Floating todos don't have a fixed start time — the scheduler fits them into your day dynamically. Two skills make floating work work for you: setting rank to tell the scheduler what matters, and deferring to push work back without losing track of it.

Todo Rankings

Problem: You have 22 floating todos on your list. You can't do them all today. Which one matters?

Horizon's answer: Every floating todo carries a rank. Rank tells the scheduler what to fit into your day first when it computes your floating work order. It also tells you, at a glance, what the system thinks is most important.

The five ranks

Where you see the rank

On the Floating To-Dos widget on your dashboard, each card shows a colored badge with the rank icon — but only if the rank is not Normal. Normal todos have no badge, which keeps the widget visually quiet for the common case and loud for the exceptions.

Filtering by rank

Use the Rank filter on the Floating To-Dos widget to narrow the list to just Critical or just Promoted items. Useful when you want to see "what does the system think I should do first?"

Changing a todo's rank

1. Click the floating todo to open it in the slide-over view.
2. Click Edit.
3. Open the When section.
4. Pick a new rank from the Rank field.
5. Save.

Rank only applies to floating todos. Scheduled todos have a fixed start time, so the scheduler doesn't reorder them — the time is the priority.

How rank actually changes the schedule

When Horizon computes where to slot your floating todos on the calendar, it sorts by rank first, then by other signals (priority, ticket SLA, age). Higher rank = earlier slot in your available time gaps.

A good use case for promoting

Two tickets sit at the same priority, but one is for a VIP customer who needs to be handled first. The system can't tell them apart on priority alone — they're tied. Promote the VIP's todo and the scheduler will fit it before the other.

That's the right kind of override: you know something the scheduler doesn't. When the system has the right answer, leave it on Normal.

Tip: Don't change ranks reflexively. Promoting everything is the same as promoting nothing — when every todo is Critical, the ranking does nothing for you. Reserve Critical, Promoted, Demoted, and Buried for cases where you have outside knowledge the scheduler doesn't.

Deferred Todos

Problem: A customer says "call me back tomorrow afternoon, not before." Right now that todo is just noise on your list — you can't do it yet, and if it stays in your active queue the scheduler might try to slot it now.

Horizon's answer: Defer the todo. Defer sets a floor on when the work can happen — "don't fit this any sooner than X." It does not schedule the todo for X; the actual time is still computed dynamically by the scheduler when X arrives.

Defer is a floor, not a trigger

This is the part that confuses new agents:

• A scheduled todo says: "do this at 3pm Friday." Fixed time.
• A deferred floating todo says: "the earliest I can do this is 3pm Friday." The scheduler will fit it sometime at or after 3pm Friday — could be 3:05pm, could be Monday if higher-priority work shows up first.

If you need the work to happen at a specific time, use a scheduled todo (covered in the next lesson). If you just need it to wait until some point, defer.

Defer a todo

1. On the Floating To-Dos widget, find the todo (Pending or In Progress).

2. Click the Defer action (clock icon).

3. Pick a preset from Defer Until — this is the earliest time the todo can be worked:

   Preset	Means "don't fit this any sooner than..."
   30 minutes	30 minutes from now
   1 hour (default)	1 hour from now
   2 hours	2 hours from now
   End of day	End of today
   Tomorrow morning	Start of next workday
   Custom time...	Any specific date and time you pick

4. If you chose Custom time..., set the date/time.

5. Click submit.

The todo's status changes to Deferred and it leaves your active widget. Once the defer time passes, it becomes eligible for scheduling again — but the scheduler still ranks it against everything else in your queue.

Where deferred todos live

• The widget's description bar shows a count: "5 open · 12 done · 3 deferred".
• Use the Status filter on the widget and check Deferred to see them.

Bring a deferred todo back early

If you decide to do the work before the defer time:

1. Filter the widget to show Deferred todos.
2. Click the deferred todo.
3. Click Activate (circle-arrow icon).

The todo flips back to Pending and rejoins your active queue immediately, regardless of the defer time you originally set.

Defer vs. cancel vs. schedule

Tip: Use defer for "earliest time" constraints — "customer is in a meeting until 2pm," "can't reach this site until parts arrive Wednesday." Use a scheduled todo when there's a specific time the customer expects you. Don't defer a callback that you committed to making at exactly 3pm — that's a scheduled todo.