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Kudos on the "template" like ability to have a task group with a recurring interval, and all of the children reset with the group parent. It would maybe be nice to have some feedback as to whether or not an item is recurring, or simply a one-time due; though I'm sure that is something you've already considered.

The biggest concern I have with the current implementation is that it generates a new copy of the task(s), rather than simply reseting its completion state and adjusting the due date. I suppose I can see the merit in that for some things, but for other things which happen daily (like reminders to review things), that could make this awfully cluttered. I wonder if perhaps this behaviour should merit a preference, maybe as default with the ability to do a local override in the Inspector.
 
It should create a new task, as that is what kGTD does and gives you some history (meaning you can go back and see when and how many of those things you do).

BZ
 
That may be nice for people that used KGTD, but I never did, and I personally have no use for several thousand copies of "Morning Review." I'd imagine the XML parser wouldn't, either, eventually. It is going to severely gum up the archival end of things after a years of usage; not to mention I'm going to have to be archiving much more frequently than I may like, to clear up highly active projects, where I may still want to keep a visible record going in slower projects. This is compounded by the fact that I like to plan in project mode with "All" turned on.

Last edited by AmberV; 2007-06-08 at 03:53 AM..
 
You don't have to archive, it happens automatically, it is just done.

Also, if you are doing something daily, why not just throw it in iCal?

Even if you were to take 365 x 3 years, that would only be a thousand tasks and that is not alot. They are using a database in the background that should be able to handle tens of thousands of tasks.

BZ
 
Because I despise iCal. If I really wanted to use some external program to remind me of GTD specific tasks to do in my GTD program, I'd use the UNIX tool, Remind. But I really don't want to do that. The lack of recurrence and the need to use an external calendar program was why I dropped ThinkingRock ages ago. It seems reasonable to keep everything together. I'm all for delegating to specialist applications as opposed to monolith applications and all that, but this really seems to be splitting specialist hairs. :)

You are right on the math, I didn't express myself clearly. The fact is, I have a couple daily reminders and a weekly reminder for reviews, which is well over 1,500 junk archives after two years.

And this still doesn't address the fact that I have no use for a record of repeating actions, even for ones less routine than these reminders. I can simply look at the action, see its interval, and know that I've done it five times in the past year. I don't need to actually physically have five identical copies in an archive to know that.

Last edited by AmberV; 2007-06-08 at 04:18 AM..
 
Still think OF won't care about 1,500 or 3,000 or 5,000 tasks. It looks like it has a nice database backend, with a XML front end that is well cached.

Here is why I NEED a repeated task history.

- I have tasks that are not every day, they are every month or two months or two weeks or 10 weeks or yearly (yes, I do) and I want to be able to see when I did it last. History is important.

- It will help with the statistics in OmniFocus I am SURE that Ken is going to build me any day now.

- If I mark it complete and it goes away and it doesn't slow down my system, I don't care how much history I keep.

BZ
 
I didn't realise the actual data storage was going on in a database. That certainly does help on the machine end of things, but it doesn't help on the human end. If I'm browsing through the archive in the hypothetical archive interface three years from now, looking for some project notes on something I'm doing right now, I'd like it to be relatively simple to do so. Having so many duplicates in the system would get in the way.

Anyway, like I said, I respect that some people might like this behaviour, that is fine. I just have no use for it, and I know it is going to be messy in the long term, and in the short term because my work preference is to have All tasks visible in project view. Personally, for me, I don't see the point. It is like expressing a line with a million points when an equation will do! Most of my repeating actions are fairly long term. I don't use weeks and months so much; so the average intervals for me are 50, 100, and 200 days. Then I have a few scattered year and multi-year intervals too. But even with these ones that are going to be generating less duplication, I still really do not need a copy to know I did it. The interval is 50, today is 159, that means I've done the task three times this year. Equation versus points.

I agree that history is important, but only to a degree. Saving absolutely everything is overkill. I'll archive for long term notes and such on interesting or complex things, but I'll delete grocery lists and utility bill reminders. I have no use for these things in the future. Likewise I have no use for 23 exact duplicates of an item, when I can just look at the interval and extrapolate in my mind.
 
Well, you are assume that it is the exact duplicate. The way it works now is I could change it.

(same task, just changed)
- Do something every day
- Do something better every other day
- Do something big and great every other month

I could have change that one task three times. In your system, I would never be able to go back and see what the original task was, what notes were attched to it, or when it was completed.

I keep everything. I have 80,000 emails going back 11 years.

While I might not go back and look at things in the past I want to know that they ar there so I can reference them if needed.

BZ
 
No, I'm not assuming that. I'm talking about my own usage patterns here. I know for a fact that 99% of these tasks are never going to change until they become irrelevant. Then I'll make a new one. I don't keep notes on these things usually, and if I do, I just add as addenda to the original note.

I keep an extraordinary amount of archival data, too. But I draw the line at machine generated data that serves me no purpose, and transient mundane things that have no future value. I don't keep gigabytes of crash logs, for instance. I don't need to know what I bought at Target 7 years ago, either.

Neither of us is going to convince the other of anything, which is precisely why I suggested that this sort of behaviour be an option. There are people who do not need 80,000 emails and several hundred "buy milk" actions, and there are people that do.
 
Keeping everything's a little freaky, but I just wanted to chime in with a large THANK YOU to the team for getting recurring tasks in! I'm sure the logic behind the seemingly simple feature is quite a hairball, with plentiful opportunities to get it subtly wrong.
 
 


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