Ever feel like your to-do list has a mind of its own? One minute, you’re confidently checking things off; the next, you’re drowning in sticky notes, forgotten emails, and that spreadsheet you swear you updated.
Keeping track of tasks shouldn’t feel like solving a mystery. Enter—the task board, your new best friend for task management.
A well-structured one helps you organize, prioritize, and actually finish what you start. Whether managing a business project or just trying to get through Monday without dropping the ball, using a task board effectively can make all the difference.
Let’s break it down!
How to Use a Task Board Effectively for Better Task Management
⏰ 60-Second Summary
Here’s all you need to know about task boards and how to make your own:
- Task boards help teams organize, track, and manage work visually using typically three columns for different stages of progress
- Types of task queues include physical boards (whiteboards, sticky notes) and digital boards ()
- Key benefits include improved task visibility, better collaboration, enhanced workflow efficiency, and streamlined prioritization
- Creating a task board involves defining workflow stages, creating task cards, assigning tasks, setting priorities, and tracking progress
- features customizable task boards, automation, integrations, collaboration tools, and real-time updates to help you manage your to-dos better
- Best practices for task boards include keeping columns clear, updating tasks regularly, setting deadlines, using automation, and customizing based on team needs
- Common mistakes to avoid are cluttering the view, failing to update tasks, unclear priorities, and lack of team communication
- ’s advanced capabilities include AI-powered automation, templates, dashboards, and reporting tools to enhance tasks
What Is a Task Board?
A task board is a visual tool for organizing and managing tasks in a project or workflow. It provides a clear overview of progress, ensuring that priorities are set, deadlines are met, and no critical task slips through the cracks.
Whether you’re handling a small personal project or coordinating a complex team initiative, a task queue keeps everything structured and accessible.
Task boards can take different forms—they might be physical, like a whiteboard covered in sticky notes, or digital, integrated into task management software.
Digital task boards—like the ones within , the everything app for work—offer additional advantages, such as automation, real-time collaboration, and integrations with other productivity tools.
📮 Insight: 92% of workers use inconsistent methods to track action items, which results in missed decisions and delayed execution. Whether sending follow-up notes or using spreadsheets, the process is often scattered and inefficient.
’s Task Management Solution ensures seamless conversion of conversations into tasks—so your team can act fast and stay aligned.
At their core, these to-do lists are built on a simple but powerful structure: action items are represented as task cards and organized into columns that indicate different stages of progress.
A typical setup includes columns like To Do, In Progress, and Completed, though more complex workflows can consist of additional steps like Review, Blocked, or On Hold to reflect a project’s needs better.
🧠 Fun Fact: Everyone has their favorite sticky note color now, or ones you use for a specific type of task. But the original Post-It notes were canary yellow. This shade was chosen by chance, as the lab next to the team creating these only had scrap paper in the iconic bright yellow color!
Key Components of a Task Board
How can you tell if your task board is actually effective? A well-structured one helps track progress, manage workloads, and stay organized—keeping tasks clear and units aligned. With the correct setup, you’ll avoid confusion and actually get things done. Here are the key elements:
- Columns: Represent different workflow stages, such as To Do, In Progress, and Completed. Some teams add Review, Blocked, or On Hold for more detail
- Task cards: Individual tasks or action items, often including titles, descriptions, due dates, and assignees
- Tags and labels: Categorize tasks by priority, type, or department
- Assignees: Indicate who is responsible for each task
- Due dates and deadlines: Set clear timelines for task completion
- Attachments and links: Provide relevant files or resources directly within a task to keep context centralized and eliminate toggle tax
- Progress indicators: Display status updates, comments, and checklists for tracking completion
Types of Task Boards
Not all task boards are the same—different setups work for different teams and workflows. Here are some of the most common types:
Kanban board
It uses columns to visualize task progress, typically moving them from To Do to Completed.
📍 Origin: Developed by Toyota in the 1940s to improve manufacturing efficiency, later adopted in software development
🔹 Best for: Teams that need continuous workflow visibility, like software development and customer support
Scrum board
It organizes tasks for sprints into backlog, in progress, and done.
📍 Origin: Derived from the Agile Scrum framework, which was formalized in the 1990s for software teams
🔹 Best for: Teams working in short, iterative cycles, such as software engineering and product development
Simple to-do board
It lists pending, ongoing, and completed tasks.
📍 Origin: One of the earliest task management methods, rooted in traditional paper to-do lists
🔹 Best for: Individuals or small teams who need an easy way to track tasks without complex workflows
Priority-based board
This kind of task board organizes tasks by urgency, such as high, medium, and low priority.
📍 Origin: Inspired by Eisenhower’s Matrix and other prioritization methods used in productivity management
🔹 Best for: Teams juggling multiple projects or deadlines, such as marketing and operations teams
Team workload board
It focuses on balancing tasks among team members to prevent bottlenecks.
📍 Origin: Evolved from resource management techniques used in project management since the 20th century
🔹 Best for: Managers overseeing multiple team members to ensure fair workload distribution and avoid burnout
Calendar-based board
Calendar-based boards display tasks by deadlines, helping teams plan work over days, weeks, or months.
📍 Origin: Adapted from traditional paper calendars, later integrated into digital planning tools
🔹 Best for: Teams managing events, content schedules, or time-sensitive deliverables, like marketing and editorial teams
Now that we’ve covered the different types of boards, let’s explore the benefits of using one.
👀 Did You Know? Scrum isn’t just a buzzword—it actually makes teams more productive. Studies show that over 60% of requirements change during development, which means a flexible, iterative approach like Scrum sprint isn’t just helpful, it’s essential.
Benefits of Using a Task Board
A task board isn’t just a tool—it’s pivotal to boosting productivity, improving team collaboration, and keeping projects on track. Whether you’re handling a small personal project or coordinating a complex business initiative, a task queue gives you the ability to keep commitments and priorities structured and accessible.
Visual clarity
Task boards give you an instant visual overview of your project. They make it easy to understand the stages a task goes through, with the current status visible at a glance on a dashboard.
This helps everyone see precisely where things stand and what needs attention, improving overall project clarity.
Improved collaboration
Task boards encourage team members to communicate openly about priorities, roadblocks, and next steps, leading to a more collaborative environment. When everyone can see what’s happening, it minimizes misunderstandings and reduces the chances of duplicated work.
Enhanced productivity
Task boards help identify bottlenecks that might be slowing progress. By catching these issues early, teams can address them promptly.
Plus, when tasks are assigned clearly, progress is tracked efficiently, creating a sense of ownership and accountability within the team.
Better decision-making
With a task board, data like task durations, team capacity, and project velocity are always at your fingertips. This helps you make informed decisions about timelines, resource allocation, and potential risks, ensuring you stay ahead of any issues that arise.
Continuous improvement
Looking back on completed projects using a task board makes it easier to spot opportunities for improvement.
Whether you’re using Agile methods or another approach, task boards allow you to tweak workflows and adapt to the needs of your projects, fostering continuous improvement.
💡Pro Tip: Encourage your team to add comments or notes to tasks when progress is made or if there are blockers. Incorporating a feedback loop encourages collaboration and keeps everyone on the same page. No more “Wait, who’s doing that?” moments!
How to Create and Use a Task Board
Setting up a task board might sound simple, but the key is customizing it to fit your team’s needs and workflow. A task board’s primary goal is to keep the details visible and organized so that no task slips through the cracks.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to get you started:
Creating a task board
Step 1: Define task stages
First, think about the stages your tasks go through. For a basic task board, use stages like To Do, In Progress, and Completed. But depending on your project needs, you can get more detailed with stages like Backlog, Review, Blocked, or On Hold.
When using tools like for task management, you can customize these stages for your team and workflow. Examples of Custom Task Statuses in include ‘Content Ideas’, ‘In progress’, ‘Update requested’, ‘Approved’, and ‘Queued’ for social media teams. And ‘Contact’, ‘Lead’, ‘Onboarded’, Paying client’, and ‘VIP’ for your CRM.
Step 2: Create task cards
Once your stages are set, each task or project action gets a new task card. These cards will include task descriptions, assignees, deadlines, and relevant files or notes. In digital task boards like , you can add comments or file attachments to task cards to keep everything connected.
📮 Insight: Knowledge workers send an average of 25 messages daily, searching for information and context. This indicates a fair amount of time wasted scrolling, searching, and deciphering fragmented conversations across emails and chats. 😱
If only you had a smart platform that connects tasks, projects, chat, and emails (plus AI!) in one place. But you do!
Step 3: Assign tasks
Assign each task card to the relevant team member. Whether using a physical board with sticky notes or digital tools like , make sure each card has a clear owner and due date. This is essential to ensuring accountability and simplifying follow-ups.
Step 4: Set priorities
Rank tasks in order of urgency and/or importance by adding labels or using color coding. Add tags like High Priority or Urgent to help your team focus on what matters most.
How to use a task board
A task board can be a central hub for team collaboration and task coordination. Let’s break it down further with ’s features that let you create multiple boards efficiently:
1. Customize your tasks
Tailoring your task board to fit your team’s unique workflow can make a world of difference. Whether managing projects or keeping daily tasks on track, customizing your board lets you match it to how your team works best.
Unlike rigid task boards, lets you create Custom Statuses (e.g., “In Review,” “Blocked,” “QA Testing”) instead of just “To Do / In Progress / Done.” You can also add Custom Fields in to track task-specific details like priority, effort estimates, or client names.
Plus, you can save time using various Kanban templates for your tasks, allowing your team to follow your custom processes easily.
For example, Agile teams can choose from over 30 Custom Statuses to track sprints using the Agile Project Management Kanban Template by .
Similarly, for Sales and Customer Success teams that need to track account renewals, contacts, and risks, the Account Management Kanban Board Template by adds 19 helpful statuses, including Nurturing, Up For Renewal, Churned, Onboarding, and more.
2. Automate your tasks
Automating routine tasks can save you time and reduce manual effort. With Automations, you can easily set up automated task assignments, updates, and reminders to improve your workflow and increase efficiency.
You can configure workflow automation on any Space, Folder, List, or Board within , using pre-built templates, project shortcuts, and Brain.
For example, when a web design task moves from ‘In progress’ to ‘Review’ on the web design task boards, the team lead can be notified and nudged to share their feedback.
This allows you to automate task assignments, set up email notifications, create audit logs, and track all board activity in one place.
3. Collaborate on tasks
Collaboration is key to successful project management, and Tasks make it easy for your team to work together.
Tasks bring team communication to the forefront with several built-in features:
- Task comments allow team members to leave contextual feedback directly within tasks
- @mentions enable team members to tag and notify specific colleagues about updates or requests
- Assigned comments let you delegate specific action items to team members, ensuring accountability
Chat is another powerful collaboration tool that allows teams to communicate in real time. Whether you’re brainstorming ideas or discussing project updates, Chat keeps conversations organized and tied to respective tasks. It helps you skip moving between tabs to ensure no important detail gets lost in the shuffle.
Plus, you can create and assign tasks from within Chat, making collaboration a piece of cake!
💡Pro Tip: Try setting up small rewards or recognition systems for your task boards to motivate the team. For example, whoever moves the most tasks to the “Done” column in a week could get a small reward. The visual nature of the board can make this kind of gamification both fun and effective at driving engagement.
4. Track your progress
A board with no progress-tracking mechanism is like a cake with no frosting!
’s progress bars, dashboards, and detailed reports let you track the most important metrics and performance indicators for your tasks in a customized view.
Stay ahead of deadlines, identify bottlenecks, and celebrate milestones— directly on your task dashboard.
Dashboards offer robust reporting features that provide key insights for improved decision-making. Use dashboards to:
- Compare actual vs. planned task dates to ensure timelines are met
- Track change requests and issues to address them quickly
- Forecast task completion times to stay ahead of potential delays
- Organize tasks by user assignments so you always know who’s working on what
5. Integrate everyday apps with your task management tool
Connect your task board with the other tools you use daily to streamline your workflow. Integrate with your email client, chat, and file storage systems to create a centralized hub where all your work documentation is easily accessible and organized.
’s Integrations sync with your existing tech stack, ensuring information flows smoothly between platforms. easily connects with Google Drive, Slack, or your CRM, saving time and reducing the need to switch apps.
This integration creates a unified system that keeps everything in one place, enhancing productivity and collaboration.
Ready to create your own task board? The Task Management Template is a great place to start—it’s flexible enough for teams in various industries.
Here’s how it works with task boards:
- Flexible views: You can create task boards specifically for your workflow and easily switch between views like List, Board, or Gantt Views to visualize and manage tasks in the way that works best for you
- Custom Statuses: Define stages that match your workflow, such as Revision and In Review, alongside To Do and Done. With these Custom Statuses, you can reflect your team’s unique process, making task tracking easier
- Task relationships: If one task depends on another, you can visually represent these connections directly on the work queue, clarifying how tasks are interrelated
- Custom Fields: Add fields like priority, deadlines, or assigned team members to tasks, giving each task the context your team needs to be more productive
- Automations: Set up automation to simplify repetitive tasks. For example, triggers can automatically move tasks to the next stage when a status changes or notify team members when a task is nearing its deadline
- Collaboration: Keep all communication within the respective task card itself by adding comments, attaching files, or linking relevant documents
Best Practices for Task Board Management
A well-managed board is like a perfectly organized toolbox—everything is in its place, easy to find, and ready to do the job efficiently.
Here are some best practices to optimize your task board:
Maintain clear and consistent columns
For consistency, use the same format and workflow stages across all projects. Set a maximum number of cards in each column to avoid task overload and keep things from getting chaotic.
Drag and drop cards between them when needed.
Manage cards effectively
Each task card should have the key details: description, assignee, due date, and priority. Use color-coding, labels, or icons to easily categorize tasks by priority, type, or the team member responsible.
Prioritize efficiently
Use methods like the MoSCoW technique (Must-have, Should-have, Could-have, Won’t-have) to rank tasks. Estimate the time each task will take so you can allocate resources effectively. Remember to review and adjust priorities regularly as things evolve.
Establish clear communication channels
Encourage team members to use comments for task discussions and feedback. Daily stand-ups or quick check-ins help ensure everyone is on the same page and address any blockers before they become bigger issues.
Continuously improve
Make time to review your task board regularly. Identify areas that could be more efficient, and ask for feedback from your team. Be flexible and open to experimenting with new techniques or tools to improve your process.
Get on “Board” with
In post-war Japan, Toyota faced a massive challenge—resources were scarce, and inefficiencies in production led to delays and waste.
One day, Taiichi Ohno, a Toyota engineer, observed how American supermarkets restocked shelves only when items were running low, ensuring products were always available but never overstocked. Inspired, he introduced Kanban boards—a simple yet powerful system of visual cards that signaled when to produce more parts, preventing excess inventory and reducing downtime.
Task boards not only transformed Toyota into an industry leader but also laid the foundation for modern Agile and Lean workflows. Following the steps and best practices we’ve covered, you, too, can use task boards to increase productivity and set your projects up for success.
And when it comes to using virtual task boards, stands out as the best platform. With tons of customization options, task management features, task automation, and integrations, truly lets you get your best work done. Sign up for today!
Everything you need to stay organized and get work done.
