# Tasks

> Work in a project with an owner and a duration, scheduled on the critical path.

A task is work in a [project](/docs/apps/projects/projects) that takes time, such as "Sign the
lease". You give it an owner and a duration, and Continual schedules it.

## How it works

You give each task:

- An **Owner**, a person or Continual.
- A **Kind**: **Work** takes its owner's time; a **Wait** is time that must pass while nobody works,
  such as a permit review; a **Milestone** takes no time and marks a date others rely on.
- A **Duration** in working days, Monday to Friday. A milestone's duration is 0.
- Optionally, a **Start no earlier than** date and a **Due date**.

A task moves from **Backlog** or **Planned** to **In progress** and **Done**, or is **Canceled**.
You decide when it is done, using its completion criteria, comments, and attachments. Each task gets
a number, such as TASK-21. **Move to** moves a task to another project and keeps its number and
[dependencies](/docs/apps/projects/dependencies).

A task is planned work, not a [to-do](/docs/concepts/to-dos): it does not appear in anyone's **Up
next**. When a task needs a person, a to-do about it asks them.

### Follow the schedule

You never enter a task's scheduled dates. Continual computes them from its duration, what it waits
for, and its fixed dates, and the task's **Schedule** section shows them:

- **Scheduled start**, **Scheduled finish**, **Late start**, **Late finish**, and **Slack**. A task
  with no slack is **Critical**.
- **Actual start** and **Actual finish**, from the day it went in progress and the day it was done.

Backlog and canceled tasks are not scheduled. If dependencies form a loop, the tasks in it get no
dates. A dependency on a task in another project blocks the task but does not move its dates yet.

The tasks list has views for this: **Critical path** lists the unfinished tasks with no slack,
**Schedule** is a timeline of scheduled dates, and **Board** groups tasks by status.

### Ready and Blocked

Continual also marks each unfinished task:

- **Ready** when it has an owner and completion criteria.
- **Blocked** while a task it waits for has not finished, or, for a start-to-start dependency, not
  started.

<RecordReference type="projects.task" />

## Next steps

<Cards>
  <Card
    title="Dependencies"
    href="/docs/apps/projects/dependencies"
    icon="list"
  >
    Say what a task waits for.
  </Card>
  <Card
    title="Plan and run a project"
    href="/docs/guides/run-a-project"
    icon="folder"
  >
    Plan a project and read its schedule.
  </Card>
</Cards>