ForumsQuestionsRollover incomplete tasks


Rollover incomplete tasks
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Zane Hagy

Posted: Jul 03, 2011
Score: 0 Reference
Rather than them appearing overdue - is there an option/tool/magic trick to roll items over to the next day rather than have them appear overdue? I've been using Toodledo for 2 years and suddenly realized how much of my time I'm wasting due to this one piece. Running a couple hundred projects through the system, it works perfectly other than this.
JCarl

Posted: Jul 03, 2011
Score: 0 Reference
My understanding is that in due date you can actually type the words today or tommorow. Would this work
dannyw0011

Posted: Jul 03, 2011
Score: 0 Reference
I would say it all depends on how you view and use due dates. If your due date is truly for a task that is due on a certain date, it is only appropriate for it to show as overdue once that date passes.

However, if you use due dates as a method to pop certain tasks up periodically, I would suggest another method. I personally use the star feature to indicate tasks I want to do today. When I was using Outlook, I set up a category named "Today" to accomplish the same purpose. With Toodledo, I would probably use a "Today" tag if the star wasn't available.
Zane Hagy

Posted: Jul 04, 2011
Score: 1 Reference
Thank you both - we have hard dates for some items, where 'overdue' is appropriate. However, many are wishful thinking targets (100+/day depending upon what's going on) and 'TODAY' as a tag is a happy workaround. Also going to try typing in 'today' as JCarl mentioned just to see if it rolls.

Appreciate you both taking the time to reply.
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Jul 05, 2011
Score: 0 Reference
You could also make the task an optional repeating task, which means that its due-date gets automatically moved forward even if you don't do it. For example, I have a weekly optional task for "clean my desk". If I don't do it, it just moves to the next week automatically instead of staying overdue.
saskia.x

Posted: Jul 07, 2011
Score: 0 Reference
I too use due dates as targets, so I've come up with a workaround which can simplify rolling over tasks if it's something you have to do regularly. Essentially I've created a saved search which displays all overdue tasks that fit certain criteria, which I regularly review & then use multi-edit to roll all tasks over at once (after rescheduling, editing &/or reprioritising as necessary - sometimes you see that there are tasks that are more urgent and shouldn't be rolled over, whereas others need rescheduling further in the future if it becomes clear that the number of tasks being rolled over is greater than you can realistically achieve).

My saved search has become a bit complicated over time but it can be as simple or complex as you need it to be - the most important thing for me was that I should avoid accidentally rolling over tasks that have a fixed due date. This was made easier by the fact that I use the priority field to indicate how essential it is that a task is done on the specified date, so "3" tasks are all those with "real" due dates & are excluded from this search (0 means the due date is just a vague guideline, 1 means I would like to have done it by that date, and 2 means I really want to have done it by that date). I also exclude all yearly repeating tasks as these tend to be tasks where the date matters, like buying birthday presents or whatever. If you don't already have a way to indicate whether the due date is a "real" due date rather than a target it's worth considering how you could implement this, perhaps by using the star, or a tag.

I also sometimes use the trick posted by Toodledo of making the task an optional repeating task - this obviously works well for tasks that actually are repeating but optional, but it also works for one-off tasks you know you'll probably have to roll over multiple times. The only drawback to using them for one-off tasks is that you have to remember to set the repeat back to "none" before completing the task otherwise you'll end up with another copy of the task when you complete it, but if you think you will remember to do this it might work for you.

Typing "today" as the due date won't make it roll over, it will just set today's date as the due date, but it's worth remembering as a quick way to set dates.

@Toodledo: maybe it would be helpful to add yet another option to the due date types (i.e. "due by", "optionally on" etc), called something like "ideally on" which would automatically roll the task over to the next day if it wasn't completed. The only downside to this is that is wouldn't be good for chronic procrastinators!!
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