How to Add Tasks to Google Calendar (Web, Android, iPhone)

Google Calendar has a to-do list built in. It is Google Tasks, and it lives inside Calendar on the web and in the phone apps, so you can put a task on a specific day, give it a time, make it repeat and check it off without leaving your schedule. Below are the exact steps on each platform, what the date fields actually do, and where Google Tasks runs out of road.

Tasks vs. events: the one distinction that matters

An event is a block of time with a start and an end: a meeting, two hours of focused writing. A task is something to get done. It can have a date and a time, but it can also be completed, and it stays in your pending list until you tick it off. An event just passes. Keep that in mind; it matters at the end.

How to add a task in Google Calendar on the web

1. Open Google Calendar in your browser.
2. Click an empty slot on the day you want, or click Create at the top left.
3. Choose Task (instead of Event).
4. Type the title, then set the options you need: start date and time, deadline, description and task list.
5. Click Save.

You can also open the Tasks side panel (the Tasks icon on the right side of Calendar) and add a task to a list from there. A task created in the panel without a date lives in the list but does not appear on the calendar grid. Tasks need a date to show up on the calendar.

If you don't see your tasks at all, look under My calendars in the left panel and make sure the Tasks box is checked. Unchecking it hides every task from the grid, which is handy when you only want to see meetings.

How to add a task on Android

1. Open the Google Calendar app.
2. Tap an empty slot and then Task, or tap the + (Add) button and choose Task.
3. Add the title, start date and time, deadline, description and task list.
4. Tap Save at the top right.

To check tasks off, tap the task and tap Mark completed. In the Pending tasks list you can also swipe a task to the right to complete it.

How to add a task on iPhone

1. Open the Google Calendar app.
2. Tap an empty slot and then Task, or tap the + (Add) button and choose Task.
3. Set the start date and time, deadline, description and task list.
4. Tap Save.

Completed tasks stay on the calendar crossed out by default. If you'd rather they disappear, the option to stop showing completed tasks is in the app's settings (under the general settings on iPhone, and in the view options on the web). The standalone Google Tasks app edits the same lists, so tasks added there show up in Calendar once they have a date.

Dates, times and deadlines: what each field does

Google reworked tasks in Calendar in late 2025 so that a task can sit on your schedule like a time block. The fields now mean slightly different things:

• Start date and time: when you plan to work on the task. You can add a start and end time, which makes the task occupy a block on your calendar.
• Deadline: the date you need it finished. It shows in the all-day area of that day. Deadlines are date-only; you can't set a deadline hour.
• Task list: which list it belongs to, for example Work, Home or Errands.
• Advanced options on the web: color, whether the block shows you as free or busy, and visibility. Do not disturb and auto-declining meetings during the block are only available for work or school accounts.

Notifications follow the date: a task with a time notifies you at that time, and a task with only a date notifies you at 9 AM.

How to make a task repeat

1. Create or edit a task.
2. Set its date (and time, if you want one).
3. Choose the repeat option next to the date. On the web it appears once a date is set; in the apps it shows as "Does not repeat" until you change it.
4. Pick daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, or open Custom to choose specific weekdays and when the series ends (never, on a date, or after a number of times).
5. Save.

A few rules Google documents for repeating tasks:

• Repeating tasks can't have an end time, so they can't reserve a block of a specific length. If you need "every weekday, 8:30 to 9:00, inbox", use a repeating event instead.
• Tasks with subtasks can't repeat, and neither can shared tasks.
• If you stop a series from repeating, you can't turn repeat back on for it. You have to create a new series.
• Calendar only shows a limited number of future occurrences and adds more over time.

If what you are really building is a routine (a morning sequence, a startup and shutdown ritual for work), the free routine builder lays out each step with its time and exports a recurring event you can import into Google Calendar.

Finding tasks you didn't finish

Unfinished tasks don't disappear. On a day view, click or tap Pending tasks to see uncompleted tasks from the last 365 days, then reschedule, edit or complete them from that list.

What Google Tasks doesn't do well

For a short list of dated reminders it works fine. These are the gaps you hit when you try to run your whole day on it:

• No real daily plan view. The calendar grid shows timed items by hour, and tasks without a time sit in the all-day row. There is no single ordered list of "today" that mixes your events and your tasks in the order you'll do them.
• Undated tasks are invisible on the calendar. Anything without a date only lives in the side panel or the Tasks app, which makes it easy to forget.
• No priorities beyond a star. You can star tasks, but there are no priority levels, tags or filters across lists.
• No planning ritual. Nothing prompts you to plan the day in the morning, look at what slipped yesterday, or review the week. The pending list is there, but you have to remember to go to it.
• Repeating tasks can't hold time. As above, routines that need a fixed block have to become events.

When a dedicated to-do app fits better

If you have more than a handful of tasks a day, or you want to plan each morning rather than react, a to-do app that reads your calendar usually works better than tasks inside the calendar. The calendar stays the source of truth for meetings, and the to-do app gives you a daily list where the meetings show up next to your tasks, so you can see how much room the day really has.

That is the idea behind Rotyn. It is a to-do and daily planning app for web, Android, iPhone and desktop, and on Pro it connects to Google Calendar read-only: your events appear next to your tasks for the day, and it can remind you before meetings, but it never creates or edits anything in your calendar. Tasks you didn't finish yesterday show up so you can decide what to do with them, instead of being buried in a pending list.

We wrote a longer comparison of the options in our guide to using a to-do list with Google Calendar.

How to combine tasks and events (the setup that works)

Whatever app you use for tasks, this split keeps both tools honest:

1. Big tasks become events. Anything that needs more than about 30 minutes of focus (writing a proposal, preparing a presentation, doing your taxes) gets a block on the calendar. This is time blocking, the approach Cal Newport popularized: you decide in advance what each hour is for. Our time blocking guide covers the method in depth.
2. Small tasks stay tasks. Replying to an email, booking a haircut, paying a bill. Give them a day, not a time. Batch them into a single "admin" block if there are many.
3. Plan the next day before you stop. Look at tomorrow's meetings, choose the one to three things that matter, block time for the big ones, and leave the small ones on the list.
4. Leave buffer. Don't fill every gap. Meetings run over and small tasks take longer than they should (Parkinson's law cuts both ways).

If you want to sketch the day before committing it to your calendar, the free time blocking planner lets you build the day in 15- or 30-minute blocks with colour categories, see totals per category, and download an .ics file to import the blocks into Google Calendar.

In Rotyn, this split happens on one screen: the blocks you put in Google Calendar appear in your day next to the tasks, so you see the meetings, the focus blocks and the small stuff together. On Rotyn Free you plan today and tomorrow with up to 25 open tasks; planning any date or a whole week, recurring tasks, the Google Calendar connection and the "plan my day" ritual are part of Pro.

Quick answers

### Can I add a to-do list to Google Calendar? Yes. Google Tasks is built in. Open the Tasks panel on the web or use the Task option when creating something in the app. Tasks show on the calendar once they have a date.

Why don't my tasks show in Google Calendar?

Either the Tasks box under My calendars is unchecked, or the tasks have no date. Undated tasks only appear in the Tasks panel and the Google Tasks app.

Try it with your own calendar

Google Tasks is a good place to start, and the steps above are all you need for a light list. If you find yourself wanting one daily list where your meetings and your tasks sit together, with yesterday's leftovers waiting for a decision, try Rotyn free. Every new account gets Rotyn Pro free for 14 days, so you can connect Google Calendar and plan a full week before deciding anything.