Mark all as done; expiration date for tasks
 

As a single guy, I use OmniFocus to replace a nagging wife.
Before I go to bed, it reminds me to floss, turn off the heater in the office and put down the toilet seat (one of these is a lie).

The thing is, I don't always have it open. Sometimes I'm away for the weekend, and when I come home, I have to mark everything as done for every day I've been away, which is a bit annoying.

Is there a way to make this less so?
I see three possibilities.

One would be a "Mark everything as done" button which would allow users to select several tasks and mark them as done together.

Another would be to introduce an expiration date for tasks, maybe as a separate field in the info panel, or maybe something like "Mark done after 24h".

The most logical way in this case however seems to me, to automatically mark tasks as done, if another instance of that same task is active. Meaning, if a repeting task comes along again, earlier instances of this task are marked as done automatically.
I'm sure there are tons of examples where this doesn't work, but if I use OF to remind me to make a dentist appointment every 6 months and I skip one appointment, I'm not making two appointments to make up for it.

You could use "start after 1 day" instead of "repeat every 1 day". That way, the task only repeats 1 day after it was last completed.

FWIW, I use the method Nicoledb suggests for a similar set of tasks. Works well.

[QUOTE=Flex;120466]
The most logical way in this case however seems to me, to automatically mark tasks as done, if another instance of that same task is active. Meaning, if a repeting task comes along again, earlier instances of this task are marked as done automatically.
[/QUOTE]

The problem is the repeating task doesn't ever come along until you complete the current one. It's the act of completing the task that triggers the creation of the next instance.

I use a script called Defer by Dan Byler for this purpose. You select any number of tasks, invoke the script, and it prompts you for the number of days to defer the tasks. You can download it from Dan's website at [url]http://bylr.net/files/omnifocus/[/url]

Another option: Assuming these daily reminders are all part of the same action list, project, or context, you could just set that grouping to "On Hold" before you leave, then set it back to "Active" when you return.

[QUOTE=SFF;120563]Another option: Assuming these daily reminders are all part of the same action list, project, or context, you could just set that grouping to "On Hold" before you leave, then set it back to "Active" when you return.[/QUOTE]
That only works well if you've got the repeat policy set to due after or start after — with repeat every you'll still get the actions created for all of the times between when you left and when you return.

[QUOTE=nicoledb;120475]You could use "start after 1 day" instead of "repeat every 1 day". That way, the task only repeats 1 day after it was last completed.[/QUOTE]
So that's what that does...

I tried it, and it seems to work as advertised, although it will need some getting used to, at least for me.
I kept OF closed over the weekend and then today marked everything I did as done. So naturally, now it doesn't show me what I need to do today.
So I think I would still prefer to simply be able to mark a group of tasks as done, tbh.

If you know beforehand that you would always mark the weekend-tasks as done before a certain time on Monday, you could set the start time for the repeating tasks a bit later in the day, like 10 am. That way, you're marking the 'old' items complete, and they show up again at 10 am to be done today.

Another way of looking at it is that you can't mark them as done today, because you haven't done them today yet.

And another option is what you suggested in your original post: when a second instance becomes active, previous instances could/should be dropped. If you didn't brush your teeth yesterday it doesn't make sense to brush them twice in a row today.