HELP NEEDED: How select "next todos" from a list of recurring tasks?

[Radek Pilich]

I don't know how to select a couple of tasks to work on next from a list of recurring tasks.

It's easy to use flags for this with non-recurring tasks, as once the task is completed, the assigned flag doesn't matter that much. The same goes for using the starred function for this.

However that's not true with recurring tasks, as the currently assigned flag / star will stay with the task even for next recurrance, which is not wanted in this case, as in time of next recurrance I want to do the prioritization from the tasks default state rather than from the "selected todo" state.

This bothers me a lot. MLOv4 on Android is pretty much the definitive solution to allow me have my life activities organized and handled. I have migrated all the habits and tasks into it, created contexts, tags, views, inboxes..... dozens and dozens of hours of work. Everything is pretty solid.

This one fatal flaw however makes it not easily possible to do daily tactical prioritization and take action on recurring tasks. Which again makes me inescapably overwhelmed by the system and therefore much less effective than I would be if it was simple to put a few tasks into the "actions for next few dozens of hours" bucket by tapping on them in the widgets.

Any advice / ideas on how to deal with this?

I already use flags for more static / long term prioritization, although there is always possibility for additional flag for the "actions for next few dozens of hours" list, the problem is, that every task should have a flag assigned, so this next action flag would have to work as temporary override of the standard flag.

Similarly, I already use stars for "arming" tasks to be worked on, i.e. I might have a habit of riding a bike every 15 days, which will be starred during march - october, but in november - febuary, I will take the star off.

[Radek Pilich]

Oh, and one important thing...

...thinking about it now - it's clear to me, that I will have to use stars for this, and dedicate some maintenance time to remove the stars from recently completed recurring tasks...

...which is where the second part of the problem with handling reccuring tasks comes - reccuring tasks with recently completed reccurance don't show up on the recently completed list!

They only show on the recently modified list, where they are mixed together with all other modifications to the tasks, so it is not possible to simply select the recently completed tasks from that list either.

Anyways, I will test drive this and see how it goes. As I generally tackle tasks only once they are past due, it might be possible to filter out recurring tasks with future due date and unstar those.

[Radek Pilich]

I think the solution for the problem above is a simple new functionality:

[FEATURE REQUEST] Advanced recurrence - toggles to remove star / flag with task completion

In the advanced options for recurrence, there is a toggle switch for a completed copy.

I propose there should be two additional toggle switches added next to it:

- remove star - removes star from the task when an occurrence is completed

- remove flag - removes flag from the task when an occurrence is completed

All these three toggles should be independent.

The remove star / flag functionality should remove the star / flag only form the "live task", meaning when combined with completed copy enabled, the completed copy will remain starred / flagged and only the next recurrence will have the star / flag cleared.

This is not important for my use case in any way, it's just that it makes more sense this way then also resetting the completed copy and it also makes the new feature backwards compatible with existing custom views etc.

Please please please MLO team, I think this makes sense, is clearly / logically needed and might not be that hard to implement I imagine.

R.

[Wolfgang]

Same situation here.

- recurring task "take medicine": starred by default (needs to show up in Active Starred view, i.e. daily tasks, automatically)

- recurring task "sweep floor": will be starred manually (from Active Tasks view) when I feel like it, and star must be cleared on completion

In Active Starred view, I can either complete the task or clear the star, but not both (either operation will remove the task from the view). I thought that this might be possible with the new triggers in MLO 6,

but it's not, at least for now.

[aiM]

If you are using star or flag in "manual mode", you need to un-star or un-flag right before clicking complete. On iOS and Android, the flag and star are automatically in the todo views (flags are in the add-in package, stars are standard). In desktop, if your todo view doesn't show the flag or star fields, just add the field (by right clicking on the other field names) and save the view.

[Wolfgang]

Still thinking about this. In case a recurring task has subtasks, these have to be unstarred too. I've thought about a workaround, a maintenance list of starred tasks that need to be unstarred manually. However, I can't find a filter to achieve this.

Recurring task: Clean room (recurs every two weeks)

Subtask A: Wipe boards (start date from parent)

Subtask B: Wipe floor (depends on A)

When A becomes active, I star it and subsequently complete it (A is off the list with star still set). B becomes active, gets starred, when done disappears from the list, still starred. On next occurrence, both tasks are already starred.

I can mark the subtasks for manual unstarring using a text tag, but I can't find a way to filter only subtasks from recurring tasks that aren't already in progress. To be clear, if a recurring task has its start date in the future and it or any of its subtasks are starred, then put them on the list (provided they have the unstar tag set).

Any thoughts on this?

[Wolfgang]

The following workaround might work (will experiment): 

• tag all recurring tasks (or subtasks) with text tag "unstar"; subtasks inherit parent start date (even if they have dependencies)
• build a weekly cleanup view
• filter for text tag = "unstar" AND StartDateTime > today
• clear star manually