zone with same nominal time? Time zones in Notion hurt my brain.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work with times. We tried really hard to make this work, but the limitations of the Notion API make it pretty much impossible.
This is mostly due to Daylight Savings Time - because we have to work with the API, there are situations where the next due date would be across the line that divides standard time and daylight savings time. But there are literally thousands of DST rules all around the word, so we can't compensate for this - and it could lead to times becoming inaccurate.
Is the main difference between the level 3 method and your old video ease of setup? I already set it up when that vid came out and it still works like a dream, so I'm wondering if I should keep using that or switch to this new version.
This is a nice tutorial, I tried out your solution and got to at least update my Done tasks to become undone and move their date, Is the intention to add the tasks in the Inbox view? I try and create them there, set the recurrence and then complete them as done ahead of time, but when I test the API, the automation fails to change it to the next due date. I've tried with weekly and with dailies. (This was me trying on the free template open to all)
I admire all the great coding and automation you've done here, but unfortunately its still too clunky to significantly move the needle on my productivity. I hope that Notion releases some better native support for this in the future. But thanks for all the hard work you poured into this 👍
Hello! I tried the the "Level 3", but it screw all the database. All recurred tasks turn into "One-time". How can I fix it?
Hi, I just set up this system and realized, it works well with dates but ignores a specific time. Is there some simple hack, or all the formulas and codes would have to be changed?
Thanks for publishing the code to github. Was able to make it work with my Second Brain tasks. Added required fields, updated pipe's variables to use those, and finally can use only Notion and abandon Asana for recurring tasks.
Hey Thomas!
I was wondering if you have any insight into whether Notion will allow automation workflows to reference formulas or get more granular with specifics?
For example, I had an idea this morning involving a recurring task. I thought of creating a Boolean checkbox that checks if a "Birthday" date property is in the past. If true, it would check a checkbox property.
Using this in conjunction with your recurring task workflow, I believe I could use that checkbox to represent a "done" status. This would update a "Next Birthday" formula, so when it updates in Pipedream, it will automatically change the birthday date to the following year. This way, the Boolean checkbox will always remain unchecked until the day after the birthday and activate an automation when the formula is edited.
I was wondering how you monitor birthdays or important events with reminders in Notion auto-magically and if you would make a UA-cam video on it. I’m trying not to have to do any manual updates on my side. Right now I just have a formula that shows the date in ascending order in YYYY-MM-DD format so it always appears correctly but that’s as far as I got
I was hoping to find a recurring function in your formulas that allows for scheduling tasks based on a specific day within a week. For instance, the current monthly task function has limitations. When setting a recurrence, it's tied to a specific day rather than a weekday within a week. This makes it challenging to schedule tasks like 'the third Thursday of every month.' Unfortunately, there's no option to set this in either the weekly or monthly sections. Even setting the recurrence interval to every four weeks in the weekly section can be problematic, as months with five weeks would disrupt the schedule.
Yep, the system unfortunately doesn't support recur schedules like that. We added First/Last Weekday of the Month, but we had to stop somewhere. I think I've invested about $50,000 in developer time getting this recurring tasks setup to where it is now, not counting the hours I put in myself!
There's a balance in investing more time/money into this, because I expect Notion to fix it themselves at SOME point. (Though I thought it'd be done by now!) For the next few months I need to focus on product refreshes, new content, and Flylighter's launch - but when I get some downtime, one upgrade I'd like to try making to this is letting people use ChatGPT or Claude to write literally any recur schedule they want.
I'm thinking I could just give people a normal text field to write something like "Third Tuesday of the Month" and then update the Pipedream script to convert that into an RRULE and apply it to the Due date.
@@ThomasFrankExplains That would be amazing! Thank you so much for being so great at this. I have been watching every video to do the templates from scratch but I am convinced to buy Second Brain not only for expedition but to support your work. You rock!
Thanks so much for this! I am quite new to notion, so this might be silly questions but here goes: if I use another language than English in notion, I will need to change the property names in the code to correspond to the actual names on the properties I use (for example "att göra" in strad of "to do"), right? And if do, I can not use the "magic button" to add code to the workflow if I would like to automate the process? Any suggestions on how to go about this if I need to make changes in the property names in the code? All help most appreciated!
Instead of changing the property names in the code, I'd recommend first setting up the properties and formulas exactly as I've done. Once that's done, you can change the property names, and the formulas that reference them will get updated.
Note that this only works for property names - e.g. Due, Recur Unit, etc.
For specific options - like "Day(s), Week(s)" etc in Recur Unit, you'll need to translate them both in the actual property and in the Localization Key formula. You can learn more about that here: thomasjfrank.com/notion-automated-recurring-tasks/#faqs-and-reference-guides
I'm not sure about the magic button you're referring to!
I get all kinds of errors when pasting the Next Due code. Missing “, if argument errors and more.
Is there any way to add a tag in notion pages, not in the database, just simple tag while i am writing some text? 😢
Maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't this stop all my tasks from ever being completed? Or will pipedream only trigger if I have set a recur interval? Also quick hack: You can change the look of a status property to "Checkbox", so you can switch you setup without loosing them
Correct, Pipedream only triggers on checked-off tasks that have a Next Due date (which will only show if you set a Recur Interval). The automation doesn't touch tasks that are meant to be one-time.
Technically, it does un-check your recurring tasks and set them to the next upcoming date. But I find that works quite well!
When i try this with "Done" Checkbox property I get Syntax error "Unexpected token 'A', "April 22, 2024" is not valid JSON" Amy thoughts?
I can't use "Status" at all, when I try with checkbox become the same message 🤔
@@thenotionexperience Same, Status was not an option.
have the same problem :(
Anyone who is experiencing this - can you make a github issue? github.com/TomFrankly/pipedream-notion-recurring-tasks/issues
Please include any screenshots or full error messages if you can. Additionally, please mention if you're working in a non-English language, or if your properties have odd names.
@@ThomasFrankExplains sure, thanks a lot
Hello, now pipe is asking for Next Due API Property and UTC Offset Property, can someone help me with that xS
SAME
For me it doesn't show the next due date and it also doesn't show these tasks on the tasks page. Does someone know how this works and what I can do to fix this?
This is super helpful! It seems like "Level 3" requires the previous videos' set up to have the "next due" formula included in the task properties to pull from, correct?
Yep! But you don't need to use the previous video - if you're not using one of my templates, you can get the new formulas here: thomasjfrank.com/notion-automated-recurring-tasks/#faqs-and-reference-guides
The ones in the previous video won't work, since Notion has updated to their new Formulas 2.0 language since then.
Thanks for the update. The old way wasn’t updated after some things breaking on Notions end. I hired someone to use Apple Reminders and Notes with Notion, perhaps you are interested in trying it out yourself?
How are you connecting Reminders and Notion? Are you using a Shortcut? Last I checked, Reminders didn't have a publically available API.
@@ThomasFrankExplains Yeah using a shortcut. For Reminders there is Eventkit, for notes there is nothing other than shortcut actions
Using your template exactly, but it is saying no tasks to update. I have confirmed the database is correct. UPDATE: Found looking at the pipedream filters that a due date is required on a task. Once added, it worked.
Thomas I want to add a start and end date for my recuring tasks an I am having a really troubling time with the code to get that to work. What can i do to get that code to include the start and end times for y tasks?
Did you have a litttle bug in this JS code ? For me everytime when script kick in it set type formula to "if(empty(prop("Recur Interval")), "⏳One-Time", "⏳One-Time")"
It's not a bug; the script needs to change the formula to that value. Tasks are "recurring" only when you're completing recurring tasks manually, not using this automation: thomasjfrank.com/notion-automated-recurring-tasks/#completing-recurring-tasks-manually
I've noticed the My Day checkbox in your tasks properties. Can you tell me how is it done like is there a revised page version for My Day page instead of doing synced blocks?
That's a little experiment I'm running in my personal copy of Ultimate Brain. I just added a "My Day" checkbox, and then I added some extra filters to my Today view in the Task Manager to show any task with My Day checked, along with any tasks that are actually due today.
@@ThomasFrankExplains As your little experiments is on testing. I'd like to be the beta testing person. Personally, Ultimate Brain has been a game changer for me. However, I lack updates even though I upgraded it to UB 2.0. If you have the time, can you please show it to me how that My Day checkbox works and the new changes made in My Day page? If you're not in the position to refuse, all the better. You are free to refuse anytime as I know you're a busy man. Thanks man for creating UB.
why i set a interval date but the task seems not to change into recurring mode?
Thank you so much for this! I have a little question, I’m building a system that requires having a list of past “done” dates. So this brings me to make different tasks to keep track of those tasks being done in different due dates. I much rather use your system if there’s any solution on having a list inside the task that shows past “done” days or something like that. Any ideas?
Yep, you can do this!
If you look in the Exports tab of the notion_recurring_tasks action, you can see that I export an array called completedRecurringTasks within the $return_value object. That array contains the full record of each completed task, before it is processed. So the due date is whatever it was when you checked off the task.
You can use this data to create your log. Add a new step to the workflow, then choose Notion → Use Any Notion API in Node.js.
From there, you can add code to build your log. I've thrown together an example code step that will add the due date as a bullet list item in the page body: github.com/TomFrankly/pipedream-notion-recurring-tasks/blob/main/update-log.mjs
All you'd need to do is paste that code into the code step, then choose your Notion account from the Configure tab.
It's quick and dirty, but hopefully it gets you started. If you want to learn how to customize it to your needs, here's my Notion API crash course: thomasjfrank.com/notion-api-crash-course/
@@ThomasFrankExplains omg thank you!!
why i can't use the ultimate task with notion calendar ? and thanks for this great templates and explanations
Thank you so much for your effort and dedication
Great video! I added the fields, and then copied the formula from the "Ultimate Tasks for Notion" template and am getting the error: "Due is not defined. [24,27] Localization is not defined. [172,184] Localization is not defined. [252,264]. What am I missing?
This likely means your database is missing properties that the formulas are referencing. If you're building your own system, I'd recommend watching the supplemental video here: thomasjfrank.com/notion-automated-recurring-tasks/#formulas-and-properties
@@ThomasFrankExplains Thank you!
Thanks! What screen recording do you use to record highquality video without destroying it when zoomed?
I use OBS, and I record on a 4K canvas. That gives me enough resolution to work with that I can do zooms without things getting too blurry!
For the camera, I use a CamLink 4K to bring in my mirrorless camera as a source over HDMI.
@@ThomasFrankExplains Thanks! How to get into 4k canvas?
Excellent. Do you have anything similar for emailing and capturing full html of emails into notion?
I'd recommend joining the waitlist for Flylighter, the app my team and I are building! We'll be adding an email-to-Notion feature soon: flylighter.com/
I'll note that you can't really capture the full HTML, since Notion can't render HTML. You'd just end up with all the HTML code on the page (I've tried this, it's chaotic). But with Flylighter, we've built a really powerful HTML parser that we'll be able to use to send the relevant details from emails to Notion.
@@ThomasFrankExplains How about a PDF copy of the email, and the .eml as an attachment?
Is there any way to allow a non-notion user to 'click' the done button (or otherwise change the status)? I'd love to allow the kiddo to check off his homework/project tasks without needing a sign-in. Like I can publish the page and the database so that they are visible to people with the link, but they can't interact with the buttons/boxes =/
Yes - you can publish the database, and then go back to the Share tab of that Share menu. Once it's published, there will be a new permission group called "Anyone with the Published Link". If you set that to Can Edit, they'll be able to make edits!
There is showing just "Done" property. no kanban property is showing. How to fix it? I m using your ultimate brain template.
how to centect calendar view on Notion with tasks and projects and notes
Thank you so much 🙏👍 Now we have it.. Notion and recurring tasks ✌
Can this work with a task template I've created or with you ultimate task template?
Hello,I have one problem,I receive message,that my database doesn't have Next due API formula property,although I have ultimate tasks in notion.
You might have an older edition that doesn't include Next Due API. You can use this guide to add it: thomasjfrank.com/notion-automated-recurring-tasks/#formulas-and-properties
@@ThomasFrankExplains Thank you,Thomas.I tried it with Advanced Reccuring Task Dates(2023) and it works.
Btw,I would like to thank you(and your team) for your creative work about productivity and Notion a other themes,I appreciate your videos very much since 2020,when I started to watch them.
@@ThomasFrankExplains is there an update for people who previously purchased or a discount on the newest version?
I am getting an typeError when I`m setting the pipedream up
Came across notion years ago but didn't fully go into it for whatever the reason but coming back for the need an organization in my life since I have gotten SOO much more busy, led me straight back to Notion. Must say I appreciate this video since it hit the nail on the head with what I was looking for, though still looking at other avenues. The reoccurring task was a NEED for me and seeing this video made me explode with excitement xD. Well done on the video and information given and look forward to seeing more videos (subscribed immediately).
Question:
Unless I missed something but is there a way to have the Kanban status update itself to Done, once the checkbox for a task is ticked? I checked a bunch of boxes last night but forgot to adjust the status so the automation didn't go through.
EDIT: I watched the video again so I made sure to use the status instead of the checkbox but for some reason PipeDream gave an error about 2 times and the dates of the task got adjusted by 4 years instead of 1 year.
The automation can't set your Status to Done, as it's intended to do the opposite. Sorry about that! Personally, I'm moving towards only using Kanban Status, and totally getting rid of the Done checkbox. Notion now lets you render Status properties as checkboxes, so it's finally time to stop having two different properties for task status. I'll be covering this in one of my next two videos.
As for the Pipedream error, feel free to open an issue here: github.com/TomFrankly/pipedream-notion-recurring-tasks/issues
If Pipedream adjusted the task date incorrectly, it's likely an issue with your setup in Notion. All Pipedream does here is read the date displayed in Next Due, and set the Due date to that date.
@@ThomasFrankExplains Works perfectly now, thanks. Appreciate the videos
How can I fill in the API, without API I cannot close the Pipedream trigger
I'm guessing you aren't using one of my templates if you're missing that property - if that's the case, see this FAQ on adding it: thomasjfrank.com/notion-automated-recurring-tasks/#formulas-and-properties
Is there anyway to keep a time with the repeat? That’s the only thing stopping me using this
Unfortunately no; my developer Martin and I have tried to support time every which way. Due to limitations of the Notion API and the existance of Daylights Savings Time, it just isn't possible to support times without the risk of tasks getting set to an inaccurate time, or even the wrong day.
Personally, I create Google Calendar events for anything that's recurring and also has a specific time. Hope that helps!
@@ThomasFrankExplains thank you so much for coming back to me and explaining. Love your work 😊
This should be by default in Notion although I liked the Groundhog Day vibes in the thumbnail.
How do we know if tasks in the past were actually done? Where is the history? If they skip days... do we know?
Hi
Do you suggest any Free AI tool which can translate pdf 30 mb+ book from current language to any other language? Please reply. Thnx
You can probably do it with ChatGPT or Claude, but you'll need to pay for API credits. If you want to do it for free, you'd probably need to look at self-hosting an open-source LLM model. But if you don't have a good GPU, it's gonna be sloooooow
Thomas you are such an amazing man, smart, handsome and recursive, however, you speak waay to fast, you need to practice pauses, because even I can notice you're quite excited about the amazing knowledge you have the kindness to share us, it can be overwhelming if you don't take small pause when you're talking. I say this with all the due respect you deserve. I hope you don't get me wrong. Thank you once again for sharing this amazing content!!!
15:40 What's in the Mom and Thomas >ㅁ
When i put 1 day and include all the weekdays in you template it propose me with a next due date in 1998. I think the formulas is having a stroke there
Hmm, I can't replicate that. I tried Recur Interval of 1, Recur Unit of Days, and selected all the weekdays. Also tried with the weekend days selected as well. Mind making a github issue with more detail? github.com/TomFrankly/pipedream-notion-recurring-tasks/issues
So many errors in the formulas and I'm not smart enough to figure it out. Guess it's back to Level 1 for me.
Notion, please, do something. Just allow to copy a property from a formula in automations.
Yep, 100% agree. In the mean time, this at least makes things pretty seamless once it's set up.
@@ThomasFrankExplainsI asked another time via support. Its more likely to happen due to Notion calendar being a thing which would require such a feature for using it as a main calendar.
@AlvaroRC96 if there's anything I know for sure, it's that Notion has a lot of talented engineers and a lot of folks who care deeply for what the community wants. So I have to imagine there's a technical reason why they haven't implemented this natively.
It frustrates me as much as the next person, to be sure. But now that I have my own experience programming, I know first-hand how a seemingly simple feature can spawn a billion little papercuts, edge cases, etc. For instance, my team and I spent literal weeks of development time trying to support task times in this video's automation - only to discover that it's not possible, due to stupid details around Daylight Savings Time. That's the kind of discovery that takes a long time to get to, and is also hard to satisfactorily explain to users. I'd imagine Notion is dealing with that on an even larger scale...
Great video, but its too complicated to me hahahaha Notion should have recurring tasks built-in.
Keep your eyes peeled - the features they just launched today will enable this! I'll be doing a stream on Monday about it.
We did not deserve you!
Excellent Tutorial as a developer myself, I loved your code. But I think there is a tiny little bug here where you defined the formula for recurring tasks. if not can you explain ?
[config.type.name]: {
formula: {
expression: `if(empty(prop("Recur Interval")), "⏳One-Time", "⏳One-Time")`,
},
},
must be replaced with that right ? :
[config.type.name]: {
formula: {
expression: `if(empty(prop("Recur Interval")), "⏳One-Time", "🔄Recurring")`,
},
},
That's there on purpose. The Type formula should only ever mark a task as "Recurring" if someone is using the manual method from Level 2 - just moving the Due date. This formula just helps prevent confusion if someone checks Done on their task, but doesn't have the Pipedream automation set up. In that case, the task would never appear in their to-do list again.
Once someone is using the Pipedream automation, we want the task to always be "One-Time" no matter what.
@@ThomasFrankExplains I understand would be better to return just "One-Time" then to avoid confusion.
Time to close that MR then)
@@mednoun8609 yeah, I don't like that we have that property at all to be honest. It's there because I included it all the way back in 2019, and I have to make sure my automations work for people who have very old versions of the templates.
In future versions of my templates, I'm hoping to simply remove that property. But in old templates, it's all over the filters in every database view - and those can't be updated remotely.
@@ThomasFrankExplains So after testing the workflow, the pipedream AI automatically changes the "Type" property to always be configured as "One-Time". However, that is the only change that occurs. The checkbox for the "done" property does not reset to "unchecked" and the dates do not automatically reset. please help however you can, accidentally stayed up all night watching all your videos and going through code (im a medical student not CS major haha) trying to understand and fix the issue.