Tasks are the project broken into pieces somebody can actually pick up and finish. Each has a name, an owner and a due date, and can be marked done.

Writing a good task

• Start with a verb. "Draft the homepage copy" beats "Homepage".
• One person, one task. A task assigned to two people is assigned to nobody.
• Small enough to finish in a sitting. Anything that takes three weeks is several tasks in a coat.
• A due date you mean. Everything dated today forever sorts nothing.

Do not plan the whole thing on day one

Add the tasks you can see. A hundred tasks written before the work starts is mostly fiction, and rewriting them is how a project team learns to ignore the task list.

Keeping it honest

Mark tasks done as they are done, not at the end of the week. Completed tasks can be hidden or shown, so the working list stays short while the record stays complete.