Signal In-the-wild study finds most digital task plans are abandoned or delayed

Summary

Researchers report an in-the-wild study of task planning using time-stamped logs of 24,265 tasks from 957 users of a widely used daily planner app, observed over six weeks alongside self-reported surveys. Following each task across its lifecycle, only 26.4% moved directly from creation to completion and 32.0% were abandoned entirely; all-day and longer tasks were abandoned disproportionately, and 77.6% of timed tasks were marked complete later than originally intended. Latent profile analysis of 909 users identified three groups: High Engagement (11.1%), Low Engagement (19.7%), and Passive (69.2%) profiles, with active days on the app distinguishing the profiles and correlating with post-survey completion rates. The findings support evaluating digital planning tools across the full task lifecycle rather than just creation.