Templates as a Tool

Do the same thing a few times and you start developing a sense for it. You remember the steps you missed the first time. You learn that changing the order makes things smoother.

The problem is that experience stays in your head. Next time you do the same thing, you’re relying on memory again. I needed a place where experience could accumulate.

That’s where templates started. Not a tool for copying and repeating, but a place to come back to after finishing a task and refine what you’ve learned. The first version can be rough. Use it, come back, tweak it. Over time, it becomes your own workflow.

Building a good template isn’t easy, and it takes time. But that time makes the next attempt, and the one after that, smoother.

Recommendations

When you create a task and start typing a title, similar templates surface below. The tone is: “You made a template like this before — want to use it?”

Frequently used templates float to the top. Pinned templates get priority. Up to five suggestions shown.

I added a 300-millisecond debounce so a search doesn’t fire with every keystroke. A small detail, but without it the dropdown flickers with each character and it’s distracting.

After adding this, I ended up being the heaviest user. For anyone who repeats similar task structures, it’s quite convenient. Probably.

Subtask Connections

Templates include the subtask graph. You can pre-define connections between subtasks, and they carry over to the generated task.

I almost built a separate graph component for templates, but realized I could reuse the same one by abstracting the API. One graph editor now works for both tasks and templates.

Not duplicating the code was the right call. Fix one side and both get better.

AI Generates Subtasks

Honestly, this was a “wouldn’t it be nice” feature that I tried adding.

Based on a template’s title and description, AI generates subtask suggestions. Create a “Write blog post” template, and it suggests “Choose topic,” “Write draft,” “Edit,” “Publish.”

It’s not perfect. Sometimes the suggestions are too generic or miss the context. But starting with something beats staring at a blank screen. You can always edit from there.

There’s a daily usage limit. I wanted it unlimited, but costs forced a compromise.

Scheduled Generation

You can schedule a template to automatically create a task on a specific date. Once, daily, weekly, or monthly.

It started with “I wish a weekly report task would just appear every Monday.” A simple idea, but adding repeat options and edge cases made it more complex than expected.

Whether it’s being used well, I’m not sure yet. I find it quite useful, but I wonder about others.

Sharing

You can share templates via QR code or link. “This is how I work” — shown to someone else.

Building this, I kept thinking: a good workflow deserves to be shared. Someone’s hard-won process could save another person real time.

A community templates feature is in the works too — a space to discover and adopt templates shared by others. Not finished yet, but it’s something I really want to build.

A Story About Growth

Templates are ultimately a tool for accumulating experience. Your first template will be lacking. That’s natural. But use it, come back and fix it, use it again. It gets better each time.

Whether I built it well, I honestly don’t know. I keep wondering if there are too many features, if it should be simpler.

But one thing is certain: I use it every day, and my templates are much better than they were three months ago. When I can feel that change, I think building this was worth it.

If something feels off, please let me know.

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Experience only matters when it accumulates. I wanted there to be a place to put it.