# Reminders and recurring tasks

GTD in practice · 3 min read

Dmytro Sokolnikov, maker of Tasker · November 1, 2026

**In short.** A reminder is needed only when a task can’t be missed and is tied to a time: take a pill, leave for a meeting, pay by 6 pm. For the rest, the list for today is enough. Tasks that repeat are written down once with a repeat rule — and they show up by themselves when needed.

## When you really need a reminder

A reminder interrupts whatever you are doing. With ten a day, you get used to swiping them away — and miss the one that mattered.

Set reminders for things with an exact time that are easy to forget in the flow of the day: pills, a call, leaving the house, a payment on the last day.

## When to remind

A reminder should come while you still have time to act. For a 10:00 meeting across town, 9:15 is useful, 9:59 is not. For a birthday gift — a few days ahead, not that same morning.

## What to do when a reminder arrives

- you can do it now — do it and close it;
- you can’t do it now — snooze it to a specific time, not “for later”;
- it no longer matters — close the reminder so it doesn’t hang around.

## Recurring tasks

Paying for the internet every month, watering the plants every Saturday, the weekly review, the yearly car inspection — there is no point writing these down from scratch each time. Write them once and set a rule: daily, weekly on certain days, monthly on a certain day, yearly.

A simple rule: a task you are writing down for the third time — make it recurring.

## Missed one? No problem

A recurring task shouldn’t hang there as a leftover. If it didn’t work out this time, skip it and do it next time. What matters is that the rule keeps going, not that every single time gets done.

> Reminders are for what matters, not for everything!

## How it works in Tasker

Tasker reminders arrive in Telegram from the bot and in the bell at the top of the app. Under a reminder there is “OK” to close it everywhere, and buttons to snooze it for 10 minutes, an hour, 3 hours or until tomorrow.

You can create a reminder in the app — “+” at the top, the “Reminder” tab — or just write to the bot: “remind me tomorrow at 9 to call mom”. A repeating one is easy to ask the bot for too: “remind me every Saturday at 10 to water the plants”.

A task’s reminder is in the task’s “⋮” menu, “Add reminder”. Move the task — its reminders move with it; complete or delete the task — its reminders go away by themselves.

A recurring task: in the task’s date window — when creating it or via “Reschedule…” — choose the rule in the row under the time instead of “Don’t repeat”: daily, weekly on the days you need, monthly or yearly. Tasker schedules the next time itself when you mark the task “Done”; a missed time it closes on its own once the day is over.

A recurring task’s reminder is the “Automatic reminder” on its page: on the day at a set hour, or a few days before. It comes before every time. No longer need it to repeat? “End series” in the “⋮” menu makes this time the last.

Where reminders arrive is set in your profile, in the “Reminders” group. The “Daily digest” is there too: the day’s plan in Telegram at the time you choose.

Reminders and recurring tasks are in both modes.

[All Tasker features](https://tasker-me.app/#features)

Previous: [Calendar and deadlines in GTD](https://tasker-me.app/gtd/calendar/)
Next: [Start GTD in one evening](https://tasker-me.app/gtd/start/)

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