Quick Tasks vs Job Tasks vs My Lists: Which to Use

In brief: A Job Task lives inside a Job, a Quick Task is committed work with no Job, and a My List item is private capture.

Applies to: Everyone in the workspace.

See also: Job Tasks: Assignees, Allocations, and Statuses covers work inside a Job, Creating Quick Tasks: Fields, Statuses, and Filters covers the standalone kind, and My Lists: The Private Capture Space Only You Can See covers what is not a commitment yet.

Net Net gives you three surfaces for work that is yours: Job Tasks, Quick Tasks, and My Lists. They are not interchangeable. A Job Task is work inside a Job. A Quick Task is real committed work that does not belong to a Job. A My List item is a thought you have not committed to yet. The question that sorts them is simple: does this belong to a Job, and have you actually promised it to someone?

Most people learn this once and never think about it again.

The three surfaces

Job Task

Work that lives inside a Job, under a Deliverable, against a plan.

A Job Task is part of something you sold or committed to. It sits in a Deliverable's effort pool, it carries allocations per person, and the hours logged against it roll up into that Job's performance. If the work is part of the thing you are delivering to a client, it is a Job Task, and it belongs in the Job even when it feels small.

Full details in Job Tasks: Assignees, Allocations, and Statuses.

Quick Task

Real work, real owner, real due date, no Job.

This is the category most tools handle badly. The favor you did for a client between projects. The internal errand that has to happen before Friday. The half day someone spends fixing a thing nobody planned for. It is genuine effort, and if it lives in a notes app it disappears from your picture of the week.

Quick Tasks exist so that work has somewhere honest to go. They are not a lighter version of a Job Task. They are a parallel surface with the same seriousness and simpler rules. The mechanics of building and running them are in Creating Quick Tasks: Fields, Statuses, and Filters.

The wider case for keeping both kinds of task in the same picture is made in use Quick Tasks with project tasks to keep your workflow flowing.

My List item

A thought, captured. Not a commitment.

My Lists is private. Nobody else sees it, not even an Owner. Items there do not count in Performance, do not affect capacity, and do not appear in anyone's list of work. They are ideas waiting to see whether they become real.

When one does become real, you promote it. See Turning a List Item into a Task: Quick or Job Task.

How to choose in two seconds

Ask two questions in order.

Does it belong to a Job? If yes, it is a Job Task. Put it under the Deliverable it serves, or in General Job Tasks if it serves the whole Job.

Have you committed to it? If yes but there is no Job, it is a Quick Task. If no, it is a My List item.

The word that matters is committed. A Quick Task has an owner, a date, and an amount of effort you expect it to take. If you cannot fill those in honestly, it is not a commitment yet, and My Lists is the right home for it until it is.

What Quick Tasks require

Quick Tasks are fully specified by design. There is no draft state and no unassigned state. Every Quick Task carries all of this before it saves:

Exactly one assignee. Not zero, not two. One person owns it.
Exactly one service type. The category of work it is.
An LOE above zero. Your estimate of the effort in hours.
A due date. The day it needs to be done.
An anchor. Either Client, which requires a Company and optionally a Person, or Internal.

That list looks strict next to a to-do app, and it is. It is also the entire reason Quick Task effort can appear alongside Job effort in your reporting without polluting it. Work with no owner and no estimate cannot tell you anything later.

If the required fields feel like too much friction for a passing thought, that friction is doing its job. Drop it in My Lists instead and promote it when it firms up.

What Quick Tasks deliberately do not have

No chat. Quick Tasks carry no conversation thread. Chat in Net Net is organized around Jobs, Deliverables, and Job Tasks, because that is where a conversation needs to survive and be findable months later. A standalone errand does not need a channel. See Chat on Completed, Archived, and Quick Task Work.

No multiple assignees. A Job Task can carry three people with three allocations, because a kickoff meeting genuinely involves three people. A Quick Task is one person's commitment. If two people are really doing it, that is two Quick Tasks or, more likely, it belongs in a Job.

No Deliverable. By definition. A Quick Task has no Job and no Deliverable, which is what makes it quick.

Where each one shows up

Surface	Appears in My Tasks	Accepts time	Counts in Performance	Visible to others
Job Task	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Quick Task	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
My List item	No	No	No	No

Both task types land in My Tasks together, which is the one place you look to see everything on your plate regardless of where it came from. Which statuses will actually take an entry is set out in Which Tasks Can Accept Time (and Which Cannot).

Starting in the wrong place

Filing work as the wrong kind of task happens. What Net Net can fix for you depends on which direction you are going.

Between Deliverables and Jobs, Net Net moves it for you. A Job Task can move to another Deliverable in the same Job, or to a different Job entirely, and every hour ever logged against it comes along. Nothing is duplicated and nothing is lost. That is the Move task action, covered in Moving a Task Without Losing Its Time or History.

Between Quick Tasks and Job Tasks, there is no conversion. A Quick Task cannot be turned into a Job Task, and a Job Task cannot be turned into a Quick Task. This is not buried in a menu somewhere. The action does not exist. If a Quick Task turns out to belong inside a Job, you rebuild it by hand.

Rebuilding a Quick Task as a Job Task

Create the Job Task in the Deliverable it belongs to, carrying over the same title, assignee, service type, estimate, and due date. Then deal with the original Quick Task, and what you should do depends entirely on whether anyone has logged time against it.

No time logged yet? Delete the Quick Task. There is nothing to lose and leaving it around just creates a duplicate on someone's plate.

Time already logged? Leave it alone, or close it out as complete. Deleting it destroys those time entries, and they are the only record that the effort actually happened.

Logged hours do not follow you across. Time on the original Quick Task stays on the Quick Task record permanently. It keeps counting in that person's own effort totals, but it will never appear in the new Job's plan against actual, and there is no way to move it there. Know that before you rebuild, because it is the one thing this workaround cannot recover.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a Quick Task and a Job Task?

A Job Task lives inside a Job, under a Deliverable, and rolls up into that Job's plan. A Quick Task is standalone work with no Job attached. Both are real work, both accept time, and both appear in My Tasks. The difference is whether the work belongs to something you are delivering.

Can I convert a Quick Task into a Job Task?

No. There is no conversion between Quick Tasks and Job Tasks in either direction. If a Quick Task belongs in a Job, create a new Job Task in the right Deliverable and then delete the Quick Task, or leave it if time has already been logged against it. Any hours on the original stay on the original.

Why does a Quick Task need so many fields?

Because unowned, unestimated work cannot tell you anything later. One assignee, one service type, an LOE above zero, a due date, and a Client or Internal anchor are what let Quick Task effort sit honestly alongside Job effort in your reporting. If filling those in feels premature, the item belongs in My Lists for now.

Can I assign a Quick Task to two people?

No. A Quick Task has exactly one assignee. Multiple assignees with separate allocations are a Job Task feature, because that is where shared activities like a kickoff meeting actually happen. If two people genuinely share the work, it is probably Job work.

Why can't I chat on a Quick Task?

Chat is attached to Jobs, Deliverables, and Job Tasks on purpose. Those are the conversations you need to find again months later. A standalone errand does not need a channel, and giving it one would scatter your history across places nobody thinks to look.

When should something go in My Lists instead?

When it is not a commitment yet. My Lists is private capture with no owner, no date, and no effect on capacity or Performance. Put the half-formed idea there, and promote it to a Quick Task or a Job Task when you know who is doing it and when.

Do Quick Tasks count in my Performance?

Yes. Time logged on a Quick Task is real effort and it counts. LOE contributes to planning signal, actual hours contribute to totals, and the due date contributes to timeline pressure exactly as it does on a Job Task.

Once you have decided a piece of work really is a Quick Task, Creating Quick Tasks: Fields, Statuses, and Filters covers the inline create row and the filters, and Completing, Archiving, and Deleting Quick Tasks covers how it ends. If you are still capturing rather than committing, My Lists: The Private Capture Space Only You Can See is the private surface for that, and Turning a List Item into a Task: Quick or Job Task is the bridge for when an idea firms up. When it is time to log effort against any of it, Which Tasks Can Accept Time (and Which Cannot) explains which statuses will take it.

Updated on: 08/04/2026

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