Tasks the Scheduler Can Actually Place

What it is for

The input contract for Motion tasks: what Duration, Min Chunk, deadline, priority and Start Date each actually do to the auto-scheduler, and why leaving any of them blank produces a plausible but useless week. Use it when you first move a task list into Motion, or when you have stopped trusting the calendar it builds. It prevents the most common first-month failure: no durations, everything marked ASAP, and a week that overflows by Tuesday.

The skill Copy

Auto-scheduling is only as good as four fields. Fill all four, every time, or
the calendar it builds is fiction.

Duration - the real estimate, not the hopeful one. This is the single number
the scheduler reasons with. If you genuinely do not know, put 1 hr and correct
it after the first block rather than leaving it to a default.

Min Chunk - set it on anything longer than about two hours. Without it the
scheduler has to find one unbroken block, and a 6 hr task waits days for a
6 hr hole that never opens. With a 90 min minimum it starts tomorrow. Set the
minimum at the point below which starting is not worth it.

Deadline - give everything a real due date. A task with no deadline has no
claim on your time and sits behind everything that does. If it truly has no
deadline, it is a someday item, not a task.

Priority - ASAP is a lever, not a label. Once three things are ASAP none of
them are. Keep one, maybe two, and demote them the moment they are done.

Then:
- Set a Start Date when the work genuinely cannot begin yet, because you are
  waiting on someone. This keeps it out of the schedule without deleting it.
- Put it in the right Workspace and Project. Scheduling is across everything,
  but your review of what is at risk is per project.
- Name the task as something you could start in the next sixty seconds.
  "Website" is not a task. "Draft homepage copy, three sections" is.

The failure this prevents: twenty tasks, no durations, everything ASAP - the
week fills up, you finish four of them, and you conclude the tool is broken.

How to install it Copy

1. Open the tool and start a new conversation, project or template.
2. Paste the text below wherever the tool keeps standing instructions
   — usually called system prompt, instructions, or persona.
3. Save it so it applies to every run rather than a single message.

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Where it came from