[Chris]

The existence of a start date is one of the ways OF distinguishes "Remaining" actions from "Available" actions. Actions with a start date in the future are considered "Remaining" actions, while those with no start date or a start date in the past are "Available". So setting a start date is one way to hide an action from view (by only showing "Available" actions) until it's time to do it.

On the other hand, OF uses various text styles/colors to highlight things that are coming due or past due.

In your example, you can do things different ways, depending on when and how you want the action to be visible in OF. You probably want to set a start date (so that you don't have to look at "Change AC filter" every day for three months). I would probably also set due date, for a couple days or weeks later as a prompt for me to actually do it, but that's more a matter of taste.