Leveraging Coda AI to categorize and schedule your tasks.
Why did you decide to choose this use case?
I love using productivity apps like Coda to organize my tasks. But a huge drawback of these tools is that I spend too much time messing with databases—time that I could have spent doing work instead.
For example, let’s say that I have a homework assignment. I have to:
Open Coda
Find my homework database
Input the assignment name
Use the date picker to select the due date (and time)
Select the correct class from the dropdown
In the time I spent entering my tasks in the database, I could have already completed half the assignment 😢.
The same goes for having multiple databases — when I start my day, I don’t want to have to go through ten different databases to figure out what I have to do.
With this template, I wanted to leverage AI to make this process easier.
Behind the scenes → How does this template work?
This template uses Coda AI — nicknamed “Hana” — to categorize your tasks.
The Ask Hana button has a formula that parses this list of tasks and sends each task to the correct database.
Here’s a brief glance at a part of the formula that deals with homework tasks:
Take a look at the homework database to see the output:
How will this template help with your work day/save you time?
This template makes it easier to:
Add tasks to a database — All I need to do is type a quick chat, and Hana will figure out where I need my tasks to go
Retrieve a summary of my daily tasks in with a single click — really helpful for getting an overview of what I’m doing today
Does it make work more fun?
Yes!! I can send a quick chat to Hana using freeform language — just like I’m texting a friend. That’s more chill than having to go through a boring routine of clicking and typing to enter tasks in a database.
and add to the Ask Hana button formula to help Hana adapt to your workflow and categorize your tasks correctly.
Anything else you want us to know about this template?
Of course, like every AI prompting system, Hana doesn’t always do what you want or what you expect.
Sometimes, the assistant will output tasks in an unanticipated format (e.g., not using the correct delimiters) that doesn’t work with the button’s parsing formula.
In that case, no tasks should be added to the database. Just click Ask Hana and try again!