todoist
Todoist — Triage the Inbox by the 5-Minute Rule
James keeps a single flat Todoist inbox (no projects, no due dates) as his capture pile. Todoist is capture + a scratchpad for tiny check-offs only — it is not where real work lives. His pipeline:
Capture (Todoist) → Organize (Obsidian inbox) → Process (schedule onto Calendar / Deep Work) → Execute.
So when run, sort the Todoist inbox by effort, not by idea-vs-errand:
- Quick check-off (≤5 min) — a tiny thing he just ticks off (pay a bill, order X, a one-line reply, a quick lookup). Leave it in Todoist; he executes these directly there.
- Everything else (>5 min / needs real time, thought, building, or scheduling) — task, idea, reference, or someday item alike. Capture it into the Obsidian
_inbox(typed + labeled) and complete it in Todoist. He wants substantial work "out and captured, ready to execute in the future" — later pulled onto the calendar into a Deep Work block, usually next-day or later.
The goal of a run: Todoist ends empty or holding only quick check-offs; everything substantial is in the Obsidian inbox, tagged and ready to schedule.
The Todoist MCP tools are deferred. Load them with ToolSearch (e.g. select:mcp__todoist__find-tasks,mcp__todoist__complete-tasks,mcp__todoist__reschedule-tasks). Use reschedule-tasks for any date move, never update-tasks (it destroys recurrence).
Obsidian capture target: /Users/james/Vaults/zettelkasten/_inbox/Captured from Todoist - <YYYY-MM-DD>.md (today's date). Append if it already exists for today; create it if not.