Todoist Navigation Shortcuts

Search (/ or Ctrl+F on Windows, Cmd+F on Mac) opens a keyword search scoped across every task and project you have access to, the fastest way to locate a specific task when you remember roughly what it says but not exactly where you filed it — distinct from a filter (covered later on this page), since search is a one-off lookup rather than a saved, persistent view you'd return to repeatedly. Going to Today (G then T, pressed in sequence rather than simultaneously) jumps to the view most people open Todoist to check first — everything due today, gathered from across every project into one consolidated list, which is the natural daily starting point for reviewing what actually needs attention right now. Going to Upcoming (G then U) instead shows a calendar-style forward-looking view spanning the next several days or weeks, useful for planning ahead rather than just reacting to what's due immediately — checking Upcoming periodically (weekly, for many users) helps catch a task with a due date further out before it suddenly becomes today's most urgent item with no advance warning. Creating a custom filter (through the Filters section's Add Filter option, no dedicated keyboard shortcut) builds a saved view using Todoist's own filter query syntax — combining criteria like a specific project, a label, and a due-date range into one persistent smart list that appears in your sidebar going forward, similar in spirit to a saved search in an email client. A filter genuinely differs from a one-off search in that it's saved and reusable, appearing as its own permanent navigation entry you return to repeatedly, rather than something you'd re-type every time you wanted to see that same specific slice of your tasks. Toggling the sidebar (Ctrl+\ / Cmd+\, though this exact binding has varied by version) shows or hides the left panel listing your projects, labels, and filters — useful for reclaiming horizontal screen space on a smaller display when you're focused on working through a single task list and don't currently need the broader navigation panel visible. Why this category is comparatively thin relative to the capture and task-action categories on this site is worth understanding as intentional rather than a gap: Todoist's structure genuinely is flatter by design than a heavier project-management tool. There's no deep multi-level workspace hierarchy to navigate through, no dozens of board views or swimlanes — just your projects (which can nest, but rarely more than one or two levels deep in most real-world setups), a small number of built-in views, and whatever custom filters you've built yourself. A flatter structure genuinely needs fewer dedicated navigation shortcuts to move around efficiently, which is precisely why this category has fewer entries than task-capture or task-actions rather than reflecting an underdeveloped part of the app. A practical daily navigation loop worth adopting: G then T each morning to see what's due today, working through that list using the task-action shortcuts covered elsewhere on this site, checking Upcoming (G then U) periodically through the week to stay ahead of what's coming, and leaning on saved filters for any recurring specific slice of tasks — like everything labeled @waiting-on across all projects — that you find yourself wanting to check regularly enough to justify building a persistent filter for it rather than re-searching for the same criteria repeatedly. Filter query syntax deserves a slightly deeper look, since it's genuinely the most powerful navigation feature covered on this page despite having no dedicated keyboard shortcut of its own. A filter query can combine several conditions using logical operators — something like "@urgent & !p1" for tasks labeled urgent that are also top priority, or "#Work & overdue" for anything overdue specifically within a Work project — letting you build genuinely precise, reusable views that go well beyond what the built-in Today and Upcoming views alone can show. Learning this query syntax is arguably a better long-term investment for a heavy Todoist user than memorizing every individual keyboard shortcut on this page, since a well-built filter set becomes a permanent part of your navigation sidebar going forward. Worth understanding the two-key sequences (G then T, G then U) as a deliberate design choice rather than an arbitrary two-step process: reserving G as a dedicated "go to" prefix leaves the second key free to represent the actual destination mnemonically (T for Today, U for Upcoming), a pattern that scales more gracefully to additional future destinations than trying to cram every possible navigation target into single, unrelated letters would — the same general "prefix key then destination" convention shows up in several other keyboard-shortcut-heavy applications for the same structural reason.