Subtasks & checklists
Break work down two ways, and why checklists decide your Timeline lane.
Big tasks split into smaller pieces two ways, and they aren't the same thing:
- Subtasks are full tasks nested under a parent — each has its own owner, dates and status.
- Checklists are tick-boxes inside a task for the steps that don't need their own owner or date.
Working a checklist
- Add a list from the Checklists section, name it, then add items.
- Click an item's text to edit it in place — Enter saves, Shift+Enter adds a line, Escape abandons.
- Items can be assigned to a person individually and ticked off.
- Adding, editing, assigning, completing or deleting an item notifies watchers and assignees, and shows in the task's activity.
Per-milestone checklists
If a task has milestones, its checklists are grouped under them — a Whole task group plus one group per milestone. Adding a list inside a milestone group scopes it to that milestone automatically.
The Timeline measures how much of a milestone's checklist is done against how much of the runway to that milestone has been spent. Give a milestone its own checklist and the task starts tracking its own schedule health — with no checklist there is nothing to pace against, and the task simply sits in In Progress.
Rule of thumb: if a step needs its own owner or due date, make it a subtask. If it's a step to tick off, make it a checklist item — and put it under the milestone it belongs to.