The personal task list is your “manager cockpit.” It pulls together what you own and what needs attention across all the scopes you participate in—so you can stay on top of execution without building your own tracking system.
In this article
What the personal task list is
What you’ll see in it
How to use it weekly (5–10 minutes)
How it connects to meetings, reports, and scopes
Common issues and fixes
What the personal task list is
Managers often have the same problem: execution reality is spread across scopes, meetings, and tools. The personal task list is In Parallel’s answer: one place to see what needs attention now, without losing the “why.”
It’s designed to reduce coordination load and prevent missed follow-through—especially when you’re responsible for outcomes across multiple scopes.
What you’ll see in the dashboard
The personal task list shows:
all scopes you own or contribute to
all tasks across scopes
upcoming meetings
what needs attention now
what changed since last review
This matters because managers don’t fail from lack of effort—they fail from lack of a clean, current picture across competing priorities.
How it connects to the rest of the system
The task list is not a separate system—it’s a view over the same execution loop:
meetings generate signals (decisions/actions/risks)
post-meeting reports propose tasks and plan updates
the living execution plan stays current per scope
snapshots make change explicit
the personal task list helps you track what needs attention across scopes
In other words: this is how you get “execution memory” without maintaining your own meta-sheet.
The recommended weekly workflow (5–10 minutes)
1) Open the dashboard before your main recurring meeting
This prevents the most common manager failure: walking into a meeting without knowing what’s stuck.
2) Scan “what needs attention now”
Look for:
actions without clear ownership
items stuck without a next step
blockers that need escalation
tasks tied to top priorities that aren’t moving
3) Check “what changed since last review”
This prepares you for the best meeting opener: “What changed since last time?”
4) Close loops
Before you end the review:
mark truly completed work complete
explicitly put stalled work on hold (so it’s not silently drifting)
re-assign ownership where necessary
5) Use it to shape your meeting agenda
Instead of starting with a long agenda, start with:
what changed
what’s stuck
what requires a decision
That’s the highest-leverage use of the dashboard.
Best practices
Use the dashboard as “attention allocation,” not micromanagement
The goal is to keep execution reality legible and reduce coordination tax—not to monitor every task.
Keep delivery detail in delivery tools
In Parallel connects to work systems (Slack/Teams, Email, Jira, Asana, CRM, Sheets), but it’s not meant to replace them. Granular delivery work stays in those systems; In Parallel keeps the execution layer coherent.
Pair it with the post-meeting review step
The dashboard is most useful when you:
confirm actions in the report right after meetings
then use the dashboard to track follow-through across scopes
Common issues (and fixes)
“The dashboard feels cluttered”
Likely causes:
scopes are too broad, pulling in low-signal items
too many tasks are being promoted into In Parallel rather than staying in delivery tools
Fix:
split scopes by ownership/cadence
keep task detail in Jira/Asana/etc. and keep In Parallel high-signal
“It doesn’t show what I expected”
Likely causes:
you aren’t connected as a contributor/owner to the right scopes
meeting/report loop isn’t being used (so tasks aren’t getting created/confirmed)
Fix:
ensure you’re included in relevant scopes
ensure recurring meetings are connected and reports are being reviewed
“We still forget actions”
Fix:
confirm ownership in the post-meeting report
use the dashboard review weekly
keep actions specific enough to close
Related articles
Actions and ownership (how tasks work)
After the meeting: report → review → confirm
Understand the living execution plan
Before the meeting: pre-read (“what changed?”)