General Task

General Task is a planning and time-blocking tool designed to bring order to a scattered workday. It connects to the apps you already use—like GitHub, Linear, Jira, Google Calendar, and Slack—and pulls all your tasks, pull requests, and meetings into a single overview. From there, you can drag any item directly onto your Google Calendar, which automatically creates a calendar event. This turns a simple to-do list into a concrete schedule, helping you reserve time for the work that matters.

The tool is built for efficiency and minimizing distraction. Its Focus Mode lets you hide everything except the one task or meeting you're currently working on, based on the idea that a single interruption can cost over 20 minutes of recovery time. For power users, the Quick Command feature provides keyboard shortcuts to navigate and manage tasks quickly. A key point is that General Task is open-source; you can use the hosted version or download and run it on your own servers for free.

This tool is most useful for professionals, especially developers and project managers, who juggle tasks across several platforms and need a clear system to plan their time. It helps turn a chaotic mix of Slack messages, Jira tickets, and GitHub notifications into a structured daily plan, making it easier to start the day and stay on track.