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Timezone change impacted due dates. Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Quote:
Originally Posted by RobTrew View Post
Venerable but a bit busy, and commuting less than before :-)

Not sure that enough data is stored for this at the moment - the dateModified field might need a twin field on the lines of TimeZoneWhereModified.
I see… Then how about a crude but practicable solution: A script that would shift the start and end times (and dates, when necessary) of the entire library by a user-specified number of hours (positive or negative). This would effectively amount to a manual timezone change.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by macula View Post
I see… Then how about a crude but practicable solution: A script that would shift the start and end times (and dates, when necessary) of the entire library by a user-specified number of hours (positive or negative). This would effectively amount to a manual timezone change.
A script would not be of any use to those of us who run on iPad and iPhone but don't own a Mac.

Those of you who enter actions on Mac only also have a fix in that you can change the default times that get entered. So you could set up so that the default start time is 2 or 3 in the morning rather than midnight. That would give you some cushion.

Those of us with iPads have start times of midnight and due times of 5 pm hard wired into the program.

One of the better solutions I have seen was a small app for Palms that popped up anytime the clock changed by more than 29 minutes. It asked you if you wanted to roll your appointments or not. It was an all or nothing action but it allowed you to manage the majority of your appointments
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tedallen View Post
Those of you who enter actions on Mac only also have a fix in that you can change the default times that get entered. So you could set up so that the default start time is 2 or 3 in the morning rather than midnight. That would give you some cushion.

Those of us with iPads have start times of midnight and due times of 5 pm hard wired into the program.
No, the Mac app only offers you the option of changing the default due time, not the start time.

Looking at a sprinkling of actions and projects with start dates in my database, most of them fall into one of two cases:
  1. Start dates that are really a date only
  2. Start dates that reflect the hours of availability of some resource

The date-only ones aren't really affected much at all by hopping a few time zones, as they are just me putting something aside until I'm ready to give it some attention, or it is possible to act. It isn't likely to matter a great deal if the "don't bother with this until Tuesday" project actually shows up at the equivalent of 9PM Monday in the original time zone, or even hours later than expected on Tuesday in the new time zone. It's unlikely to get done as soon as it hits the active list anyhow.

The ones that reflect the hours of availability of some resource are not likely to need adjustment if I go to a different time zone. If I need to call Joe between 9AM and 3PM on Tuesday, that's 9AM-3PM on Tuesday in Joe's time zone, not mine, so that time better not change just because I decided to take the Gulfstream for a change of scenery.

Now, I'm sure there would be some that would be advantageous to change if I went to a different time zone for a week. For the non-repeating actions to be done during that week, using a variant of Dan Byler's Defer script that took hours as an argument instead of days would do the trick to adjust the times to local time (close to what macula suggested, but I don't think you want to change everything). The sticky bit concerns repeating actions done while in a different time zone; the next repeat is going to be scheduled for the local time in the travel time zone and be wrong when you return home. Probably one would want to pull up a perspective grouping and sorting by date added to audit the various newly added actions for correct date/time (the same script could be used to correct them, of course). Those without a Mac are still out in the cold in this scheme, I'm afraid.

The best solution, of course, is to clear the decks before the trip so that nothing needs to be done with OmniFocus :-)
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4 View Post
Looking at a sprinkling of actions and projects with start dates in my database, most of them fall into one of two cases:
  1. Start dates that are really a date only
  2. Start dates that reflect the hours of availability of some resource

The date-only ones aren't really affected much at all by hopping a few time zones, as they are just me putting something aside until I'm ready to give it some attention, or it is possible to act.
Actually, it does bother me when this happens. These "available but not really so" tasks somehow make my database less crisp, precise and focused than I'm used to.

Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4 View Post

The ones that reflect the hours of availability of some resource are not likely to need adjustment if I go to a different time zone.
Curiously, perhaps, I have almost no such tasks in my database. In my usage pattern, most tasks with a start date belong to the category you mention below:

Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4 View Post
Now, I'm sure there would be some that would be advantageous to change if I went to a different time zone for a week. For the non-repeating actions to be done during that week, using a variant of Dan Byler's Defer script that took hours as an argument instead of days would do the trick to adjust the times to local time (close to what macula suggested, but I don't think you want to change everything). The sticky bit concerns repeating actions done while in a different time zone; the next repeat is going to be scheduled for the local time in the travel time zone and be wrong when you return home. [macula's emphasis]
It is not so sticky, to my mind, if one applies the reverse start date displacement to the newly generated repetitions. So if "do morning yoga" is completed in a new timezone, generating the next iteration in that new time zone, one could apply the script as one returns home and have the new iteration shifted back to the original timezone.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by macula View Post

It is not so sticky, to my mind, if one applies the reverse start date displacement to the newly generated repetitions. So if "do morning yoga" is completed in a new timezone, generating the next iteration in that new time zone, one could apply the script as one returns home and have the new iteration shifted back to the original timezone.
I thought I suggested doing just that? The problem is that you have to remember to do it, and the new ones might be sprinkled all over the database. With enough new actions to search through, picking out the ones needing adjustment could be tedious. I'm not sure if one could construct a query for Where in OF that would pick out just the tasks with a start time of 3 AM on any date, for example.
 
 


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