[billback]

I would love to have this feature. I have certain things that are due on specific days of the month (currently two tasks that repeat every month). I also have a number of tasks that repeat only on work days.

Finally, I would like to have the ability to specify the repeat time. For example, every day, I have to enter time by the end of the day (5pm). Yet, the auto repeat sets it to 12 AM, meaning it's overdue at the beginning of the day. This is especially distracting on the iPhone version since you have two different views (Overdue and Due Soon) (Note: if someone knows how to fix this, then that would be great).

Were this to be added as a feature in a future release, I, too, would find this very helpful.

[Ken Case]

Originally Posted by billback

I would love to have this feature. I have certain things that are due on specific days of the month (currently two tasks that repeat every month). I also have a number of tasks that repeat only on work days.

We definitely plan to add more complex repeat scheduling, it just wasn't as important as shipping 1.0 in the first place or as adding synchronization to OmniFocus for 1.1.

Finally, I would like to have the ability to specify the repeat time. For example, every day, I have to enter time by the end of the day (5pm). Yet, the auto repeat sets it to 12 AM, meaning it's overdue at the beginning of the day. This is especially distracting on the iPhone version since you have two different views (Overdue and Due Soon) (Note: if someone knows how to fix this, then that would be great).

Hmm, this sounds like a bug.

But I think I have a workaround: try setting the repeat period to "24 hours" rather than "1 day". (My guess is that OmniFocus is currently rounding the next repeat target to the nearest day or hour or minute, based on whichever units are selected for the repeat interval.)

[Sappetta]

I also vote for the "recur on certain day" feature, but:

My repeating tasks are not at regular intervals: they just start again on given dates.

So what I would really need is to specify the actual *calendar date* when the project should become active again, es September 15th, 2008, and *not* intervals like "the first Tuesday of the month, the last day of the month".

Is this somehow possible?

Thanks!

I ran into this problem today. I just started using OF and needed to schedule an insect spray project for my lawn here in Florida. I want to spray that lawn in June, July, August, September, December, and March. There is no way that can be done on OF that I can see. I also need to trim the palm trees the day after Thanksgiving. That can't be done on a yearly repeating basis either. So it would be nice to have several schedules available within one action or project.

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by Dale

I ran into this problem today. I just started using OF and needed to schedule an insect spray project for my lawn here in Florida. I want to spray that lawn in June, July, August, September, December, and March. There is no way that can be done on OF that I can see. I also need to trim the palm trees the day after Thanksgiving. That can't be done on a yearly repeating basis either. So it would be nice to have several schedules available within one action or project.

You want this to recur every year, right? Refactor the schedule a bit; think of it as a handful of similar, possibly identical, things that happen yearly, not one thing that happens on an arbitrary schedule.

Make your project for June's spraying. Select the whole thing, copy it, and paste additional copies into your document for July, August, September, December, and March. Set the start dates for each one. Set the repeat interval to 1 year on each one. You won't see these "extra" projects unless you're viewing pending or remaining instead of active. Note that this setup allows you to customize each month in a fashion that wouldn't be very practical if it was the same project repeating for each month.

For the "day after Thanksgiving" task, put in a task every Nov. 1 to fix the start date for your "day after Thanksgiving" project for that year. Let the program help you help it do the things it can't do yet!

Having experimented with both, I find I get better results from repeating projects than from endlessly repeating actions in projects.

I would make use of a richer set of scheduling choices if it existed, but I don't have enough need to bump it very high on my personal priority list, nor a well-defined vision of what really needs to be added.

[billback]

Originally Posted by Ken Case

Hmm, this sounds like a bug.

But I think I have a workaround: try setting the repeat period to "24 hours" rather than "1 day". (My guess is that OmniFocus is currently rounding the next repeat target to the nearest day or hour or minute, based on whichever units are selected for the repeat interval.)

Thanks - that did the trick. Was really annoying to check my tasks for the day and be overdue first thing in the morning.

[Lizard]

Another way to do this would be to have a single spraying project with an annual repeat cycle. Create an action for each month you need to spray and set its dates for this year's spraying. (And you can add actions inside these and make them into groups.) At the end of the year, mark the project complete, and it'll create a whole new project with all of next year's sprayings listed in it.

[directo]

Another vote for this feature...
There are certain tasks I'd like to repeat only on workdays....

I'm sure I could find other examples but this would be handy...

Originally Posted by Ken Case

But I think I have a workaround: try setting the repeat period to "24 hours" rather than "1 day". (My guess is that OmniFocus is currently rounding the next repeat target to the nearest day or hour or minute, based on whichever units are selected for the repeat interval.)

I have a similar (or the same) issue and nothing really works quite the way I'd like. I didn't really care with OF 1.0, but now with the iPhone caring about "Due Soon" vs. "Overdue" it's annoying that I can't set tasks up the way I want.

Here's what I want to do: I want to have a task that starts at 8:00 am and is due at 12:00 pm. I also want this to repeat every day. If I don't do it at all then it should just roll over (being overdue) until I get it done. As soon as I mark it off I want to get a new task that starts the next day at 8 and is due at noon.

If I set the repeat to "assigned date" the start and due times work correctly. Every time I check it off I get another task set for the next day. The problem is that if I don't do this at all on Monday when I check it off on Tuesday I get a task for Tuesday. If I skip two or three days then I have to click through each day or go edit the recurring task to realign it.

If I set the repeat to "completion" date then the start and due times key off my completion *time* and slowly precess around. For instance, right now it's 10:47 in my time zone. With repeat on "one day" if I check off the task the new one starts TONIGHT at 8 PM and is due at midnight. With a repeat of "24 hours" the new task will start at 6 AM tomorrow and be due at 10 AM.

So I guess what I want is to repeat the _date_ based on completion date, but repeat the _time_ based on assigned time. Basically if I check it off at any time on day N, the new task should start at 8 AM on day N+1 and be due at noon on N+1.

I know there's an argument that this isn't really that GTD, but I'd argue the iPhone version is encouraging this sort of behavior. Frankly getting up in the morning and having a big stack of "overdue" stuff isn't the best motivator. I'd like to spread due times for daily tasks spread across the day, so they tick over into "overdue" in a controlled fashion. That's a motivator when one task "goes red" at 2 PM, and another one at 4 PM. But right now I can't quite get that behavior without constantly fussing with the recurrence.