Tips & Best Practices

Task IDs

Every task has a unique ID. You only need the first 8 characters (shown on every card and list) to reference a task. Even fewer characters work as long as they uniquely match one task in the channel.

Natural language vs. slash commands

Example: /tickr complete 01KH is faster than "@Tickr close the task", but "@Tickr create a critical task for @carol to fix the payment crash, due tomorrow, estimate 4 hours" is easier than filling out a form.

Optimizing nudges

Nudge quality depends on the metadata you provide:

• Set your channel timezone — use the timezone dropdown in /tickr schedule, or /tickr config timezone for exotic timezones not in the dropdown. Nudges fire at local time, so a US team won't get nudged at 10 AM IST.
• Customize your schedule with /tickr schedule — configure timezone, nudge times, nudge days, follow-up windows, and slip check timing per channel to match your team's workflow.
• Set estimates — This calibrates grace periods and nudge intervals. A task estimated at "2 hours" gets nudged much sooner than one estimated at "2 weeks".
• Set due dates — Tasks approaching their deadline get progressively more aggressive nudges.
• Set accurate priorities — Critical tasks get nudged 4x more often than low-priority ones. See Priority System.
• Use snooze when you need focus time, but be aware of the caps for high-priority work.

Writing good updates

To avoid the quality pushback (and to help your team), include:

• What you specifically accomplished since last update
• Current progress (percentage, milestone, phase)
• What you're doing next
• Any blockers or risks

Good update:

Finished the auth module and unit tests. Starting integration tests tomorrow. On track for Wednesday delivery.

Poor update:

Working on it.

Board organization

• Each Slack channel = one task board. Use channels to organize by project, team, or workstream.
• Use /tickr board for a quick kanban overview in chat
• The Canvas board provides a persistent, auto-updating visual with AI summaries
• Completed tasks older than 30 days automatically hide from the Canvas (72 hours from board queries)
• Use tags to organize within a channel — e.g., bug, feature, frontend, backend. Then filter with @Tickr show me all bug tasks

Blocker best practices

• Always tag the blocking person when adding a blocker — this redirects nudges to them. Without a tagged person, no one gets nudged.
• Include a specific reason — this helps the blocker understand exactly what's needed without asking.
• Update status when unblocked — change back to in_progress to resume normal nudges for the assignee.

See Blockers & Dependencies for the full workflow.

Keyboard-friendly daily workflow

A fast daily workflow using only slash commands: