Possible to input a *START* date?

[clayton.chu]

Hi all -

I have a bunch of repeating tasks such as "pay rent", "get roommate's
money for internet", etc. This occurs monthly, so I set the due date
appropriately. All good.

But I don't care about these tasks until I'm nearing the time I can
actually do something about those actions. This doesn't just go for
rent, either - I use reminders and due dates to give me a reminder to
pick up things I have to grade, but I can't physically perform those
actions until I'm at school. Basically, I would like to be able to set
a *start* time and not see a task until after that start time. This
way my "next action" queues don't get clogged up with stuff that will
at some point BE a next action, but isn't currently one.

I switched from Remember the Milk, and the workaround was this:
1) create a smart list "zzz" that would contain any snooze-type taq:
z1d would mean that the task should not show up until 1 day before
it's due; z2w would be 2 weeks; etc.
2) tag any items you want to have suppressed with the appropriate
snooze tag.
3) another smart list would simply show all tasks that was NOT on the
"zzz" list.

I have no idea if this idea is implementable, or there is a possible
workaround.

[Dee Gardner]

Thank you Cameron for this product and all the development you have
dedicated to it.

I have the same request for a "start date" with an added suggestion.

I would also like to see how many days the todo has been on the list,
only if it can be easily added to the start date.

I am a project manager and I am assigning tasks to people with
gqueues. one of the people I assigned a task to is lagging. However,
without doing some research I couldn't remember when it was assigned
or how long it's been on the list.

Best regards,

[Cameron (GQueues Team)]

Hi Clayton,

A start date is a good idea.  You may be able to achieve what you want right now with some custom smart queues though.

For instance, if you only want to see tasks from a certain queue or tag, but only if it's due today or tomorrow you could create a smart queue that limits tasks to these dates.  So this smart queue is the one you monitor, and tasks with far away deadlines aren't included, but when their deadline draws near they start appearing in this smart queue.

Example:

Will this do the trick?

-Cameron

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "GQueues Discussion Forum" group.
To post to this group, send email to gqu...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to gqueues+u...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/gqueues?hl=en.

[Cameron (GQueues Team)]

Interesting idea, Dee.  I do keep track of when a task or assignment is created in the database.  I'll think about a good way to present this info visually to a user.

-Cameron

[Dee Gardner]

Cameron
Thank you for considering my idea.

dg



On Jan 31, 10:11 am, "Cameron (GQueues Team)" <came...@gqueues.com>
wrote:

> > gqueues+u...@googlegroups.com<gqueues%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com >
> > .

[clayton.chu]

It kind of works - but it's a bit cumbersome too. Say I want to change
my oil after 3 months. It has to be done by, say, the 15th, but that
doesn't mean I don't have to start doing it until the 13th. Maybe on
the 10th I've got some free time and can go take care of it.

It'll work for what I would like for right now, but it could
definitely use improvement.

Here's an idea for a workaround: Tag a task with "start", and set up a
queue that looks for anything that's OVERDUE or DUE TODAY with the tag
- so in effect you're using the due time as the start time. Of course
you'll need to remember to put an end time once you've started it!

On Jan 31, 9:09 am, "Cameron (GQueues Team)" <came...@gqueues.com>
wrote:

> > gqueues+u...@googlegroups.com<gqueues%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com >
> > .

> > For more options, visit this group at
> >http://groups.google.com/group/gqueues?hl=en.
>
>
>

>  Screen shot 2011-01-31 at 11.04.49 AM.png

> 51KViewDownload

[jaso...@gmail.com]

I strongly endorse the addition of start times.  This is crucial for some people to fully implement GTD and is one of the building blocks of formal Project Management.  Because so many people (and even companies) are using your service for both GTD and small project management it would make sense to have this.  Predecessors (tasks that must be done before another task starts) would also be a great feature, but probably much harder to implement than start times.  Thanks for an awesome product regardless!

[Michael]

I strongly agree with Dee and Clayton....

I use GQs for over 30 projects at a time (real estate properties,
organized similar what is shown on the "tagging" tutorial video) Each
project can take around 2 months to finish the whole checklist, and in
the meantime everyday I'm looking at 40+ tasks, many of which can't be
done immediately, or sometimes these tasks are dependent on a previous
task being accomplished. (i.e. #1- Install Air Conditioning - which
can not be done until #2- Confirm utilities are Connected) If you
could mark a start date, or a way for one task to be dependent on
another, it would be really cool.

Since I have these real estate projects, I have contractors that I can
now send assignments to, but one thing I need to have is a record of
is WHEN I'm assigning a project to them. (or how long they've had the
assignment) Maybe this can be done as a time stamp that will show up
on mouseover of the assigned email address....or perhaps even simpler,
cc'ing myself when the assignment is emailed to the contractor, that
way I can have a hard copy of the assignment with the date in my
mailbox....

As always, thanks for your consideration!

[bo...@maternityxchange.com]

I agree. Would be really helpful

[christop...@gmail.com]

A also feel strongly that a start time field is needed.  I have tried 5 or 6 different work arounds so far but have not been happy with any of them.  I have many tasks for which I must know the deadline but which I need to start thinking about a week or two, sometimes more, before that.  Exactly when I need to start thinking about it depends on the task and other dependencies and commitments.  So, I need something more sophisicated than a list that shows me tasks due in 2 weeeks, say.  Having the deadline show up on my calendar is brilliant, but having the item show up on my focus list at an appropriate earlier date would be massively helpful.  This would be easy if there was a start date that could be used in smart queues.

[TJ Finlinson]

Having a Start Date would be a fantastic addition to the gqueues service. Is it possible to add a feature when you set the date to just highlight mutiple days on the calendar? In the calendar side it doesn't need to have a time/duration if there are multiple days selected. I used the the Thunderbird email client with a cool plugin called Gantt View that changes the display of your connected calenders to a Gantt Style view. This would work great with GQueus iCal feed if you could add multiple days to your tasks. It's not a full fledge project management system, but I dont' think that is the goal of GQueues. It would make it great for small business Project Management though.

[Jacob Lindberg]

Are there any plans for adding a start date?

[w...@swiggartagin.com]

You could set up an option in settings to implement or not implement start dates throughout. I could see it being very useful when dealing with long term projects. Sometimes you just come up with something you need to do in six months or more and you just don't want to have to deal with it for a while.

[Robert Zemcik]

Is it really needed? You can create a task with date (=START), no time and set the duration to several (N) days, i.e. the END date = START+N. Isn't it what you need? In Google Calendar the task is rendered in all the 'duration' days.

However, I support the idea of having the choice to set the task to be only active when its predecessor is finished.

Robert

[jacob lindberg]

When I give a task a date, it is not hiding my task that has a been given a date (=START) tomorrow. It just shows "Feb 5" to the right. I want to hide it – not see it at all – until my start date has arrived.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "GQueues Discussion Forum" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to gqueues+u...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

[Robert Zemcik]

I don't quite understand.

Hide it where - in Queues or Smart Queues? You cannot hide it in the whole system because you want to be able to find it and edit it if needed.

Robert

[Cameron (GQueues Team)]

Hi Jacob - 

Have you played around with the Smart Queues?  They might help for the situation you describe.  For instance I have a "Today's Agenda" smart queue, which only shows tasks that are overdue or due today, so I don't have to worry about anything tomorrow and beyond.

See here for details on how to create your own smart queues with criteria you desire:

http://www.gqueues.com/help/smartQueues#add

-Cameron

[Jeff Bellune]

Robert's idea is a good one, and it's what I'm using now.  But there is one glaring weakness: tasks that take more than one day show up in the Overdue Smart Queue starting on day 2.  GQueues needs to be smart enough to check the due date of a task *and* the duration of that task before flagging it as overdue.  It should only be marked overdue when the duration of the task has expired.

Jeff 

[Russ Collins]

I would also like to vote for Start Dates as a new feature request. In Toodledo I use them all the time for tasks that have no end date. If I have a repeated task like "pull weeds", there is no day it HAS to be done by, but I don't want to start it until the weekend. So I set the Start Date to saturday and no due date. That way I won't see that task at all on my todo list until the day arrives. If I don't get to it on saturday it is not overdue, it's just a regular task at that point. Other than that I really like GQueues for the calendar integration but I can't switch until I have start dates. 

Thanks

[Russ Collins]

Oops, I forgot to post a link to the video where I got the idea of start dates:

http://lifehacker.com/only-use-due-dates-for-tasks-that-absolutely-need-them-476824378

On Friday, January 28, 2011 3:53:14 AM UTC-5, clayton.chu wrote:

[Russ Collins]

I may have found a workaround for myself. I put all of my items with a strict due date in the same queue and then my Due and Overdue Smart Queue only looks at the strict items. My repeated unimportant tasks are in a different queue so I don't see them in my due today or overdue. Basically the only reason I have a date at all on these tasks is that I want to repeat them, they aren't truly due any time.

[Dale King]

Yes it is absolutely essential. Any to do app that does not have working start dates is just a non-starter. Start dates are a must, due dates are a nice to have. Many to do apps focus on due dates when it is actually rare that due dates should actually be used. Due dates are only for tasks that have hard due dates (e.g. filing your taxes).

Trying to hack due dates to think of them is not a good approach. The only relationship between them is they are dates and the start date must precede the due date.

[Aaron Boydston]

+1

Yes, a proper start date (and the corresponding functionality start dates imply). In fact, I suspect a lot people use due dates as start dates. Because the task is not actually due that day, but that is when they need to try to get it done—but it's ok if it gets done a few days later.

Case in point: do you have overdue tasks? That means the task was not really due that day. If it was really due that day, it would have been done by that day (or you would be suffering the consequences of not completely your work on time and your job would be in jeopardy)

In other words, if you have overdue tasks, those dates are really a target dates—which would be better represented by start dates.

[Sascha Ballweg]

+1

[Christopher L. Goetzke]

Here's one more vote for start dates. As others have noted, many commitments (at least in my life) don't have firm due dates, but I still need a way to manage what's on my radar. My whole outlook on task management was changed by Michael Linenberger' Master Your Now system, which is driven by start dates rather than due dates. I can't live in a system without start dates now. I like the looks of pretty much everything else about GQueues, but I don't think I'll be able to continue beyond my free trial without this feature. It's that critical for me.

Tangentially, there seem to be more people here on this forum who have been enlightened as to the power of start dates than I find in the general population; I'm encouraged by that. If you're still wondering what the big deal about start dates are--well, maybe you don't need them in your life. But if you've got a few spare minutes, you could look at this blog post by Michael Linenberger for a quick pitch on start dates, or check out that video from Lifehacker that Russ Collins posted for a more in-depth walkthrough of the power of start dates (and a little humour) in 7 minutes 49 seconds.

[Aaron Boydston]

Yeah, I think Linenberger's take is what helped me many years ago. Just the thinking about it that way has been very helpful. The vast majority of tasks I have (work and home) have NO real due date!

[casa...@gmail.com]

I too vote for Start Dates. For example: "Feb 1 Start working on Concert journal and set date to get journal to printer." Then I would like a Due Date for when it's due at the printer. The Smart Queues didn't really work for me.

Something things we have in our non-profits Queues/Tasks are start dates and some are due dates. I'd like to separate them out clearly.

Hoping so,

[Étienne Rivest]

+1 Thanks

Étienne

Le ven. 25 janv. 2019 12 h 21, Larry <baxt...@gmail.com> a écrit :

Add me to the PLEASE ADD A START DATE field :)

I only learned about this group today, but ironically was driven here also after reading Linenberger's book and liking how he uses Start Date. For me the distinction between when I want to start working on something and when it is actually due is important. I'm using Smart Queues now to workaround, but it's a bit of a kludge. 

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "GQueues Discussion Forum" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to gqueues+u...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/gqueues/9cb8ca3d-fea8-4aa6-8c19-79db8d24882c%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Ashley Schwartau]

Is this still being considered? It would be super helpful. 

I'll share an example of how we would use this that came up today:

I need to task an employee with do something specifically monthly on the 10th of the month, to be completed within a couple days, starting in March. I want to build the task, and have it ready to begin happening in March. If I build it now and set it to recur, it's going to start NOW in February and its not the 10th, today is the 8th. So the only way to do this is either wait until the 10th to set up the task, and say "ignore this month" or wait until March and hope I remember to set it up on the 10th of March. 

So it would be nice to be able to set up a task TODAY that starts on March 10 (and either doesn't load into the employee's tasks until march 10 or shows specifically "Begins March 10") and recurs every month on the 10th. 

Another example:

Many times there are things I'd like to be able to assign employees to be done during a specific week, but if I assign them NOW, even with the due date of the intended week, it looks like they need to do it NOW by that due date, instead of within that week. So it would be awesome to have an optional Start Date and an optional Due Date. 

[Ashley Schwartau]

We have to constantly adjust due dates, which is a bit taxing on project managers if we don't remember to go in and do it. 

A start date would be SO HELPFUL. 

[Cameron (GQueues Team)]

Hi Ashley - 

Thanks for the additional input on start dates.  We are still considering it, but no decision has been made at this point to add them.

For the first situation you described though, if I'm understanding correctly, you should be able to do this with current functionality.

Create the task and set the due date to March 10th.  And then set it to repeat monthly.  The first instance will not be due until March 10th.  And every subsequent instance will be due on the 10th of the month (April 10th, May 10th, etc...) Here is an example:

Does that help?

-Cameron

[Ashley Schwartau]

Sort of….. We do that now….. but a lot of staff complain that for things like this that aren’t due for a long time because they dont actually need to be started for a long time, that these things clutter up their tasks/assignment lists and add extra stress because its like these things that are looming even though they aren’t necessary to begin yet. Does that make sense?

<image.png>

Does that help?

-Cameron

[Aaron Boydston]

Yeah, start dates are critical for any robust task management application. In fact, in my work, many of my tasks do not even have true due dates and due dates should be reserved for true deadlines. This is a big reason I left Gqueues (which is a great system in so many ways).

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "GQueues Discussion Forum" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/gqueues/NokqA9sZnOk/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to gqueues+u...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/gqueues/687ce582-fe3a-4a1c-837c-c3a14d5681bd%40googlegroups.com.

[Cameron (GQueues Team)]

Ah, okay.  Yes, that makes a lot of sense! Thanks, Ashley.  -Cameron

[Sarah Flagg]

Reviving this with an upvote because I am really loving GQueues and would love to implement for my business that's relaunching (which is project management and marketing management), but without start dates as a critical building block, it's not able to do what I need (and what a lot of other people seem to need). I can manually add phase start and stop dates, but seeing that sprint/phase is key for me and clients. Yes, I can post it in Calendar, but I actually largely work out of the app due to size of task load and the smart queues.