Your first week

You have a team and an empty dashboard. This path takes a week, ten minutes a day, and by Friday the tool is doing the remembering. Each step ends with one thing to do.

1. Make one project, for real work

Every team starts with a project called General, for odds and ends. Real work gets a project of its own: a client, a launch, a season. One is enough to begin. Give it the client's name and let the key be whatever the page suggests; tasks in it will read like acme-1, and that reference is what people say out loud.

Do this: open Projects, press New project, type the name of the work you are most behind on, and create it. Or pick one of the four starters under Start from and let it lay the lists out. The guide: Your first project and Project templates.

2. Put down the tasks you are carrying in your head

Type them the way you would say them. Send the contract @me friday !high is one line, and it becomes a task with an owner, a date and a priority. Do not organise yet. Ten tasks in five minutes is the goal; the shape comes later.

Do this: on the project page, add every task you can think of in one sitting, using the shorthand. The guide: Adding tasks fast.

3. Invite one colleague

A task list for one person is a to-do list. The moment a second person is on the team, the tool starts earning its place: they see the work, take a task, leave a note, and you find out without asking. Invite one person, not everyone.

Do this: Team settings, Invite, their email, the role Member. The guide: People, roles, and who sees what.

4. Finish something, and watch what moves

Mark one task done. The count on the project changes, tomorrow's summary email says so, and the person who follows that task hears about it. That loop, one task finished and the right people told, is the whole product. Everything else is furniture around it.

Do this: finish a task today. Tomorrow, read the summary email that arrives and notice that it carries the content, not a link to go and look. The guide: Notifications and digests.

5. Look at your plate on the dashboard

Six counts, each a link: what is late, what is due today, this week, after this week, undated, and the things you follow that nobody owns. Below them, the one list that should not cost a click: today. Open it every morning for a week and you will stop keeping the list in your head.

Do this: open the dashboard first thing tomorrow, click one count, and see the filtered list it counts. The guide: The dashboard.

6. Turn on only what you need

A new team starts with time tracking, labels, subtasks, task lists and watchers all off. That is on purpose: a task, a date and a name is enough for most teams for a long time. When you want hours against estimates, or a client who should see only their project, turn the one thing on.

Do this: open Team settings, Features, and read the six switches. Turn on one you know you want, or none. The guide: Dates, estimates and time.