due time for repetitive action?
 

I want to setup a repetitive action(such as check emails) that start 8 hours after complete the last one. I don't want to see it in the "due soon" list right after I complete it, but I want to see it overdue (or due soon) after it start again.

If I set the action as "start after 8 hours", how can I set the due time?
If I set it as "due after 8 hours", how can I not to see it in the "due soon" list before it start again? I hope I can set due time as "due 2 hours after start"

Happy to help, Kevin! Just go ahead and set the action up with whatever start and due time you want the initial one to have, then choose the "Start again 8 hours after completion" option.

The start time will be pushed out (roughly) 8 hours from whenever you click it, and the due time will be pushed out a little bit farther than that - enough to give you the same amount of time between the start and due dates that the original item had.

As an example, imagine you have an item that started today at 2pm, and it's due today at 3pm. If you complete it at 2:30, the new item will start at 10pm and be due at 11pm. (We round to the nearest hour because of the "8 hour" setting. If you want the item to start at 10:30, you can use "480 minutes" instead. Similarly, "X Days" will round to the nearest day.)

Also, the due date isn't required. If you have an item with a start date but no due date, OmniFocus will bump that out by 8 hours but won't give it a due date.

Hope this helps!

That's exactly what I want, thanks a lot for your detailed answers and samples !!

[QUOTE=Brian;95249](We round to the nearest hour because of the "8 hour" setting. If you want the item to start at 10:30, you can use "480 minutes" instead. Similarly, "X Days" will round to the nearest day.)[/QUOTE]

That's a useful bit of information, perhaps not easily discovered unless one suspected it to be true. Any chance of seeing it in the documentation? Good to include its ramifications on monthly activities as well.

[QUOTE=whpalmer4;95252]Originally Posted by Brian
(We round to the nearest hour because of the "8 hour" setting. If you want the item to start at 10:30, you can use "480 minutes" instead. Similarly, "X Days" will round to the nearest day.)
That's a useful bit of information, perhaps not easily discovered unless one suspected it to be true. Any chance of seeing it in the documentation? Good to include its ramifications on monthly activities as well.[/QUOTE]

Very useful! I was expecting dates/times to advance by the set amount, which seems 'normal' in the analog world.
So "8 hours" would advance 07:33:33 to 15:33:33, not 16:00:00.

How about X Weeks
 

I know this thread is super old, but I have been a little confused about [I]start after[/I] repeats. This thread is good news and clears some things up for me. But my question now is, does [I]X Weeks[/I] work differently than [I]X Days[/I]?

For example, I love that [I]Start After[/I] preserves the original start time of a repeating action. But is it capable of preserving the original day of the week of a repeating action, say, in the case of [I]X Weeks[/I]? So far it appears the answer is no. It seems like it will not round "to the nearest week," and, say, start again only on Sundays regardless of the completion day.

Is there possibly a way to do this that i'm missing, or am I looking at it wrong?