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Roll over incomplete actions, please. Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
I've sent OG feedback on this, I encourage you to pull down the help menu and do the same.

PLEASE add roll over. I want OF to take incomplete actions and just move them to the next day/weekday/week/month or whatever I specify.

I don't know about the rest of you folks, but it's really maddening when there's some kind of crisis that pulls me away from OF for a day or two. I end up having to manually adjust tons of Due Dates just to get things caught up to start the day.

Roll overs would fix this. I think it should look just like the "repeat" items in the inspector. A check box and incrementing controls. Then, at the stroke of midnight, everything that should be rolled over moves to the next day.

My creaky old Palm Pilot can do this, why not OF?

Thanks for reading.
 
The GTD methodology encourages people to not set due dates unless the items are truly due. And if they are truly due, then missed commitments need to be renegotiated, not just deferred. I'm not opposed to auto-rollover on principle, though I wouldn't personally use. The growing pile of deferred actions on my old Palm Pilot was an automated stress producer.

Please note, I'm not arguing for omitting this feature on GTD-purity grounds. It's just not something that I would assign much value to compared to other features (like meta-data, smart folders, an icon for repeating actions, and more robust support for repeating items).
__________________
Cheers,

Curt
 
Maybe I'm just not understanding your work style, but why does a day or two away from OF force you to change a bunch of due dates? Either the stuff has to get done, or it doesn't. If it didn't, why does it have a due date? If it does, do it! Is it that you don't want to see indications of "overdue" actions all over your screen? It doesn't seem like you've really "caught up" at all by pushing back the due dates...doesn't the outside world still have the same expectations of what you were going to do by yesterday?

Don't take this as criticism, as it isn't intended as such, but rather as curiosity!
 
As 'splained in previous posts, I use Top-Down Planning (TDP), which the Omni Folks have graciously accommodated with OF. Covey, RPM, OPA are all examples of TDP systems.

So preaching the gospel of GTD doesn't carry much weight for me.

Since I use TDP, I spend most of my time in "Planning" view. I have a lot of things that need to be done once a day, once every other day, etc.

Once I fall behind, OF sorts them by due date, and I end up with projects out of order, staggered between different days by Due Date.

I hope that satisfies your curiosity, and that you'll help out by requesting roll-over from the feedback menu.
 
I'm not sure either of the two of us who responded were exactly preaching the GTD gospel to you. And despite having plenty of repeating daily projects of my own, and occasional absences from being able to act on them, I guess I still don't understand the problem you're reporting. No matter, there's no point in trying to convince you that your problem isn't a problem.

Does Dan Byler's Defer script not do what you need? Like Curt, I'd generally prefer to see Omni resources spent building things that are difficult or impossible for 3rd parties to provide...
 
I use Dan's Defer script, and I've kludged together several variants of my own including "Maņana," which defers to tomorrow without so many mouse clicks. Dan's been extremely helpful with this.

Dealing with a couple of days of past-due due dates is still a big headache.

Unless you use OF for TDP, you probably won't understand the nature of the problem. It really isn't a problem you'll run into. That doesn't make it any less of a problem for me.

Thanks for suggesting Dan's script, though. That was helpful intent.
 
Thanks for the tip on the Defer script. I'm a recent convert to Mac, and it's the first script I've installed. Hooray!
 
I would love to see roll-overs for overdue dates as a switchable option regardless of GTD doctrine. I prefer software to be customizable to work the way I want.
 
One thing that puzzles me: How would you handle hard due dates? That is, if most or all of your actions have due dates and those due dates can be rolled over if you miss a few days' work, how would you want to distinguish the remaining actions that really do have hard, unchangeable due dates over which you have no control? Maybe a "hard due date" checkbox in the Inspector for the action? Or would it instead be better to have a third kind of date - Start Date and Due Date and something else, maybe Goal Date, for due dates that can roll?

I realize that since I wouldn't use the feature there's no particular reason for me to be talking about the details, but I'm curious. :)

Gardener
 
I'm hoping rollover would be implemented like Repeat. So a hard deadline would have Rollover unchecked. It wouldn't roll over, and would become more and more delinquent. If you check the Rollover box in the inspector, then it rolls over, and has a soft deadline.
 
 


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