Projects & Stages

Hierarchical Organization

Set uses a three-level hierarchy to help you organize complex work:

Projects → Stages → Tasks

Projects

Projects are high-level containers for related work. They represent your big goals or ongoing initiatives.

Examples

• “Write Novel” (creative work)
• “Launch Website” (business goal)
• “Learn Spanish” (personal development)
• “Home Renovation” (life project)

Stages

Stages are phases within projects. They help you break down large projects into manageable milestones.

Example: “Write Novel”

• Stage 1: “Outline & Planning”
• Stage 2: “Chapter 1-5”
• Stage 3: “Chapter 6-10”
• Stage 4: “Editing & Revisions”

Stage Targeting

Tap a stage’s header to select it as the add target: the + button takes on the stage’s color and every new task lands in that stage. Tap the header again, or leave the project, to go back to normal.

You can also drag the + button straight into a stage’s task list to drop a new task at an exact position. A dotted line with a plus shows exactly where it will land.

Project Statistics

Each project shows:

• Total Tasks: How many tasks are in this project
• Completed Tasks: Your progress through the project
• Total Time: Estimated time to complete all remaining tasks
• Time Spent: Actual time you’ve invested in the project

Toolbar Actions

Access project management options from the ⋯ (ellipsis) button in the toolbar.

Add Task

Create a new task within the current project or stage.

Add Stage

Add a new stage to organize tasks within a project. Each stage can have its own name and color.

Scan Tasks (Pro)

Photograph or import a list and Set turns it into tasks, parsing durations, dates, and times before you review and add them to this project. See the Scan Tasks documentation.

Sort Tasks

Run Sort Mode over the project’s tasks: set stage, priority, duration, and date one decision at a time with big tap targets and nothing else on screen.

Edit Mode

Toggle edit mode to modify or delete projects, stages, and tasks. When active, pencil icons appear next to each item. Tap a pencil icon to:

• Projects: Edit name, icon, color, or delete. See Deleting a Project below, because a delete can reach outside Set
• Stages: Edit name, color, or delete
• Tasks: Edit task details or delete

Reorder Stages

Enter stage reorder mode to rearrange stages within a project. When activated:

• All stages automatically collapse
• Tap the up and down buttons to the right of the task card to reorder them
• Tap the reorder stages icon (top right) to exit when finished, or the X button (bottom Right)

On Mac: you don’t need the mode at all. Right-click a stage header for Edit Stage, Move Up, Move Down and Delete Stage, so renaming and reordering no longer mean hunting for a long press or a separate mode.

Select Mode

Select multiple tasks to perform bulk actions. See the Select Mode documentation for details.

Collapse All / Expand All

Toggle all stages between collapsed and expanded:

• Collapse All: Hide all tasks to see only stage names
• Expand All: Show all tasks in every stage

Log Completed Tasks

Archive completed tasks while preserving them for statistics. Choose from:

• Project Only: Log completed tasks from the current project
• All Completed: Log all completed tasks across all projects

You can also log a single task without clearing the whole batch: swipe a finished task on iPhone and iPad, or right-click it and choose Log Task on Mac.

Export

Export the project as a PDF, Markdown, or Rich Text file, or email it. See Exporting a Project below.

Show/Hide Completed

Toggle visibility of completed tasks within the project.

Adding Projects and Stages

• Long-press the + button on the Projects tab to create a new project.
• Inside a project, long-press it to add a new stage.
• Create a whole project at once by importing a Markdown file. Headings become stages, list items become tasks, indented items become subtasks, and durations and dates are read from each line. Importing is a Pro feature.
• Turn on Import lists as projects and each of your Apple Reminders lists becomes a project of the same name and colour. See Projects, Reminders and Calendars below.

Moving Tasks Between Stages

Rearrange work by dragging tasks between stages within a project. You can also drag a task from the Inbox straight into a project or a specific stage.

Dragging, Rebuilt

Dragging was rewritten, in how it feels and where it lands:

• Rows step aside while your finger is still moving, rather than after you let go, and picking a task up is about twice as quick.
• Drops land exactly on the line you were shown. Positions used to be counted against a list that quietly included subtasks, so a drop into a stage whose tasks had subtasks landed higher up than you intended.
• Subtasks travel with their parent when it moves between stages, instead of staying behind.
• The floating miniature ghost card is gone. The rows themselves show the drag.
• The system’s green plus badge is gone from every drop target. Dropping an Inbox task onto a project card instead shows a large plus in that project’s colour.
• A task with a locked start time refuses to drag until you tap its lock open, so a fixed appointment can’t be nudged loose by accident.
• The order is written once, on drop, rather than on every row you cross, which is what used to make long lists lag.

The Inbox

The Inbox holds anything you haven’t filed yet. Drag a task out of it onto a project card, or into a specific stage, and it is filed.

A deep Inbox pages, with a pager underneath the list, so scrolling and dragging stay light however much has piled up. Choose how many tasks a page holds under Settings → Interface → Inbox tasks per page, anywhere from 10 to 100 in steps of five. The default is 50.

Projects, Reminders and Calendars

Projects can line up with Apple Reminders and Apple Calendar in both directions. This is a summary: the full detail is in Calendar & Reminders Sync.

• Reminder lists become projects. With Import lists as projects on, each Reminders list you sync becomes a project with a matching name and the nearest colour from Set’s palette, instead of everything landing in the Inbox. Your default list stays in the Inbox, since a project holding everything is no better. Apple doesn’t let apps read a list’s icon, so imported projects get the folder icon for you to change.
• Projects become reminder lists. In Two-Way sync only, Create a list per project gives every project a Reminders list of the same name, and its tasks’ reminders are written there rather than into one shared list. Renaming the project renames the list. It is off by default, because it creates lists in someone else’s app.
• Project calendars. Under Settings → Calendar & Reminders → Add events to, choose project calendars and each project gets its own calendar in the project’s colour. The alternatives are a single Set calendar in your accent colour (the default), one calendar per priority level, or any calendar of your own.

Deleting a Project

Deleting a project removes its stages and tasks. If that project is synced with Apple Reminders the confirmation says how far the deletion reaches:

• Delete Project & Reminders removes its Reminders list and everything in it.
• Delete in Set Only leaves your reminders alone.

Either way, that list stops being imported. Without this, the next sync would rebuild the project from the reminders left behind and it would come back from the dead. In Import Only sync there is no destructive option at all, but deletions still stick.

Changed your mind? Settings → Calendar & Reminders → Reminder Lists has a Stopped Importing section with an Import Again button beside each one.

Finishing a Project

Completing the last task in a project sounds like finishing a project rather than like finishing any other task. Pick the send-off under Settings → Sounds → Project complete: the classic fanfare, one of six new ones generated in the app, an achievement sound, Random, or None.

Quick-Add Bar (Mac)

On Mac, a persistent Add a task bar sits at the bottom of every project (and Today and the Inbox). Type a task and press Return to add it to the project, and keep going to add several in a row. It parses durations, dates, and times (“45m”, “tomorrow”, “10.15”), and the buttons on the right set the priority and default duration for new tasks.

Exporting a Project

Export a project as a PDF, Markdown, or Rich Text file from the project toolbar.

• Stages export as sections with their stage colours and a progress summary.
• Export Options (under Settings → General → Export Options) add black and white for printing, include notes, include subtasks, and a Pro option to hide Set branding.
• Email opens a ready-to-send email with the project in the body and both a PDF and a Markdown file attached. It goes to any address, or several separated by commas, and whoever receives the Markdown file can open it in Set as a project of their own.

See the Export documentation for details, including importing a project back from Markdown.