[bigcloits]

#ext555... wow, great suggestion. Why the heck not? It sounds so wanky to be stressed out by the redness of the overdue items, but for me the whole GTD revolution in my life has been all about taming the anxieties of workaholism in their many forms. And if that includes red things, okay, fine, I will make them less red. Thanks.

@needles... wow, another great suggestion. Especially the Growl angle — would not have thought of that! That would certainly be one way of putting such an action on my radar, without actually hassling me with the sense that it's due.

However, I am still leery of the idea of relegating "due" to near meaninglessness for non-urgent items. And I'm leery of making an item that really is due "just" available, because that demotes it to the same level of urgency as hundreds of other actions that are also available, but not actually due any time soon. And, still another concern: an "available" date obviously makes sense for an action that is literally irrelevant or impossible before a certain date, but it often such actions are also more or less due at the same time that they become available, or very soon after, which brings due right back into the equation a lot of the time, unless you (once again) use due only to indicate both due-ness and urgency ...

Still, excellent food for thought. Thanks very much for the ideas.