Tasks that don't fall through cracks

Most task systems fail the same way: capture is easy, upkeep is brutal, and after three weeks the list is a graveyard. Dex's task system is built to be maintained by the system, not by you. You speak; the bookkeeping happens.

Creating tasks: just say it

• "Create a task to review the Q1 numbers."
• "Remind me to prep for Sarah's demo."
• "Add a task: draft the launch announcement."

Dex infers which of your pillars the task belongs to and proposes it back — "filing this under Revenue Growth, sound right?" — so you confirm rather than categorize. If a task is genuinely ambiguous ("fix the thing"), Dex asks rather than guesses. It also catches near-duplicates: if you already have a task that's substantially the same, it points at the existing one instead of silently creating a twin.

What a task actually is

Every task gets a permanent ID (they look like ^task-20260726-001) and lives in one authoritative list, 03-Tasks/Tasks.md. But tasks appear everywhere they're relevant — the meeting where they came from, the person pages of people involved, the project they serve. Because it's one task with one ID, not copies, an update in one place is an update everywhere.

This is a place where Dex deliberately doesn't trust the AI's improvisation. Task creation and syncing run through a dedicated tool that validates, deduplicates, and writes all the linked files atomically — the AI decides what the task is; a deterministic program guarantees the bookkeeping is right.

Priorities, with built-in honesty

Tasks carry priorities P0 (critical) through P3 (someday), and Dex enforces caps: only a few P0s, a handful of P1s. Try to make a ninth thing "critical" and Dex pushes back — because a priority system where everything is critical is how things fall through cracks. If the pushback is wrong, override it; the caps are configurable. But the default forces the honest conversation most task apps let you avoid.

Completing tasks: say it any way you like

"Done with the pricing thing" is enough. Dex matches your phrasing to the actual task — including loose, semantic matches — marks it complete with a timestamp, and updates every file where the task appears. If more than one task could match, it asks.

Where tasks surface

You rarely open the task file. Tasks come to you:

• /daily-plan pulls the relevant ones into today's Must/Should/Could.
• /meeting-prep surfaces open items between you and the attendees.
• /triage finds stray checkboxes scattered in notes and folds them into the real system.
• Your synced task app, if you connected one — completions flow both directions.

Pillars: the quiet organizing layer

Every task belongs to one of your pillars. This isn't bureaucracy — it's what lets Dex answer the questions that actually matter: Where is my time going? Does it match what I said matters? When weeks of tasks skew heavily toward one pillar while another starves, Dex can see it and say so.

Your pillars live in a plain file (System/pillars.yaml) and evolve by conversation — "I'm handing off the partnerships work, let's retire that pillar."

The prompt for the list you're afraid of

Once a month, let the task system tell you the truth about itself:

Audit my task list like a ruthless chief of staff. Which tasks have I
carried for over a month? For each: is it actually dead (kill it, say so),
secretly a project (break it down), or genuinely just not yet (give it a
real date)? Then tell me what the pattern of what-I-let-rot says about
what I should stop signing up for. You have my history — be specific.

Make it your own: end with "kill the dead ones now and show me what's left" — a twenty-item list that's real beats a sixty-item list that's fiction.

Tips from real use

• Don't import your old task list wholesale. Graveyards stay graveyards. Bring tasks in as they become real.
• Trust the inference, correct freely. Confirming a suggested pillar takes one word; correcting it teaches Dex your mental model.
• Let the caps argue with you. The moment "everything is P0" gets uncomfortable is the moment the system is working.
• Use natural language for everything. If you find yourself carefully formatting a task, you're doing Dex's job for it.

First, fetch and read the page I'm referring to: https://heydex.ai/help/tasks-planning.md

I just read the Dex Guide's page on tasks. Audit my live task list against
everything it teaches: are my priority caps honest or is everything
"critical"? Any near-duplicates? What's been rotting for a month? Which
tasks have no pillar, and what does the pillar balance say about where my
time is really going? Clean it up with me now — propose the kills, splits,
and re-priorities one at a time, and I'll say yes or no to each.