Easiest way to "park" or mark tasks for follow-up?

[Sean Leonard]

Hi all, I'm new to MLO but I'd like help with the following scenario:

I submit my report (Task: Done) but I want MLO to remind me to follow up in two weeks...but until then, I don't want to see this task!

So far, I've figured that I can change the context and configure views...but is there a faster way?

Just wondering before I get too far along with this. Thanks in advance for any help!

(p.s. I did read the thread about Delegating, but this is slightly different I think)

[chrisleeuk]

It depends what you are trying to do exactly. If you are doing this on a regular basis then you can use recurrence.

This can be found in the properties section under 'Timing and Reminder'

Once you click the link you will see a dialog like the one below.

You can set a weekly repeating task, in this case it will set the deadline for the task to be two weeks after I complete the task.

Also notice the next occurrence area, that is used to determine when the task will become active again.

In this case the start and end date are the same, so once setup I won't see this as an active task for another two weeks.

You could set the start date as earlier than the due date, if you want to start seeing a task a couple of days before the due date, in which case this will increase the lead time.

Whatever the lead time is will be used next time around for the repeating task.

The task will still appear in 'All Tasks' but it will be filtered out in the todo's active actions until the start date is reached.

Of course this will just create a repeating task, so it won't distinguish between the 'Submit Report' and the 'Follow up'

Not sure if this will help, but other ways of doing things do exist, depending on your needs.

[Dwight Arthur]

Hi, Sean. The great thing about MLO is that there are often many ways to accomplish something. Often, the available solutions range from the simple and crude to the complex and elegant. My rule of thumb (which I break quite often) is that the simplest solution is the best one as long as it works. If you get involved in crafting complex, elegant solutions for the management of your everyday tasks you may find that You don't have enough time left to actually finish the tasks themselves, which misses the whole point of productivity software.

Chris has given you some excellent directions for solving this using recurrence. I think that there is an even simpler solution using start date. Before discussing it, I want to be sure that we are okay on a couple of basics.

Are you comfortable with both hierarchical (outline) views and flat (to-do) views? Many people find outline views such as AllTasks to be best for planning and organizing your work and flat views (such as ActiveActions) best when you are working on finishing your tasks. One of the big differences (besides the flat versus hierarchical structure) is that many to-do views show only "active" tasks where outline views will typically show all tasks. Active tasks are essentially tasks that you could work on now. If there is a schedule, then now is when the task is scheduled. If there are contexts, then it is not true that all f the contexts are currently closed. There are no unsatisfied dependencies, there are no uncompleted subtasks, etc etc. If you are working from a task list that shows active tasks, and you want one of the tasks to go away for a few days, then you should try to make the task inactive in a way that it will turn active in a few days by itself, without you having to remember to activate it. You can accomplish this by setting the start date for a couple of days into the future.

When you have completed the task (submitted the report) do not mark the task completed. Instead, go to the start date field[in the right column or the start date column and type the date on which you want to follow up. The task will fall off of your task list because it's inactive, but when the date you specified arrives the task will become active again and show up on your to-do list. 

The task name will still be whatever you set it to, such as "submit the report". You will just have to remember that this time, you are not submitting it again but rather that you are following up. If that's uncomfortable you can type a different task headline while you are in the edit pages, like "follow up on report.,

You can also save yourself a little time setting the follow-up date. Instead of figuring out the followup date and typing it in you could just type in "2w" for a two week postponement. Or you could hit the "next week" hotkey () twice - it's Ctrl+Alt+=

If and when you outgrow this (for example, you get tired of remembering that the "submit" task sometimes means followup)  you can try making a repeating project with subtasks that have deferred dependencies. You will probably need some help understanding and setting this up so come back when you are ready!