Tasks Repeats but only for a specific time period
 

Hi,

I am relatively new to Omnifocus and can't figure out how to set up an action to do what I need. Searches of the forum were unsuccessful, but it could have been my keyword selection. My apologies if this has been discussed and I couldn't locate it.

I occasionally have tasks which are due each day, but only for a specific period of time. For example, every day between the 6th and the 15th of January I need to check on some items for my manager who is out of the office. I set the task to the appropriate project and context, start date to today, due date of today, repeat every one day, and then I get stuck. I don't see where I can tell OF to repeat this daily until the 15th and then stop. In the past I have had to manually note when I no longer accomplish this task and then delete it.

How does one accomplish this?

Thanks.

Unfortunately, there's no direct way to do that at the moment. Use Help->Send Feedback to send in your request for richer support for repeating items (like the ability to have them stop after so many repeats, or after a specific date).

In the mean time, you can try one of the following approaches:

Set up to repeat as usual, but also enter a separate action (with appropriate start and due dates) to remind you to stop the repeating action (or maybe just put a note in the action title -- "Take antibiotic each morning until Jan. 23"

Make a list of however many copies of the repeating item you need in a text editor, one per line. Then paste the whole bunch into OmniFocus (be sure to select the row handle or dot to the left of the line where you're pasting, or you'll just get one multi-line action, not what you want!) and set the start and due dates for each action. This would probably be easier with a script to do the date processing, and wouldn't be too difficult a starter project if you wanted to learn some Applescript.

Thanks for the help!

Feedback has been submitted and I will continue to workaround it. I admit that my current workaround is to make a note in the task title when the task ends ("feed goldfish (until 23rd)". Very, very low-tech but it works for now and doesn't take too many gyrations in OF to get it done.

One option for OmniFocus would be to make the repeating icon next to the task clickable. When the timed repeating task is done, the user would click the repeat and the action is no longer repeating, then click the checkbox.

Just a couple clicks faster than the info window management. And doesn't help with the iPhone version.

"I admit that my current workaround is to make a note in the task title when the task ends ("feed goldfish (until 23rd)".

Maybe the fish will want to keep eating after the 23rd?