How To Create A To-Do List In WordPress

As a busy person trying to run a business or manage a team, time is always in short supply.

There is just so much work to do and things to remember. You have clients to meet, tasks to complete, meetings to attend, fires to extinguish, deliveries to make, schedules to keep and so on. The stress of trying to get things done on time never ends.

Now … add the extra workload of promoting and growing your business online and keeping your website or blog updated with new content and everything can start feeling unmanageable and out of control.

Whether you are running a business, website, blog, or managing a team, you need to be able to organize and manage your daily activities.

A proven tool that can help you save time, reduce stressful workloads, and allow you to regain control is to use “to-do” lists.

To Do Lists – Benefits

A “to do” list helps you keep track of your progress when trying to achieve certain objectives. Your to-do list can be very detailed or specific, or act as a concise reminder of what needs to be done today, tomorrow, next week, next month, etc.

Here are just a few of the many benefits of using to-do lists:

Free Up Resources

Creating to do lists means you don’t have to try and remember stuff or store extra information inside your mind. Once tasks are written down on a to-do list, your mind is free to process other information and you can focus on other areas that are more important.

Better Strategic Planning

Creating and organizing to-do lists helps you break larger projects into more doable tasks and come up with a strategy for getting tasks completed effectively.

Reorganize Quickly

To-do lists help you better handle changes in circumstances. If you find that an appointment has been cancelled at the last minute or extra time becomes available because a task got completed sooner than expected, you can quickly reorganize and keep working with little to no loss of focus.

Ensures Accountability

Without accountability there’s no commitment to getting things completed, and no motivation to take meaningful action. Lack of accountability can also allow excuses to creep in and impact your productivity.

Sense Of Accomplishment

Ticking items off to do lists not only makes you feel more productive, motivated and in-control, it also lets you stress less, as you can objectively see (or show) that the work is being completed and that progress is being made.

As you can see, there are many benefits to using to do lists, both in business and in your personal life. Create a list, prioritize your list items and work in a focused manner and efficiency and productivity in your business is sure to increase.

What about adding to-do lists to your WordPress website or blog?

In this step-by-step tutorial you are going to learn how to easily add a to-do list to WordPress to improve business efficiency and productivity using a customizable, multi-featured to do list plugin called Cleverness To-Do List.

Cleverness To-Do List

Plugin Download URL

http://wordpress.org/plugins/cleverness-to-do-list/

Plugin Description

This WordPress plugin provides users with a to do list feature.

Features

Note: the features described below will be discussed in more detail in the tutorial section.

You can set up the plugin to have private to do lists for each user, to have all users share your to-do list, or to have a master list with individual item completions.

The shared to-do list provides a number of settings. You can assign to do items to specific users (this includes emailing new to do items to assigned users) and optionally to have assigned items be viewable by that user. You can also assign different permission levels using capabilities. There are also settings available to enable the display of deadline and progress fields. Category support is also included in the front-end administration.

A new menu item is added to the admin backend to help you manage your list and your to-do lists are also listed on a dashboard widget.

A sidebar widget is available as well as short code to display the to do list items on your site. There are 2 short codes for front-end list administration. Category management is accessed via the back-end admin section.

If you plan to set up a multi-author site you can use the to-do lists plugin to create custom to do lists for your post editors if you also own the developer’s premium plugin, Post Planner.

Plugin Installation

Log into your site’s dashboard area, and in the main menu select Plugins > Add New …

In the Install Plugins screen, type in “cleverness” into the search field and hit the Enter button …

Locate the Cleverness To-Do List plugin in the Search Results tab and click Install Now …

Click “Activate Plugin” …

Note: You can also activate the plugin from the Plugins section …

When you have activated the plugin, click on Settings …

Note: The plugin’s ‘Settings’ section can also be accessed by choosing To-Do List > Settings from the dashboard menu …

This takes you to the plugin ‘Settings’ area …

The section below shows you how to configure the plugin …

How To Set Up The Plugin

The Settings screen is divided into four sections:

• To-Do List Settings – The options in this section let you specify the main plugin settings.
• Advanced Settings – Here you can customize your to-do lists, assign tasks to other users and perform plugin database maintenance tasks.
• User Permissions – This tab is where you configure user permissions and capabilities for Group and Master List types.
• Import/Export – Here you can export and import to-do list data and plugin settings.

Let’s now take you through each of these sections.

To-Do List Settings

Categories

Select ‘Enabled’ to organize your list into categories, otherwise leave this option set to ‘Disabled’.

Note: If you enable this option, a ‘Categories’ item will be added to the To-Do List menu …

This lets you add categories that you can then use to organize your lists (see ‘Plugin Usage’ section further below for more details) …

You can create ‘public’ and ‘private’ categories for your lists.

Private categories will not be visible using the sidebar widgets or short codes (only when ‘Sort Order’ is set to ‘Category’)

List View

List View allows you to choose how your to-do lists will be viewed. There are 3 list views you can choose:

• Individual – Select this option if you want each user to be able to create and manage their own private to-do list.
• Group – Choosing this option lets users share the same to-do list.
• Master – Select this option to have a master list for all users, where users have their own individual completion of items. If using the ‘Master’ list view, make sure to configure the User Permissions appropriately in the ‘User Permissions’ tab (this is covered further below).

Sort Order

‘Sort Order’ lets you specify how to sort your to-do list items.

If you select Category, Alphabetical or ID, Category, ID or Alphabetical options, items will be sorted first by priority.

Show Added By

Enabling this option (‘Yes’) lets you display which of your members has added an item to the to-do list.

Note: This setting only applies when ‘List View’ is set to ‘Group’.

Show Date Completed

If this option is enabled (‘Yes’), completion dates will display for your to-do items.

Show Deadline

If this option is enabled (‘Yes’), you will be able to specify deadlines for your to-do items …

Show Progress

If enabled (‘Yes’), you will be able to specify task progress indicators for your to-do items …

Show Admin Bar Menu

Enabling this option (‘Yes’) lets you display the ‘To-Do List’ menu in your WP Dashboard Admin bar …

Use WYSIWYG Editor

If this option is enabled, you can add and edit items on your to-do list using the WordPress WYSIWYG Editor …

Use Auto Paragraphs

Enable this option (‘Yes’) to display content in to-do list items using paragraphs.

Integrate with Post Planner

If you plan to run a multi-author website or blog, you can integrate the Cleverness To Do List plugin with a plugin called WordPress Post Planner, from the same plugin developer to help make managing a multi-author WordPress site easier …

For more details about this WordPress plugin, visit this site: WordPress Post Planner – Multi-Author Publishing Plugin For WordPress

When you have finished configuring your plugin options, click the ‘Save Changes’ button …

Advanced Settings

After configuring the settings in the To-Do List Settings tab, click on the ‘Advanced Settings’ tab …

This brings you to the plugin’s ‘Advanced Settings’ screen …

In this screen you can customize your To-Do lists, assign to-do items to other users and perform plugin database maintenance.

Let’s go through how to configure the plugin’s ‘Advanced Settings’ section …

To-Do List Advanced Settings > Customize The To-Do List

This section of the ‘Advanced Settings’ tab lets you customize your To-Do List …

The following options can be configured in this section:

Date Format

In this area you can specify how to display dates on your todo list (e.g. month/day/year, day/month/year, etc.)

Note: To learn more about how to format dates in WordPress, visit the relevant section of the WordPress Codex below:

WordPress Codex – Formatting Date And Time

Priority Labels

Here you can customize the labels for important, normal and lowest priority items …

Items given the highest priority are colour-coded in red and lowest priority items display in a lighter shade of grey …

Show To-Do Item ID

Enabling this option will display the items’ IDs on the list …

Show Date To-Do Was Added

Enabling this option (‘Yes’) will display the date the items table was added …

To-Do List Advanced Settings > Assign To-Do Items Settings

If you have chosen either ‘Group’ or ‘Master’ View for your to-do list, you can configure the options in this area and assign to-do items to other users …

The following options can be configured in this area:

Assign To-Do Items to Users

Enabling this option (‘Yes’) lets you assign to-do items to other users …

Note: This set this option to ‘Yes’ for the settings below it to work.

Show a User Only the To-Do Items Assigned to Them

Enable this option (‘Yes’) to display to-do items only to users who have been specifically assigned those items. Leave this option disabled (‘No’) to display to-do items to all users.

User Roles to Show

Checking the boxes in this section Subscriber) displays the type of users that can be assigned to-do items. Leave the check box unticked for any roles that you do not want to assign to-do items.

Email Assigned To-Do Items to User

If this option is enabled, WordPress will automatically send users an email with their assigned to-do items …

If you don’t want to send out emails to users, then leave this option disabled (‘No’).

Note: If this option is disabled, skip other settings in this section.

Add Category to Subject

If you have enabled categories in your plugin settings and select ‘Yes’ for this option, the to-do category will display on the subject of your emails …

Leave this option disabled (‘No’) if you don’t want to-do categories added to the subject of your emails.

If you don’t want categories to appear the subject of your emails, then leave this option disabled.

Show Who Assigned the To-Do Item in Email

If enabled (‘Yes’), you can display the user who assigned the to-do item in the email. This is a useful option if your website has multiple project managers assigning to-do items to users …

From Field for Emails Sent to User

This field lets you customize the “From” field when sending out emails. You can enter your company name, your domain, your name, or anything you like in this field …

From Email

Add into this field the email address that you would like displayed as the “sent from” address …

Subject Field for Emails Sent to User

Add into this field a subject field for the email that will be distributed automatically to users whenever new items have been assigned to your to-do list …

Text in Emails Sent to User

In this field, enter the body of the email message that will be sent out automatically to users when a new item has been assigned to your to-do list.

To-Do List Advanced Settings > Database Cleanup

This area lets you carry out database maintenance tasks related to plugin data inside the plugin settings area …

This is useful if, for example, you notice that to-do items you have previously deleted are still showing on your site.

You can perform the following tasks:

• Delete Tables – Delete any custom database tables that you are no longer using.
• Delete All To-Do Items – Delete all to-do items.

Any database operations performed from this screen cannot be undone. If you are sure that you want to proceed with any of the database operations available in this section, then make sure to backup your WP database first.

If you don’t want to do your own site backups, then get support from a WordPress professional, or use WordPress backup plugins. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here:

• Back Up, Clone & Protect Your WordPress Website With Backup Creator WP Plugin

User Permissions

In this section you can configure user permissions and capabilities for Group and Master List types …

If you have selected the Individual List type, the only item that is applicable in this section is the View To-Do List permission …

If you are configuring user permissions and capabilities for Group or Master List types, select the highest level capabilities that you want users to be able to perform for each option …

By default, general capabilities of each user role are set up as follows:

• Subscribers: Read
• Contributors: Edit Posts
• Authors: Publish Posts
• Editors: Edit Others Posts
• Administrators: Manage Options

Note: When using the Master list type make sure that you only permit non-administrator users to view and complete items, otherwise they will be able to edit the Master list itself.

Let’s go through the settings in this section:

View To-Do List

Here you can permit the chosen capability to view to-do items in the dashboard widget and on the To-Do List page under the ‘Tools’ section.

Complete To-Do Item Capability

Here you can enable the chosen capability to mark to-do items as completed or not completed.

Add To-Do Item Capability

This setting enables the selected capability to add new to-do items.

Edit To-Do Item Capability

Here you can allow the selected capability to edit existing to-do items.

Assign To-Do Item Capability

Here you can enable the chosen capability to delegate to-do items to individual users.

View All Assigned Tasks Capability

This option allows the selected capability to view all tasks even if “Show Each User Only Their Assigned Tasks” is set to ‘Yes’.

Delete To-Do Item Capability

Here you can allow the chosen capability to delete individual items.

Delete All To-Do Items Capability

This option enables the chosen capability to purge all the completed items.

Add Categories Capability

Here you can enable the selected capability to add new categories.

Import/Export

Being able to import and export to-do list data can be useful. For example, you may decide to copy over data from one website to another, or export the data for backup or reporting purposes.

To access this function, click on the ‘Import/Export’ tab in your plugin settings section …

Now you can export or import your data and plugin settings …

Exporting To-Do List Data

To export and download your list data settings click on the ‘Download Export File’ …

This opens up a window allowing you to download and save your data as plain text to a storage device …

As well as exporting data from the ‘Import/Export’ tab, you can also export data by going to your WordPress admin menu and choosing Tools > Export …

You can include to-do list data in an export file (in XML format), either by selecting ‘All content’ (includes everything – pages, posts, etc…), or selecting ‘To-Do’ from the ‘Choose what to export’ section and clicking on the ‘Download Export File’ button to download your file to your storage device…

Importing To-Do List Data

Importing a previously saved to-do list data file is easy. Just click on the ‘Browse’ button next to the ‘Choose File to Import’ field …

Select the file and click ‘Open’ …

After the data file has been uploaded in your settings area, click the ‘Import Settings’ button …

Your file will be imported.

Now that you have configured all of the plugin settings, you are ready to start creating and editing your to-do lists.

How To Use Cleverness To-Do List

To create a new to do list, go to your WordPress dashboard menu and select To-Do List > To-Do List …

This brings up the ‘To-Do List’ page …

Add New Items To Your List

There are several ways to add new items to your to-do list.

For example, you can add new to-do items from your WP dashboard toolbar …

You can also add new items to your to-do list in your Dashboard by clicking on the ‘Add To-Do item’ link …

You can click on the ‘Add New Item’ link in the ‘To-Do Items’ section (note: only use this option if your To-Do list contains many items, as the link will simply send you to the “Add New To-Do Item” section at the bottom of the page) …

All the methods shown above will bring you to the ‘Add New To-Do Item’ area.

Depending on how you have configured the plugin’s settings, some options may not display when when you add new to-do items.

Configure the options you have enabled for your to-do items, enter appropriate information into the relevant fields and click on the ‘Submit To-Do Item’ button to add the new item to your list …

Note: If you are using a list type that allows you to assign responsibilities over items to specific users, select a user from the drop-down list and assign them the item …

You can also assign multiple users to the same item (click on ‘x’ to delete a user) …

Once you have added an item, the item will display as an entry in the ‘To-Do List’ table …

Repeat the above process to continue adding new items to your to-do list …

Editing And Deleting To Do Items

To edit or delete an item, click on the ‘Edit’ or ‘Delete’ buttons next to items under the ‘Action’ column …

Depending on your configuration plugin settings (discussed in the previous section), users assigned to completing tasks may also receive an email notification in their inboxes …

After creating your to do list, users can view the list when logged into their own user dashboard …

When users responsible for the item complete the task and tick the item check box …

… the item no longer appears in the “To-Do” list …

And gets added to the ‘Completed Items’ table located in the ’To-Do List’ screen …

Additional Plugin Information

The Cleverness plugin provides additional functions that let you display to-do lists on your site using widgets, and display lists on any page or post using short codes.

Using The Cleverness Plugin Widget

To add to-do lists to your site using widgets, go to the ‘Widgets’ page (Appearance > Widgets) and drag the ‘To-Do List’ widget to the menu location where you want the list to appear …

Configure the settings on the widget and click ’Save’ …

Your to-do list will display where the ‘to-do-list’ widget was added (i.e. the sidebar menu, footer, etc.)

To learn more about how to use widgets in WordPress, see the tutorial below:

• Using Widgets In WordPress

Shortcodes

The plugin also lets you display lists on your site using shortcodes.

To access the plugin’s short code documentation, select To-Do List > To-Do List from your admin menu …

Click on the ‘Help’ tab on the top right hand corner of your screen …

Click on the ‘Shortcodes’ menu entry to access the Shortcode Documentation section …

This documentation section explains various ways to configure and use shortcodes for displaying lists on your posts and pages.

Once you know what information you want to display on your site, create or edit a new or existing post or page and either type or paste the short code into the content editor …

After publishing your page or post, you should see the list showing where you have inserted the shortcode …

Visit the plugin website to learn more about this plugin:

• Cleverness To-Do List WordPress Plugin

Congratulations! Now you know how to add a to-do list to your WordPress site or blog.

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