AppFlowy Basics – How to create a simple To Do list in AppFlowy

This is a new chapter in my AppFlowy Basics tutorial series. We all seem to be getting busier. We must find a balance between our daily work, private and family life, side hustles, and hobbies. To manage all this correctly and without making mistakes and forgetting things, we need some kind of list in which we can record, prioritize, and keep track of all our activities. You can keep such a To Do list on a piece of paper, in a notebook or notepad, or in this modern digital world in a digital format. In this article, I will show how to create a simple To Do list in AppFlowy to support your busy life. In an upcoming article, we will continue from here to build an advanced To Do solution in AppFlowy.

Content of the article

• What is AppFlowy
• Requirements for our To Do list in AppFlowy
• How to create a simple To Do list in AppFlowy
• How to use our simple To Do list in AppFlowy
• How to use the special options for your simple To Do list in AppFlowy

What is AppFlowy

Before we start building a simple To Do list in AppFlowy, it is good to know what AppFlowy is and why it is such a nice platform to build this kind of productivity solution. In my article “AppFlowy is a good Notion alternative for Open Source and data privacy enthusiasts” I already gave a detailed introduction to what AppFlowy is and what it can do, so I will not go in too much detail here. In short, AppFlowy is a kind of LEGO box for everyone who does not want to use separate apps to manage all their different tasks and activities, but who wants to determine for themselves how their app looks and how it behaves for all their tasks, lists, summaries, texts, journals, administrations, etc. AppFlowy is a solution that allows you to create functionalities based on a large number of standard building blocks. You are able to add, edit, move, convert, or delete blocks. Think of blocks that help you to set up tables, boards, timelines, calendars, lists, galleries, headings, quotes, dividers, links, callouts, image placeholders, videos, audio, code, files, views, and databases. 

Requirements for our To Do list in AppFlowy

Being an IT professional for more than 30 years, I always ask my business stakeholders first to come up with some solid requirements before I start with my team designing, building, and testing a new user application. So before diving immediately into AppFlowy, let’s also determine what our requirements are for our simple To Do list. 

Goal

As a busy person with many responsibilities, I want a digital To Do list in AppFlowy, so that I can record, prioritize and keep track of all my activities.

Basic requirements

The To Do list should at least offer the below basic requirements:

• The ability to create and manage categories
• The ability to add due dates to tasks
• The ability to prioritize tasks
• The ability to mark tasks as complete

Data to store

The To Do list should at least be able to store the below data fields:

• Description of each task
• Due date of each task
• Priority level  of each task
• Status (Open + Completed)
• Category of each task

How to create a simple To Do list in AppFlowy

Now that we know our basic requirements, let’s start building our own simple To Do list in AppFlowy. As already mentioned in the introduction of this article, In a future article I will explain how to create an advanced To Do list in AppFlowy.

I assume that you already have a (free) AppFlowy account or a local AppFlowy setup and that you know how to start up AppFlowy. If not, please read my introductory article “AppFlowy is a good Notion alternative for Open Source and data privacy enthusiasts“.

1) Start AppFlowy.

2) Create a new page via the “New page” option.

3) Give the new page a name, like “My Simple To Do list”.

4) Let’s also add a nice cover and icon by clicking on “Add cover” and “Add icon”. You see these options when you hover above the title of the page.

Now your page looks like this:

5) Now hover with your mouse just below the title and click on the right of the icon with the 6 dots (this is the handle to drag blocks around). Now type “/” to open the available commands.

6) Type “Grid” and select “Grid”.

Now you see a screen that looks like this:

On this screen, you see an empty table, or what is called Grid in AppFlowy. Here we can implement all the requirements as described earlier. This grid is the foundation for our simple To Do list. 

7) Right-click on Untitled and click on Rename. Now type “To Do List” and click Ok.

8) The first column “Name” can’t be deleted but can be renamed. Click on the header and rename this column to “Task description”. 

9) Keep the name of the second column, which is called “Type”. Now click on the header and click on “Edit property”. It should already be of type “Select”. If not, choose “Select” from the option list (in separate articles more on all these options). This makes sure that every to do type you added before can be selected in a new task row. It allows you to always select only one of the available values.

To leave the Edit property section click on a white area in the screen.

10) In the third column you already see the column with the name Done. This column is of the type Checkbox. Rename the header of this column to “Status”. Check if the column is indeed of type Checkbox via the Edit property option.

11) In the fourth column click on “+ New property” to add a new column. Give it the name “Priority” and select the property type “Select” via the Edit property option.

12) In the fifth column click again on “+ New property” to add a new column. Select the property type “Date” and give it the name “Due date”. Select a Date format you prefer.

That’s it.

How to use our simple To Do list in AppFlowy

Now that we have implemented all the properties we described in the requirements section, let’s see how we can set up and use our simple To Do list.

1) Create your first task by clicking on the first empty field under Task description. Type for example, “Write chapter 1 of book”.

2) Add a new type of activity by clicking on the first empty field under Type. Add for example, “My book project” and click on Create. This same category can now be selected if you add a new task. The list of available categories will grow if you add more of them while adding new tasks.

3) Go to column Priority and click on the first empty field. Type for example, “High” and click on Create. 

4) Add a new date by clicking on the first empty field under Due date.  A date picker pop-up will be visible. Here you can select a date, enable End date, enable Include time, and add a reminder.

5) Let’s create some extra tasks with different Categories and Priorities.

6) Mark one of your tasks as completed by clicking on the area under Status. Now you will see a nice check mark that indicates it has the status Completed.

How to use the special options for your simple To Do list in AppFlowy

Maybe you already noticed some additional options around your simple To Do list in AppFlowy. Let’s have a look at what they mean and can do for you.

When you hover your mouse over the Task description, you see an icon with tow small arrows pointing to the left bottom corner and right top corner. This is the “Open as a page” option. With this, you get a pop-up screen to fill in and edit a record in your grid, which for some of us is a nicer way than editing directly in the cells of the grid itself. Here you can also add new blocks.

Back to the grid.

If you hover over the areas below each column below the New row area, you will see a Calculate option. With this, you can count the empty or not empty records. Depending on the type of the column, you will get additional options, like Sum, Average, Min, Max. etc.

Now have a look at the right section just above the grid. Here you see the options Filter, Sort, and Settings.

Filter

When you click on Filter you have the option to filter your To Do list on the different columns you defined. 

1) Select “Status”.

2) Here you can choose between “Checked” and ” Unchecked”. When you select “Unchecked” you will only see the not completed items.

3) You can add additional filters by clicking Add filter. Select ” Due date”. 

Here you have options to filter on different scenarios, like before, after, and between.

Sort 

With the Sort option, you can select which columns you want to use to sort your data…

…and in which order. You can combine different columns.

Settings

With Settings, you can edit the properties, like showing or hiding columns, reorder columns, reorder select values, etc. Here you can also switch layouts, like Grid, Board, and Calendar.

Final words

In this article, I explained how to create a simple To Do list in AppFlowy from scratch. You learned how to create a Grid, how to create columns and change their properties, and how to use different options like sort and filter. I hope it helps you to take your first steps in the beautiful and extensive AppFlowy world. In a future article, I will focus on building a more advanced To Do list. In that article, we will discuss and combine many more options of AppFlowy. Soon I will also publish an article with an explanation of all available blocks in AppFlowy. So keep an eye on the website.

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