Step-by-step walkthroughs of common tickler workflows, following David Allen’s tickler-file methodology. A tickler is a dormant reminder that wakes on a configured date — one-shot or recurring. On wake day the tickler surfaces in the Inbox, the user reviews the pre-filled acceptance form, adjusts for today’s context, and accepts to spawn a fully-clarified task. These guides cover the most frequent tickler journeys end to end.

Steps

  1. I capture a task with name “Weekly review”
  2. I navigate to the clarify screen
  3. I select “Tickler” as the task kind
  4. I set the wake schedule to recurring “FREQ=WEEKLY;BYDAY=FR” starting “2025-07-11”
  5. I set the template target kind to “Todo”
  6. I set the template effort to “Medium”
  7. I add context “Office”
  8. I submit the clarify form
  9. the tickler list should contain task with
  10. I navigate to the tickler screen
  11. I should see a tickler row for “Weekly review” with schedule “Every Friday”
  12. I capture a task with name “Renew passport”
  13. I navigate to the clarify screen
  14. I select “Tickler” as the task kind
  15. I set the wake schedule to once “2025-10-01”
  16. I set the template target kind to “Todo”
  17. I set the template effort to “Small”
  18. I submit the clarify form
  19. the tickler list should contain task with
  20. the inbox should contain no tasks
  21. a task exists with name “Follow up on proposal” in Stuff state
  22. I navigate to the clarify screen
  23. I select “Tickler” as the task kind
  24. I set the wake schedule to once “2025-08-15”
  25. I set the template target kind to “Todo”
  26. I set the template effort to “Medium”
  27. I add context “Office”
  28. I submit the clarify form
  29. the inbox should contain no tasks
  30. I navigate to the tickler screen
  31. I should see a tickler row for “Follow up on proposal”
  32. the clock is set to “2025-07-11T09:00:00”
  33. a task exists with name “Weekly review” in Tickler state with wakeSchedule recurring “FREQ=WEEKLY;BYDAY=FR” starting “2025-07-11”
  34. the tickler has template with name “Conduct weekly review”, targetKind “Todo”, effort “Medium”
  35. I navigate to the clarify screen
  36. the current inbox item is tickler “Weekly review”
  37. I add context “Office”
  38. I tap the accept button
  39. the next list should contain tasks with
  40. the task “Weekly review” should not be marked as completed
  41. a task exists with name “Check smoke detectors” in Tickler state with wakeSchedule once “2025-10-01”
  42. the tickler has template with name “Test all smoke detectors”, targetKind “Todo”, effort “Small”
  43. I navigate to the tickler screen
  44. I tap on tickler “Check smoke detectors” to open editor
  45. I change the wake schedule to recurring “FREQ=MONTHLY;BYMONTHDAY=1” starting “2025-10-01”
  46. I change the template name to “Test and replace smoke detector batteries”
  47. I change the template effort to “Medium”
  48. the tickler template should show name “Test and replace smoke detector batteries”
  49. the tickler template should show effort “Medium”
  50. I navigate to the tickler screen
  51. I should see a tickler row for “Check smoke detectors” with schedule “Monthly on the 1st”