Stop Losing Tasks! Sync Notes With Your Task App & Calendar

The Problem: Where Did That Task Go?

We've all been there—scribbling action items into meeting notes, capturing brilliant ideas in a digital notebook, or jotting down quick to-dos in the heat of the moment. Then reality sets in: tasks disappear into the abyss of your notes app, never to be seen again. According to the American Psychological Association, people forget 40% of new information within 20 minutes and 77% within six days. If your tasks are trapped inside a note with no clear follow-up, you're not just losing productivity—you’re losing peace of mind.

The Cost of Lost Tasks

Over 10 years ago, I forgot an important action item lost in my notes. That moment of frustration led me to search for an integrated task management solution—one that could seamlessly extract action items from notes and sync them with my task app and calendar.  Embarrassment turned to frustration when I realized there was no good solution to this dilemma.  We launched TaskClone a year later—to seamlessly bridge the gap between notes and tasks.

The Opportunity: Create Your Clarity Triangle

What if you could effortlessly sync action items from your notes with your task app and calendar? No more lost tasks or missed meetings.  No more duplicate work copying information. Just clarity, organization, and execution.

The Clarity Triangle: Notes + Tasks + Calendar

The Clarity Triangle is achieved when these 3 key components of your Personal Productivity Platform are working in harmony.

Tight integration between all three sides of the triangle ensures a level of clarity that supports peace of mind - knowing you will never lose an idea or miss an action. Unfortunately, the underlying software (Evernote, Todoist) and most integrations (Zapier, IFTTT) are lacking in syncing action items or in other critical capabilities needed.  Worse, the type and level of integration is often confusing among the many services available.  While I think TaskClone is the best, it's important for you to understand what makes for a great Clarity Triangle and what are your options. 

Sync Notes, Tasks and Calendar Automatically

For a Clarity Triangle to provide both peace of mind and effectiveness, you need a system that:

Good, Better, Best: Comparing Task Syncing Approaches

Spoiler alert: The perfect cross-platform system for integrated task syncing doesn't yet exist, but there are definitely varying levels of task syncing and integration that will impact your Clarity Triangle and therefore your effectiveness.

Good: All-In-One apps and built-in integrations

You're likely here because you found out for yourself that no single app adequately meets your needs for all sides of the Clarity Triangle.  You've also probably found the many built-in integrations offered by Notion, Evernote and others don't actually meet your needs either. 

Some apps are simply better at note-taking and others are better at task management or scheduling. Built-in integrations notoriously ignore action items written in your notes and instead treat the entire note as an action item (which is also true of Zapier and some on the "Better" list).  I don't know about you, but my notes have many elements and being able to treat tasks and events differently than text or tables is essential.

Attempting to do everything in one app or with built-in integrations is actually a decent place to start, but most quickly realize add-on features feel just like what they are - add-ons.  For example, Evernote's Tasks feature is a great start, but we find many outgrow it and look for a robust task app like Asana, ClickUp or Trello. 

Many determine that they want the capabilities of a specialized note-taker, task app and calendar and that no built-in integration adequately syncs the action items within their notes with task apps or calendars. 

Better: Generalized Integration Tools

Using integration platforms like Zapier, Make or IFTTT can automate the transfer of entire notes to your task app or calendar. For instance, you can set up a trigger to create a task in ClickUp whenever a new note is added to OneNote.  However, These generalized platforms do not parse the actual note, so they cannot sync tasks from within OneNote pages to ClickUp.  I like to describe these generalized platforms as wide, but shallow. 

These generalized apps integrate thousands of apps and can have complex workflows, but the level of integration is not deep enough for a true Clarity Triangle. Not surprisingly, this generalized nature often makes apps like Zapier & IFTTT more complex to configure than purpose-built solutions like TaskClone.

Best: Specialized Integration Tools like TaskClone

For a more seamless and efficient workflow, specialized integration tools provide the same features as generalized integrations, but go deeper. 

Currently, there are two primary specialized integrations both of which support creating a Clarity Triangle, but they have meaningful differences that might be relevant to your choice.

TaskClone

TaskClone was purpose-built to automatically extract individual action items from your notes and sync them with your preferred task app and calendar. It works with the largest list of note-takers, currently Evernote, Notion, OneNote and Google Docs.  Just take notes normally and the action items automatically flow into your task app or calendar.  It was designed to be simple and create peace of mind by addressing all aspects of the Clarity Triangle.  This maximizes efficiency while note-taking and ensures that each task or event goes where it can be tracked and managed effectively.

Key Differences:

Pleexy

While Pleexy is definitely a specialized integration, it's less focused on creating a Clarity Triangle by getting action items out of note-taking apps and more on aggregating information in your task manager of choice.  It currently only aggregates tasks in 3 task managers, but does so from a wider array of apps than just note-taking apps. These other integrations are available on the more generalized platforms too, but do add to their offerings.

Key Differences:

By adopting the "Best" approach with tools like TaskClone, you can build your Personal Productivity Platform to achieve your Clarity Triangle with seamless integration between your notes, tasks, and calendar, leading to enhanced productivity and peace of mind.

Real-World Example: Managing Meeting Notes Efficiently

Let’s say you’re in a project meeting, and you capture several action items inside Google Docs:

• Task: "Follow up with the vendor on pricing"
• Event: "Schedule team check-in for Friday at 10 AM"
• Task: "Update project timeline for next review meeting"
• Task: "Assign Bill to draft the marketing brief"
• General Note: "Client wants updated proposal by next quarter"

With TaskClone, each of these items is processed appropriately:

• Tasks automatically sync to your task app (e.g., Asana, Trello) based on rules you define. Some tasks can be sent to Project A, while others can be directed to Project B, even if they are in the same note.
• Events are sent directly to your calendar (Google Calendar, Microsoft Calendar) without requiring manual entry.
• Due dates, tags and assignees added become task parameters in your task app (e.g. Todoist, ClickUp)
• Non-actionable notes remain untouched, ensuring that only relevant items are processed.

TaskClone is the only service that can selectively process action items within a note, skip tasks you don't want processed, and send different tasks to different projects in one or multiple task apps. No extra steps—just automatic clarity and follow-through.

See it in action.

Summing up: Get Your Tasks Out of Notes and Into Action

Your productivity system should work for you, not against you. By integrating your notes, tasks, and calendar seamlessly, you unlock a workflow that:

• Eliminates lost tasks and missed follow-ups.
• Frees your brain from constantly remembering what’s next.
• Ensures action items actually get done.

Whatever system you use to create your Clarity Triangle, it will help your peace of mind.  If TaskClone might meet your needs, a free trial and great customer support await - Try TaskClone today.