Struggling with Start Dates for Actions
 

I am seeking help to understand how to use start dates with actions. I use OF on the Mac and on the iPad.

What I was hoping to do is have an action that appears on the Forecast screen (iPad) and in a perspective (Mac) for 3 or more days. I was trying to do this with a due date that was two days later than the start date.

For example, assume an action with a start date of 11/10/2012 and a due date of 11/12/2012. On the iPad, the item appears in Forecast on 11/10 (in a Starting Today grid) and on 11/12 as a due task in Due Today. On the Mac, I cannot figure out at all how to work with start dates. All the filters seem to do only with due dates and flags.

As a workaround, I have been making the task repeating and checking the item off each day that I work on it. But, OF not having a way to specify an ending date for a recurrence, I have to manually delete the action when it is finally done.

So, what is the correct way to use start dates in OF? Thanks for any advice or hints anyone can provide.

The Forecast view only shows tasks which either start or are due on the displayed date. So, if you need it to appear for more than one day, the path of least resistance is to bump the start date along each evening if you haven't yet completed the task. When you knock off work for the day on 11/10, you look at your list of starting tasks for 11/10 and adjust their start dates to 11/11. I'm assuming that these are not multi-day tasks that repeat; in that situation a little more fiddling about would be required as the start dates set on the action when you complete it will be used to compute the start date for the next instance, and that's probably not going to give you the desired answer unless you completed the task the first day it appeared. I do have an Applescript that allows you to reschedule a repeating task without affecting the scheduling of the repeats in this thread: [url]http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=22073[/url]

On the Mac, you want to use the grouping and sorting options in context mode. Group by start, sort by due, availability remaining actions, any status is very similar to the starting portion of the Forecast view, and group by due, sort by due, availability remaining actions, status due soon is very similar to the due portion of Forecast view. If you want, collapse the groups showing dates that don't interest you, and save as a perspective with the Restore Expansion box ticked in the Show Perspectives window.

Thanks WHPalmer4
 

I will experiment with the options you suggest. After a cursory look at your suggestions, I think that the recurring task might be the best approach for my needs.

And thanks for the very fast reply.