Autism Task Planner

A sidebar panel for Obsidian that turns your markdown task list into a sequenced schedule — with live time estimates, drag-and-drop reordering, and category labels. Built for people who need to see exactly what comes next and how long everything will take.

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How it works

Open any note that contains a task list, then run Open Task Planner from the command palette. The panel reads your list and displays every task as a card with a calculated start time based on how long everything before it takes.

Reorder cards by dragging. Edit a duration by clicking it. Change a category by clicking the label. Mark tasks done as you go. The schedule updates instantly every time.

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Task list format

Write tasks in any markdown note using this format:

- Task name 5m -category
- Another task 1h30m -category

Part	Format	Examples
Task name	Any text	brush teeth, Record video
Duration	Nm, Nh, or NhMm	5m, 2h, 1h30m
Category	-word at the end	-health, -work, -hobby

Capitalization and trailing spaces are preserved exactly as written. A line with no duration defaults to 0m. A line with no category tag is labelled other.

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Features

Time planning

• Set a custom start time at the top of the panel, or let it default to right now
• Every card shows its calculated start time based on all tasks before it
• Footer shows total duration and estimated finish time
• All times use your local timezone

Reordering

• Drag any card to a new position
• All start times downstream recalculate immediately

Editing

• Click a duration badge to edit it inline (5m, 1h, 1h30m, 90m, or a plain number of minutes)
• Click a category badge to pick a new category from a dropdown

Completing tasks

• Check off a task — it dims and moves out of the active schedule
• Click the undo arrow to bring it back
• "Clear completed" removes all done tasks at once

Syncing back to your file (optional, off by default)

• Completions can be written back as - [x] ... checkboxes
• Reorders can be written back to the file in the new order
• Edited durations and categories can be written back inline

The file is never touched unless you explicitly enable a sync setting.

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Built-in categories

Category		Category
hygiene	blue	work	teal
grooming	slate blue	cooking	orange
health	green	exercise	forest green
cleaning	amber	social	pink
chores	red	errands	brown
hobby	purple	finance	cyan
other	gray	learning	indigo
		creative	deep orange
		selfcare	rose
		family	amber-gold

Category colors can be changed per-category in Settings → Autism Task Planner.

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Settings

Setting	Default	Description
Default start time	Current time	Set a fixed start time (e.g. 09:00) or leave blank to use now
Sync reorder to file	Off	Writes the new task order back to the markdown file after dragging
Sync completions to file	Off	Marks completed tasks as - [x] ... in the file
Sync edited durations/categories to file	Off	Writes duration and category edits back inline
Category colors	Per built-in defaults	One color picker per category

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Installation

Via BRAT (recommended for early access)

1. Install BRAT from the Community Plugins browser
2. Open BRAT settings → Add Beta Plugin
3. Paste: mm0x1/obsidian-autism-task-planner

Via Community Plugins

Search for Autism Task Planner in Settings → Community plugins → Browse.

Manual

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release
2. Copy them into .obsidian/plugins/obsidian-autism-task-planner/ inside your vault
3. Enable the plugin in Settings → Community plugins