[blewis]

Unfortunately, I need a reminder to make my lunch every now and then. I've got a little Project called "Make Lunch". I have three actions in it:

Make Monday Lunch
Make Thursday Lunch
Make Friday Lunch

I put some dates on this project the first week:

Make Monday Lunch 1/1/07
Make Thursday Lunch 1/4/07
Make Friday Lunch 1/5/07

I've set my repeat settings to repeat these actions 1 week from the Assigned Date. So, whenever I make my lunch on Monday and check it off the list, a new action comes into being set for next Monday. So I might end up with this:

Make Monday Lunch 1/8/07
Make Tuesday Lunch 1/4/07
Make Friday Lunch 1/5/07

So far so good. For some reason Make Monday Lunch is purple. I can tell OF that this project is Serial or Parallel, but the color stays the same.

I'm assuming Purple means next actions, because when I sort on Due, Due, Next Actions, Any, All in Project mode or Context mode (the contexts are set to Lunch), Make Monday Lunch will be the Next Action regardless of Serial/Parallel or _regardless of the date_ assigned to the actions.

That does not make any sense to me at all. Shouldn't Make Tuesday Lunch be my Next Action given my example? I know it is is real life. OF seems to think since Make Monday Lunch is my Next Action cause it's first in the list.

Anyone else perplexed?

Brandon

[ptone]

Its almost like when an action sets to repeat, it should be moved to the bottom of the list - I'd consider it a bug...

-P

[jasong]

This has been an outstanding issue for a while. I think there are some discussions on the forum about it, e.g.

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=5357

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=5335

[pvonk]

Originally Posted by blewis

I put some dates on this project the first week:

Make Monday Lunch 1/1/07
Make Thursday Lunch 1/4/07
Make Friday Lunch 1/5/07

What types of dates? Start? Due?

I have a singleton action (weekly review) with a start date on monday and a repeat of every 1 week. Are you using due date for your lunches?

[blewis]

Originally Posted by pvonk

What types of dates? Start? Due?

Are you using due date for your lunches?

Yes, I am using Due dates.

[LizPf]

This may be the problem ... OF thinks your action has to be done any time before the due date.

Does it show the same behavior if you set it up to repeat from a Start Date? Theoretically, it should keep the action grayed out until the Start Date, so you wouldn't see it before Monday (or Sunday night, or whenever).

[Apologies if this is unclear ... I have 2 7 year old boys playing in this room. I'm distracted ...]

[blewis]

Thanks for suggestion Start dates. I think I've come up with something that works now.

I've had to set both a Start date (night before) and a Due date (before I leave work the next day) and label the Project as Parallel in order to get what I expect. Now I can sort on Start dates or Due dates and still see my lunches the night before and they become red the day of.

In all cases, describing the Project as Serial completely ignores any Start or Due date I have and just states that the top of the list is my Next Action.

Just having a Start date wasn't good enough - I spent 10 minutes not being able to find a way to sort my lists and have my lunches show. With only having Start dates, my lunches always show up in the None drop down tab whenever I group things by Start date. I clearly don't understand what the grouping sort method does for Start dates. It does what I expect for Due dates.

All in all, I think I got what I want. Thanks for taking an interest in my problem and offering suggestions. I'm a little worried about how complicated it was to setup something that seems like it would be simple.

Woo hoo, I can learn from this and get together some reminders for cleaning the cat's litter box too! (Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays each week)