How to Get Motion Tasks to Show on Your External Calendar
Note: This article assumes you've read "Calendar Settings (Understanding How Motion Works With Calendars)" [Link]. If you haven't, we recommend starting there for foundational concepts.
TL;DR
A core value prop of Motion is the ability to display your Motion-created tasks on your external main calendar; ensuring all your schedules are synced and aligned. With Motion, you have a variety of options for how you choose to display your external tasks.
You can choose to keep tasks private, show them as free, or exclusively display deadline-sensitive tasks as busy. This feature enhances coordination by allowing your colleagues, teammates, and friends to view your availability; while still allowing you the option to preserve and respect your privacy.
In this article, we will explain how to control the visibility of Motion tasks on your external calendar (Google & Microsoft Outlook) using Motion's auto-scheduling settings.
Why Externally Display Your Tasks?:
Improved Meeting Planning: When tasks show as busy, schedulers avoid interrupting essential work.
Single Source of Truth: Maintain a unified calendar that reflects your real workload.
Transparency and Time Management: As Motion’s AI algorithm reschedules tasks, these changes are reflected externally, ensuring ongoing coordination with teammates, colleagues, and friends.
Displaying Motion tasks on your external calendar both harnesses the power of Motion’s AI-driven task management and improves scheduling coordination and team collaboration.
It ensures that your availability reflects not just your meetings, but also critical work blocks formed from busy tasks; preventing conflicts and enhancing productivity.
Motion App- Busy Task Display
Busy Task Display on an External Main Calendar
⚠️ Motion’s external task display operates via a uni-directional sync, meaning only tasks created in Motion will show externally. Inversely, tasks created in your external main calendar won't display in Motion. For more information about uni-directional task syncing click [here]
Setting Up External Calendar Display
Step 1: Access Settings
Click the ⚙ (Settings) icon in the upper left corner of the Motion interface.
Select ‘Auto-scheduling’ from the left-hand menu.
Step 2: Choose Your Display Strategy
Select how Motion should display your tasks by either:
🔒 Only Show Tasks on Motion:
Tasks remain visible only within Motion. Your external calendar will still reflect meetings and events created in Motion, but will not display tasks externally.
Expectations: Your external calendar will look as it normally does, and no Motion tasks will block time. Auto-scheduling changes within Motion will not affect external availability.
Best for: Professionals handling sensitive work or those who prefer to keep their task management private.
Example: An individual working on tasks for a side-hustle project may choose to have their tasks remain private from external visibility.
Motion App- 'Only Show Tasks on Motion'
External Main Calendar (Google Calendar)- Private Tasks Hidden
Showing All Tasks as Free:
Tasks from Motion sync to your external main calendar but are marked as free, meaning others can see your displayed tasks, but will still have the ability to book meetings with you during those time slots.
Expectations: Your external calendar will populate with Motion tasks, but they won’t prevent overlapping meetings. This option allows for flexibility without sacrificing visibility.
Best for: Users who want to reflect their workload externally without blocking availability.
Example: A part-time freelance writer may choose this option, allowing clients to see when they’re working on projects while keeping availability open for client meetings.
Motion App- Free Tasks
External Main Calendar (Google Calendar)- Free Tasks
Showing At-Risk Tasks as Busy:
Motion tasks that are nearing their deadlines are marked as busy and create blocked periods of time in your external calendar where the task is scheduled. This ensures your external calendar shows your busy status, and deters others from scheduling meetings during these times.
Expectations: Your external calendar will reflect critical deadlines as busy blocks. Motion automatically transitions tasks to a ‘busy’ status as their due date approaches.
Best for: Users managing tight project deadlines who need to preserve their focus time.
Example: A project manager is juggling multiple assignments with rapidly approaching deadlines. As the task deadline(s) near, the project managers’ calendar begins to show their tasks as busy, signaling to others that their focus is locked in during that time and they are unavailable for meetings.
Motion App- Busy Task Display Example
External Main Calendar (Google Calendar)- Busy Task Display External
Step 3: Configure Task Name Visibility
Configuring task name visibility is essential for controlling how tasks appear on your external main calendar. This setting determines whether those with visibility to your external calendar can see specific task names or simply see task placeholders marked as “Busy/Free [Motion Task]”.
Under ‘Display Task Names’:
Toggle ON (blue): Task names will be visible on external calendars (e.g., "Write Q4 Report").
Toggle OFF (gray): Tasks will appear as “Busy [Motion Task]” or “Free [Motion Task],” keeping specific details hidden.
How to Display Task Names Externally
Toggled On: Task Names Displayed Externally
Toggle Off: Task Names Hidden Externally
Example: Benefits of Displaying Motion Tasks Externally
Example Scenario: You're an individual Motion user working on a high-priority project with an upcoming deadline that requires deep focus.
A potential business partner wants to schedule a meeting with you and reviews your Google Calendar to find a suitable time to meet. As your Motion tasks are set to display as ‘busy’ for critical deadlines:
They notice that the "Finalize Client Proposal" task is blocking off your afternoon availability.
Recognizing you’re unavailable at that time, they decide to schedule the meeting for the following morning instead.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. Can I view tasks on any connected calendar?
No, tasks will only sync with your designated main calendar.
2. Why can't I see tasks on my external calendar after 2 weeks?
Motion only syncs scheduled tasks within a rolling 2-week window. Tasks will appear on your external calendar as they fall within this timeframe, but they won’t show once they move beyond the 2-week window.
3. What happens if I select "Only show tasks on Motion Calendar" and someone schedules a meeting during a task time?
Your free Motion task will be rescheduled by our algorithm.
4. Why can’t I see my completed tasks on my Google/Outlook?
Motion exclusively synchronizes auto-scheduled tasks. Once tasks are marked as completed, they are considered finalized and no longer synced externally to your main calendar. However, you can opt to display completed tasks within your Motion calendar by enabling the “Show completed tasks” option in Calendar Settings.
Related Article
Understanding Free vs. Busy in Motion: A Deep Dive – Learn more about how Motion manages availability through free and busy task states [here].
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