Suggestion - edit dates on recurring tasks

[Nick Clark]

I'd like the option to edit the dates on individual recurring tasks.
When reviewing the task list I quite often need to reassign a task to
a different date, due to waiting on someone or just running out of
time to complete a task or deciding to postpone it for a bit. I can't
do this on recurring tasks without editting the recurrence.

I'd see it working as not changing the recurring schedule, just the
current instance. So a task that recurs a fixed time after the
completion would still do that, and a task that recurs on a particular
schedule, e.g. 1st of the month, would still do that even if the
current instance was changed to the 7th.

At the moment I end up with some tasks nagging me as they were due in
the past, but I don't know when I have decided to do them without just
remembering this, which goes against the whole idea of GTD (I've
finally started to read David Allen's book!) of trusting the external
system.

Or does anyone have a work around for this?
Thanks
Nick

[pottster]

Hi Nick,

I think this has come up before. I would find it really useful as well; this functionality mirrors that in Outlook for recurring tasks/appointments. At the moment I'm using an Autohotkey script.

[Luciano Passuello]

I'd find this very useful as well. The workaround I use is switching to the
outline, checking the task as complete, than unchecking it again. By doing
that, I have "detached" that instance from the recurrence, and then I can
freely edit it.

Since this procedure is very common in my workflow, this ends up being a
bit annoying.

Along with Nick's idea, my suggestion to make this more convenient is this:

1. Leave the date fields editable, even for recurring tasks.
2. If you edit the data, you would see a message along these lines:
"This will detach this task from the recurrence series. Next occurrences
will continue to happen as per the previously-defined recurrence schedule. Is this ok?" The message
should also have a "don't show this again" checkbox, so the experience is
even more fluid for people who are already aware of the feature.

Best,
Luciano.

[Damiaan]

My workaround is to view the recurring task in the outline, complete it and then uncomplete the completed instance that is created immediately below. That way, the next recurrence is available and I can change the date on the instance just created. I'd like to see that implemented as a special kind of completion.

Regards,

  Damiaan

[Lisa Stroyan]

The problem with this method is it means "created completed copies of tasks" has to be set on the task, and I don't like having all the copies around so I don't have this set on my tasks. So it would be nice if, when I edited the date of a recurring task, if it asked if I wanted to modify just this recurrence, or the series. If I answered "just this recurrence" , it would be broken away from the series.

On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 5:12 AM, Damiaan <dzwie...@gmail.com> wrote:

My workaround is to view the recurring task in the outline, complete it and then uncomplete the completed instance that is created immediately below. 

 

--
Lisa Stroyan
www.empathic-parenting.com