Daily Todoist Task Resetter and Creator from Template

Overview

This workflow automates the daily management of recurring tasks in Todoist. It copies tasks from a designated template project into your Inbox on the appropriate days (e.g., Monday, Tuesday) while removing any previously created daily tasks. This ensures your Inbox always contains only the tasks that are relevant for the current day, without clutter from leftover recurring items.

Ideal for anyone who uses Todoist for day-to-day task planning and wants a hands‑off way to populate their Inbox each morning based on a reusable template.

Workflow Steps

1. Every day at 5:10am (Schedule Trigger) – Starts the first branch of the workflow at 5:10 AM daily.

2. Get all tasks from template project (Todoist – OAuth2 or API Token) – Fetches every task from the template project (project ID 2299363018). The returnAll and getAll options ensure no tasks are missed.

3. Parse task details (Code – no auth) – Runs once for each template task. It extracts the description and content, then parses custom metadata from the description. The expected format is days:mon,tues; due:8am. The code splits the description by semicolons, extracts key-value pairs, and converts the due time into a UTC timestamp using the DateTime library.

4. Keep tasks that match today (Filter – no auth) – Filters the parsed tasks to keep only those whose days field contains the current day abbreviation (e.g., mon, tues). The abbreviation is derived from the current date using an array lookup.

5. Create new task in Inbox (Todoist – OAuth2 or API Token) – For each filtered task, creates a new task in the Inbox project (ID 938017196) with the same content, description, and due date/time. It also adds a label daily to every created task.

6. Every day at 5:10am (Schedule Trigger) – Starts the second branch at the same time (used to clean up old daily tasks).

7. Get all tasks from Inbox (Todoist – OAuth2 or API Token) – Retrieves every task currently in the Inbox (project ID 938017196).

8. If list not empty (IF – no auth) – Checks whether the Inbox contained any tasks. If the ID field is not empty, the workflow continues; otherwise it stops (no tasks to delete).

9. if it has daily label (IF – no auth) – Filters the tasks to those that have a label named daily (using labels.includes('daily')).

10. Delete task (Todoist – OAuth2 or API Token) – Deletes each task that passed the previous check, effectively removing the previous day’s daily tasks from the Inbox.

Setup Instructions

1. Todoist account – You need an active Todoist account. In n8n, create a Todoist credential (OAuth2 or API token) by following n8n’s Todoist documentation.
2. Project IDs – Identify the project IDs of your template project and your Inbox. Replace the hardcoded IDs (2299363018 for template, 938017196 for inbox) in the Todoist nodes with your own.
3. Template project structure – Create tasks in your template project that include a description with the format:

   days:mon,tues,wed,thurs,fri; due:8am
   

   The days field accepts comma‑separated abbreviations (mon, tues, wed, thurs, fri, sat, sun). The due field is a time like 8am or 8.30am.
4. Time zone – The schedule trigger uses UTC; adjust the trigger hour if needed (currently 5:10 AM UTC).

Use Cases and Variations

• Weekly rotas – Use this workflow to rotate daily tasks such as “Check emails”, “Update CRM”, or “Standup meeting”.
• Multiple templates – Clone the workflow and point each copy to a different template project (e.g., “Work”, “Personal”).
• Different labels – Change the label from daily to any other label to avoid conflicts with manually created tasks.
• Non‑Inbox targets – Modify the Create new task node to place tasks in a different project instead of Inbox.
• Time offset – Customize the parseTimeString function in the Code node to interpret different time formats or adjust for time zones.

{
  "nodes": [
    {
      "id": "d49ee203-5bd1-45c0-859d-f1b248bfdf71",
      "name": "Sticky Note3",
      "type": "n8n-nodes-base.stickyNote",
      "position": [
        280,
        40
      ],
      "parameters": {
        "color": 5,
        "width": 424.4907862645661,
        "height": 154.7766688696994,
        "content": "### 👨‍🎤 Setup\n1. Add Todoist creds\n2. Create a `template` list to copy from in Todoist. Add days and due times on each task as necessary.\n3. Set the projects to copy from and to write to in each **Todoist** node"
      },
      "typeVersion": 1,
      "notes": "This stickyNote node performs automated tasks as part of the workflow."
    },
    {
      "id": "e69dd4e2-7ff6-4613-a1c9-ac1f3da37955",
      "name": "Get all tasks from template project",
      "type": "n8n-nodes-base.todoist",
      "position": [
        860,
        420
      ],
      "parameters": {
        "filters": {
          "projectId": "2299363018"
        },
        "operation": "getAll",
        "returnAll": true
      },
      "credentials": {
        "todoistApi": {
          "id": "{{ $credentials.todoistApi.id }}",
          "name": "Todoist account"
        }
      },
      "executeOnce": true,
      "retryOnFail": true,
      "typeVersion": 1,
      "notes": "This todoist node performs automated tasks as part of the workflow."
    },
    {
      "id": "fa907d45-3822-4549-9f84-8385bb4183cc",
      "name": "Parse task details",
      "type": "n8n-nodes-base.code",
      "position": [
// ... truncated (copy to see full JSON)