How to 'Postpone'?
 

I am a recent Remember The Milk user, who converted to OF, i have a question however, how do i 'postpone' a task?

Specifically, a repeating task.

If i have a task that is due weekly, and i need to postpone it until tomorrow, the due date will change, but so will the 'next due' date.

What do i do? Remember the Milk would basically complete the task and make it due 'tomorrow'.

Thanks.

Typing "+1d" in a date cell will bump that date to tomorrow - if you'd prefer some other interface, email the [EMAIL="omnifocus@omnigroup.com"]support ninjas[/EMAIL] so they can write up the request. (or attach your email to one we have open; unsure if we do.)

Also handy is Dan Byler's [URL="http://bylr.net/3/2008/02/omnifocus-defer-script/"]Defer script[/URL] which offers the option of changing either start or due date or both. Select one or more rows, invoke the script (you can run it from the menu bar or install it in the OF toolbar), give it a count of days to defer the selected row(s) and hit the appropriate button.

Another shout out for Dan's script-- I use it much more than I should :-)

I like Dan's script, but it doesnt take in to consideration if the action is supposed to repeat.

Using the 'defer' script, if i chose a task that repeats every monday, and defer it one day, it will defer it to tuesday but make it now repeat each tuesday.

If the event should repeat every Monday can you set it to repeat from assigned date, rather than completed date, then use Dan's script to just defer the due date?

Assigned date is what is giving me the problem, if i choose 'completed date' that's when it works as i'd like, the only issue is, the tasks that really would need to be deferred, all require to have a due date for the assigned date, rather than when it's finally completed

Hmm, so you are saying you want to change the start date of the current instance, but have the future ones stay as they are? OF creates the next repeat instance when you mark off the current one as completed, so you could complete the current one, causing the next one to be created at the proper time, then uncheck the current one, adjust the start date as Brian suggested, and remove the repeating status (or you would get a duplicate when you marked it complete). Wouldn't be too difficult to make a version of Dan's script that did that.

yes exactly, i think this is what Remember the Milk did, but had the script built in to their web app.

Unfortunately i have no scripting\programming experience :(

But now you have both opportunity and motive, as the prosecutor might say, and all that's needed is the means :-)

Defer Script
 

I would also greatly benefit from a modified defer script as described here. I am having the same issue. Can anyone easily modify it to keep the assigned date for subsequent instances, but still defer the instance in question? I would be most grateful. :)

Hm, this isn't actually as simple as it looks, because applescript can only make a dialog with a max of 3 buttons.

If you could just stick a new "start only" button on there, it's not that bad. Can't do that, don't really want to nuke the "Cancel" button.

Question for the folks that want this - is there a reason that an action with *only* a due date wouldn't work? Most of my repeating "get it done by <some date>, but I don't care when" actions get entered that way.

Effectively, that's a "start as soon as possible, due by <date>" action. Admittedly, you can't hide an action like that from the Available list, but it's a heck of a lot less work. :-)

Assuming the answer is no, I'll see if I can hack something together this afternoon, but I can't make any promises.

Brian, I'm not sure I understand your question. For any given task, you can set the repeat to either the assigned or completion date. Say you want a task (e.g., submit timesheet) to be due every Thursday. If I need to defer that to Friday one week, but want it to stay due on Thursdays in the future, I can't currently accomplish this with the existing defer script. When it pushes the due date back a day, all the subsequent instances will also be pushed back a day. Does that make sense? Sorry if I'm not articulating this well.

The original poster was describing an action with a start date of today, and due date in a few days. They wanted to bump the start date but leave the due date alone. My (badly phrased) question was directed at them, really. Seems like an action with a due date but no start date would be flexible in the way they were looking for.

I've added an action for this script that does this to my someday/maybe list, but it ended up being too tricky for that afternoon.

The original script just says "do some stuff to my selected action". If the selection changes once the script is done, there's no problem.

For the repetition-friendly version, the simplest workflow is
complete the original action (to generate the un-modified next task)
uncomplete the original action
modify the original to defer the dates

Unfortunately the simple workflow falls down in Available and Remaining view, since the completed action disappears and your selection changes.
Need to rework the script to gets the ID of the selected action(s) and use them to keep track of what to work on, instead.

For me, even postponing the due date for 1 day would be great.

So that would involve completing the origianal task (to retain the proper next due date), and duplicate the task and make it due in 1 day.

Does that make sense?

Brian, This is a very clever approach. Completing and un-completing almost completely resolves this for me. I don't use the available view, so I am personally not affected by losing item selection. I can now just run the defer script on the un-completed action and I'm good to go. Granted, it would be nice to have this built into the script for bulk deferring, but this is a very good workaround for me. Thanks!

I have recently found myself wanting this feature. The completing and un-completing technique is a great workaround, but having a proper implementation built in would be awesome since I use the Available and Remaining views a majority of the time.