You know Todoist. Your team is about to meet it in a single click – a new workspace, on what's otherwise an ordinary Tuesday, with everything else on their plate still there.
A Welcome Kit is how you meet them at the door instead of leaving them to find their own way in. It's a small thing (four short fields) but it's the difference between a team that arrives and knows what to do, and a team that arrives and feels disoriented. Skip it and you'll answer the same five questions one message at a time for a fortnight. Write it once and you've answered them all, before they're even asked.
Put them in a Welcome Kit project in Todoist as four tasks, or send them as an email – whichever you think your team will be more comfortable with.
1. Why we use Todoist
This only needs to be a sentence or two – it could be the one you wrote in Lesson 1, almost word for word. The version that goes in the Kit should sound like a person, not a memo: "We've been losing track of who owes what, so Todoist is where that lives now." Speak to the work your team actually finds frustrating, and why this is the fix.
2. Your team's first three tasks this week
This is the field that matters most. Try to be as specific and honest as possible. Not just "explore the app" or "set up your profile." Think about and add the specific tasks your team already owns, that live in the projects you've got set up. For example:
- "Add your current open work to the Marketing Operations project, and assign it to yourself."
- "Read the README task in the Q4 Campaign Launch project and leave a comment on it."
- "Complete three tasks before Friday."
A specific first task gives someone an immediate win. A vague one hands them another blank slate that can feel crippling on top of a workspace that's already new to them.
3. How to find our projects
Don't assume people are as familiar with Todoist as you are. Name the folder. Name the projects. Say where to look in the sidebar: "You'll find Marketing Operations and Q4 Campaign Launch in the Marketing folder, on the left."
Better still, use the three-dot menu on each project to share a direct link, so there's nothing to hunt for.
4. Who to ask for help
Give them your name and your preferred channel. "Email me if anything's confusing" tells them exactly where to go, but something like "Let me know if you have questions" makes them decide.
Optional, but worth adding: a link to the Team Members: Find Your Way course so that anyone who wants a fuller orientation has somewhere to go.
Send your Welcome Kit with the invite, or just before, rather than after. Once the team is already in the workspace wondering what to do, the Kit arrives as instructions rather than the warm welcome you intend it to be.
You're done when:
- All four fields are filled in with specifics (especially field two) either in Todoist or an email.
- Your new Welcome Kit is queued to go out with the invite, or just before it.
Now that this decision is rooted in purpose and the directions are clear, you can get everyone in. The next lesson is about the best way to do so.
"The most effective solution to handling tough situations is simply to ask each time: how can I help?"
Belle Beth Cooper, writer