Recurring tasks with only start date

[dsfloriano]

I would like to know wether it is possible too create a recurring task with only start date (no due date). Thanks.

[MG]

Hi,

Regarding the concept behind recurring task, it will occur when only when it’s due date is reached or its subtasks get competed, other conditions one set on advanced settings for that.

So, MLO considers this (maybe I am wrong or missing something?) this in its functionality.

I think the workaround would be to set reminder date to match the one on start date, for the task, and have a sistematic review on every reminder.

Ofcourse it is not what it is intended behavior one desire, but would be alternative.

I hope it suites your needs.


BR

M

[Alyona (MLO Support)]

There is no possibility to create a recurring task without due date. However, you can put the due date so far in the future that it never come due. Every time you complete a recurring task, its start and due dates are pushed forward as indicated by the recurrence interval. So, you can simply ignore the due date.

[Dan Gordon]

Alyona: great suggestion!  That's what I've been looking for.

[JensFF]

But that's still a work around. Hopefully we will get a real solution some day ;)

[Troy Lundblad]

This is a real killer for me and keeping me from leaving omnifocus.  Due dates should be used sparingly, but this encourages an overuse of due dates. 

Hopefully this functionality can be added. Really the only thing missing.  That and the calculation of importance should really stop over-valuing tasks with out a due date relative to those that have a due date.  Due date/start date should both be valued.

[Jeff Smith]

I really agree with this. I never add due date unless I seriously made that commitment! 

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[domas.vo...@gmail.com]

+1

[Dan Gordon]

Alyona, I've had to abandon this approach to start-date-only recurring tasks.  Unfortunately, when the task updates it's the _due_ date that updates to the date the task is checked, not the start date.  So if I set up a task to start today and complete in 2051, when I mark it complete (say, in two days) a new task is generated with start date 30 years ago and due date the date that I complete it.  So (if that explanation is clear!) the recurrence doesn't do what I need for this functionality.

Nice try!

Dan g.

On Wednesday, August 15, 2018 at 4:08:05 AM UTC-4, Alyona (MLO Support) wrote:

[TL]

I found the same thing as Dan. 

That, and it's just too messy to have all those future due dates clogging up my view.  Start date should rather be viewed as a defer date which could keep getting pushed as daily/weekly reviews progress.

Love the ability to nest context, which is an advantage over omnifocus.  And the priority algorithm has so much potential, but just not quite there due to overweight on utilizing due date. But inability to better organize day based on start date for recurring tasks is a big killer. Glad to see others agree.

[Trevor Peck]

 Start date recurrence seems to me to be the number one thing that would make using any digital planner fit GTD better, but I've never found one that handles it well. MLO is the best at it, IMO, but it's still clunky and annoying.

 If you want a task that recurs by start date in MLO, you set the recurrence to any period you like, then set the lead time to an equal amount of time, minus the time you actually want for the recurrence. So a monthly recurring task might be set to recur every 60 months, with a 59 month lead time. Or every 2 months with a one month lead time. I would prefer not to have a due date at all on these tasks, but this method works for me.

 With so many people asking for start date recurrence and so few offerings delivering it (zero?), it seems to me it must be a difficult thing to accomplish from the programming side. At first glance it doesn't seem problematic to me, but I figure I must be missing something.

 - Trevor.

[Dan Gordon]

It's been a while, but I recall Toodledoo did start-date recurrence just fine.

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[Trevor Peck]

I've been using Toodledo since at least 2010, and I've never figured out how to do that. Just checked today and still no luck.

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[Dan Gordon]

Trevor, I re-upped with Toodledo and tried to do it as well.  Whatever my memory was, it must have been faulty.  In any case, it doesn't look feasible with their current feature set.

Dan g.

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[Stéph]

I actually disagree. IMHO every task has a date after which it should either have been done or it should be abandoned, even if that date is several years in the future.  For example, even something as vague as "consider enrolling my daughter in a new sports club" will expire once my daughter finishes school and leaves home. For that reason I have no problem with having to set a due date.

(It is a shame that I can't get due dates automated so they default to the parent's end date, though. I'd like to be able to save on the extra clicks needed every time I enter a new task).

Just thought I'd put that alternative view point out there.

Stéphane 

[Huw Evans]

Hi - I'd love to know how you're using start date for tasks. It obviously seems important to you, but I've never needed it. The way I approach tasks is very schedule focused, so I'm interested in what I need or plan to do today. So a couple of examples:
1. wash car - this is a repeating task, due every 2 weeks. So it pops up in my list when due.
2. pay gas bill - this is a repeating task every 3 months, again it'll pop up when due.
3. create dashboard report - this is a task that will take me about 2 weeks to complete, doing 30 min or 1 hour work chunks every 2-3 days. So I create a master task for the overall job, then sub-tasks for a work chunk. I can use the next action to see the next work chunk and keep completing those until just the master task remains - when hopefully it's done :)
This last task is one where I could mark it as started, but I've never understood what value that gives me. Is this where you would use this field?

My next question is, why would you want a task that repeats by start date, not due date. May be answered by above.

Thanks.

[Dan Gordon]

I use it for "do when you can" recurring tasks.  E.g., "clean the refrigerator condenser coils".  I want to know when these _begin_ to become due but they don't have a hard due date per se.  And they recur x weeks after they are completed.  So I want them to "start" but not be "due" and I want them to recur after I complete them.

I hope that's clear.

Dan g.

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[Trevor Peck]

I think, if I understand this correctly, that your comment refers to strategy rather than software, is that right?

I ask, because your strategy is currently possible with MLO and most (every?) other task manager I've ever seen, and allowing my strategy would not impact that at all. My strategy,while not ubiquitous, certainly has some agreement, as it's part of GTD by David Allen.

 So if you're asking for the requested change not to be made, I don't understand at all, and if you're just commenting on strategy then I'm totally on board with you having a different strategy than me.

 If all of us were the same some of us would be redundant.

 I started using MLO because it was the first place I saw that seemed to try to allow everyone to use their own strategy as much as possible, while most other task managers wanted the user to change to match the tool. Users who can do that are probably more productive than I am, thus more successful, thus able to pay more for their tools. So it makes sense that that's how they would be built. But it's not why I picked MLO. ;-)

 - Trevor.

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[domas.vo...@gmail.com]

Hi,

I'm also only using start dates, here's why:

• for the tasks that have a specified duration, I use Calendar
• most of my tasks have "Due" dates, which are totally created by me. In this case, the "Overdue" task seems like a false alert.
• Many tasks makes sense only in a specific timeframe, so I don't want them to appear in my to do list earlier.
• Due date encourages last minute problem solving. I want to set up the earliest time when I can work with a task and then see it in my list and not wait until it's Due.
• yes, every task theoretically have a Due date, however for daily task management most of these dates are not important. As in the example above, I don't care that task will become irrelevant when "my daughter finishes school and leaves home". If I decide to dedicate some time to "consider enrolling my daughter in a new sports club" for tomorrow, I will specify the Start date as Tomorrow. It will appear in the list then, and will stay until I will complete or potspone it.

 Cheers.

[Trevor Peck]

The GTD strategy only makes dates for things that won't make sense to do if you don't do them on their due date. So, if you don't take your flight, or go to your meeting, or pay your gas bill, well, then, it's not due anymore. You missed it. Those items need due dates. The gas bill still needs to be paid, of course, but now it's "pay the overdue gas bill and late fees". Start dates are used to hide a task when you can't work on it until a certain date.

 Everything else just needs a priority and context. Wash the car fits pretty well here - if you don't do it today it will still be dirty tomorrow. This means you can scan your list much faster, and ensure you do all the things that need doing today, like the gas bill, before reviewing the items that are available to do today (but not due), like washing the car. Repeat by start date means it will stay on my list of "available" rather than "due", and of course upon completion  will not show up until it's available again. There is no need to review, nor worry about, items that are not due today if you don't have the time to get them done anyway. This doesn't account for upcoming overload, but that's handled during reviews (Reflect), not during action (Engage).

 Anyway, that's my understanding.

 Once I understood my task list that way, a large majority of my tasks fit this category. Most of my tasks are to check certain physical things and create future tasks as necessary, and most of those checks need to be performed frequently, but not on any particular day. The ones that do need doing on particular days always get my attention first, and wading through the lists can be cumbersome if they all have due dates.

 Thank you for asking, as while writing this it occurred to me that I could make a text tag, like "repeat_by_start", and filter those out of my daily lists, adding a daily repeat task "Check Repeat by Start View" that includes those tasks. That probably won't even be too cumbersome, and I think I might do it. Maybe even today. ;-)

 I also suspect that sorting by the importance algorithm has something to offer here (maybe low urgency will sort these correctly even if they have a due date), but I think it might be beyond my comprehension and ability to make that work for me - and even if I did figure it out, it would irrationally bother me to have overdue tasks. I think I programmed that nagging feeling into myself because I preferred it to the consequences of actually failing to do something important.

 I have definitely found it easier to reprogram computers than me. I hear that might be unusual, so it's not strange if your experience is different.

 - Trevor.

On Wed, Sep 26, 2018 at 2:58 AM Huw Evans <huwev...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Dan Gordon]

+1 Trevor's thoughts about overloading Due Dates.  If you assign synthetic due dates to tasks, David Allen predicts accurately what will happen : you will become numb to the huge # of tasks that are "overdue" and will ignore (or have a hard time focusing on) the few tasks that genuinely have dates by which time they must be done.

Dan g.

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[Jeff Smith]

I used to think of the due date more like that, until I read the "Getting Things Done" book. I realized I've been clogging up my calendar with too many things that don't have to be done that day, or I was no longer taking the due date seriously because too many of them just went past and I often decided to keep extending the due dates.

Notice that we have two dates in MLO with specific purpose. Start date says you don't need to worry about the task until then. This is great for telling when to mow the lawn for example. All my tasks like mowing will have a recurring start date. Then there's the due date. Well if I have a bill due that's a real due date. I could still mow the lawn tomorrow but if my bill is due there is a solid penalty like paying late fees. I don't need to be confused by using the wrong kind of date for the wrong purpose.

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[Huw Evans]

Thanks for the detailed explanation Trevor, that's exactly what I was looking for. Definitely not saying a feature shouldn't be included, I agree the flexibility of MLO is also what attracts me to it. I wanted to understand your thinking because I'd never considered using start dates in this way. I'm also trying to utilise GTD methodology, but had been using due dates as my reminder when a task was actually either due or I wanted to do. I like your thinking and approach here, as a way of segregating and filtering. I've been using the flags to attempt this, broadly setting a This Week or Next Week flag around tasks I expect to do, so I'm not overwhelmed by everything. I set these in my weekly review, when most weeks I try to at least scan through most tasks.

Going to take your idea and do some thinking. Again, thanks for sharing.

[Huw Evans]

Thanks Dan, between yours and Trevor's explanation I now get this. It was just not an approach I'd considered before.

[Trevor Peck]

You're welcome. I hope I didn't just derail you from a system that works for you! ;-)

 - Trevor.

On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 1:44 AM Huw Evans <huwev...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for the detailed explanation Trevor, that's exactly what I was looking for.  Definitely not saying a feature shouldn't be included, I agree the flexibility of MLO is also what attracts me to it.  I wanted to understand your thinking because I'd never considered using start dates in this way.  I'm also trying to utilise GTD methodology, but had been using due dates as my reminder when a task was actually either due or I wanted to do.  I like your thinking and approach here, as a way of segregating and filtering.  I've been using the flags to attempt this, broadly setting a This Week or Next Week flag around tasks I expect to do, so I'm not overwhelmed by everything.  I set these in my weekly review, when most weeks I try to at least scan through most tasks.

Going to take your idea and do some thinking.  Again, thanks for sharing.

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