Sub-Tasks in Notion: The Ultimate Guide

Notion can be used to create powerful task management templates - but what about sub-tasks? In this video, I'll show you exactly how to add sub-task support to your Notion task lists.

🧠 This is an advanced video! If you're just starting out with Notion, check out my free Notion Fundamentals series:

🔧 ULTIMATE TASKS TEMPLATE (FREE):

😎 CREATOR'S COMPANION (My mega-template for content creators):

🧪 SUB-TASK SORTING FORMULAS REFERENCE:

🛠 MORE COURSES AND RESOURCES:

💪GET STARTED WITH NOTION:

🐦 SOCIAL STUFF:

⏱ TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Intro
00:12 - Showing Sub-tasks
00:56 - Ultimate Tasks Template Update
01:31 - Video Overview
02:18 - Going over Simple Tasks
02:41 - Create a Relation to allow for Subtasks
04:01 - Creating a Sub-Task
04:35 - Showing the "State" property
06:12 - Create a Template to Make a Subtask
07:20 - Self-Referential Filters
08:21 - The Issue with Default Subtasks
09:58 - A Workaround for Default Subtasks
11:06 - How to get Subtasks to Sort Themselves Under Parent Task
16:44 - Showing Subtasks Inside of Projects
18:54 - Wrap up

👐 BUSINESS:

🎞 SPECIAL THANKS
Video clips supplied by Getty Images

[scotthimel]

All of this demonstrates for me how Notion needs to create a dedicated “Task Manager” block that doesn’t require 5 formulas and 23 steps to make sub-tasks work. Your average user is never going to do this. I find it easier just to use Todoist, and then embed individual Todoist projects into Notion when necessary, such as if I create a notion project page to track everything related to a project like files and notes, except for the tasks.

[johnbeavan]

YES! Brilliant workaround for adding default tasks into a new template. Thank you so much Thomas!

[skohcl]

Amazing, beautiful, wonderful. At first I was wondering why there were so many variables - when some of the variables could be determined through more complex formulas, but I see the method in the end through the sorting. Nicely done - if you're trying to copy all this stuff and make it yourself you may need to slow this down to half speed to follow properly ;)

[micosstar]

i give appreciation for your tips in creating sub-tasks in notion; i came to your video as i love the reminders by apple; it is easy to create tasks and sub-tasks plus create dates of when to do them; but when i switch to a chromebook or windows, the magic stops; notion is compatible across ios, android, windows, and chrome os; so having the functionality of the reminders by apple on notion is something i need - comment by mico!

[twinjuke]

What I only miss (and I really do) is to see the status of the Sub-Tasks on the board view under the parent task's ticket (when sub-tasks are hidden from the board and they are visible in the parent task ticket only). Great video, thanks.

[carolinetarginodomingo]

I love it!!! I spent all afternoon understanding every detail of this logic, taking notes to document it for me and replicating to my Notion. I'm a fan of your work, thanks for that

[angelseijimorimoto]

Hello, I just started using Notion several weeks ago and I've slowly been integrating it to some parts of my daily life. It's great to have videos and content like this. I would also like to comment that after watching this video and playing around with "Formula" and "Rolloup" properties, I have found a way to make an n-level parent-children hierarchy that gets displayed properly in the table. For my use case it is only sorted by the name, but I think it could easily be expanded to include other criteria like dates, as in your example. For only sorting by name, we just need one formula and one rolloup property. Let me know if you want me to share with you the configuration of these properties and maybe an explanation

[DemetriPanici]

Okay but who else has seen the subtle update that u can duplicate tasks without getting the “copy of” now?

[antonlvovych]

It seems that it won't work as expected if the parent task doesn't have a due date but the sub-task does. In this case, the sub-task will be above the parent task and even above other tasks. The reason is that the sorting is initially by date and any task (including subtasks) with a due date will always be higher than the parent without a due date. The way to fix this issue is to change the "Due Timestamp" formula to:
if(empty(prop("Due")), timestamp(now()), timestamp(prop("Due")))

[miguelarodz]

To add to your insane notion to do list have you thought about doing a second brain / digital brain? I understand that there's diminishing returns as you become more productive. But it really depends on the person and how big their ambition is. But there's also an argument to where no matter what tools are available ambition will drive them to be as productive as they need to be. Anyway just curious on your take of it. Thanks for all your work man

[nonsensetwice]

When creating a database view, Notion offers a sub-task item to be turned on for that view. Is this similar to the functionality explained in this video?

Some background: I'm fairly new to Notion--I was introduced to it about two years ago, but am really only just now diving in--and am working on developing a framework for my personal projects with a companion Discord bot. I came across your channel when searching "advanced notion tips."

[iharvalynets]

Is it possible to force some sub-tasks' properties be the same as their parent task has (epic, priority, status, bla-bla-bla)?

[ianhill]

Very well done. You taught me a lot. Wouldn't it be easier to sort as subtasks to create a single column/formula that simply concats "self-name - 1" if parent is blank or "parent name - 2" if parent not blank. You then sort by that column

[comebackcs]

Very cool!
I have a question. Is it possible to create a dependent drop-down list in Notion database?
Suppose I have a list of objects that I want to give a category and a sub-category. The sub-category should only show options that are related to the selected Category. Sometimes, it is called linked drop-down lists. Please help or explain to me how to create it!

[sungmonica]

Hi Thomas, thank you for sharing! Very appreciated, which is super useful and can transform my life!! Thank you!!

[DementedDog]

Brilliant! I’ve been wondering how to do this on various DBs 👍🏻

[BulLiT]

Hi. I love your content. Could you do something on displaying "progression (bars)"? I've seen some stuff on Reddit and I think seeing how far you have come in a project can be very motivational :) thanks again for the great content.

[HippieP]

This is incredibly impressive. I love and use notion daily. I think I would just connect wrike or taskade, etc to do this natively.

[FekuEntertainmentLtd]

The only caveat I think here is, if I check all the subtasks, the parent task doesn't get checked automatically.

[GlobalEltorro]

What are your thoughts about august Bradleys ppv system ?