Custom Task Status

Custom Task Status lets you extend the default task statuses in team workspaces beyond the three built-in states (Todo, Completed, Discarded). Add intermediate statuses like Backlog, In Progress, In Review, or Blocked to reflect how your team actually works.

Each custom status gets its own color, making it instantly visible on task checkboxes throughout the workspace without opening individual tasks.

✍️ What Custom Task Status includes

By default, every task in Routine has three statuses:

• Todo — work that hasn't started

• Completed — work that's done (shown with a tick)

• Discarded — work that won't be done (shown with a strikethrough)

With Custom Task Status, team workspaces can add statuses between Todo and Completed to reflect real workflow stages. Each custom status:

• Has a name you define (e.g. In Progress, Blocked, In Review)

• Has a color that appears on the task's checkbox in all views

• Is visible on hover — hovering the checkbox shows the status name as a tooltip

• Can be set by long-pressing the checkbox — no need to open the task

• Appears as a column in the Board view automatically

🎙️ How to set up Custom Task Status

1. Go to Settings → Organization

2. Navigate to Types

3. Open the Task type

4. Find the Status property

5. Click to add a new status value

6. Name it (e.g. "In Progress", "Backlog", "Blocked", "In Review")

7. Assign a color to it

8. Repeat for each status you need

9. Save — the new statuses are immediately available across all tasks in that workspace

Using custom statuses on tasks:

• From the task list — long press the checkbox on any task to see all available statuses and select one

• From the task view — open the task and click the Status property to change it

• From the Board — drag a task card to the column representing the status you want

• From the right-click menu — right-click any task and select a status from the context menu

How custom statuses appear:

• The checkbox is colored to match the custom status — making status visible at a glance without opening tasks

• Hovering the checkbox shows the status name as a tooltip

• Long pressing shows all available statuses for quick switching

• Completed tasks still show a tick; Discarded tasks still show a strikethrough — custom statuses sit between these two endpoints

🎨 Status colors and order

• Each status has a color you assign in the type editor

• The default order is: Todo → custom statuses → Completed → Discarded

• This order drives the column sequence in the Board view

• Colors can be updated at any time — changes reflect immediately across all tasks

🗣️ Use cases

Custom Task Status is especially useful for:

• Software teams — add Backlog, In Progress, In Review, and Done to mirror a standard engineering workflow

• Content teams — add Drafting, Editing, Ready to Publish to track content through production

• Client work — add Waiting on Client, In Review, Approved to reflect external dependencies

• Sales teams — add Prospecting, Proposal Sent, Negotiating to track deal stages as tasks

• Design workflows — add Wireframing, Designing, In Review to manage design tasks through stages

• Any team — define statuses that match how your team talks about work, not just a generic done/not-done binary

Custom Task Status transforms Routine's task system from a simple checklist into a flexible workflow engine that reflects how your team actually operates — visible at a glance, without extra clicks.