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I know that this has been addressed in other posts, but I still seem to be having an issue with OF that prevents it from completely being my "trusted system." My issue is this: there are a number of ever changing tasks that I like to be reminded about, but want to defer for an hour, or a day, or a week, whatever. For example, I have a task "call Simon about Paula's new medication" with the intention of doing it today, so I flag it. However, as the day goes on I can't really bear the thought of calling Simon, so I want to do for it until tomorrow. I know that I can easily change the start date, but in order for me to get it off my today/flagged list, I need to unflag it. Then, in order to see it, I need to look at a different perspective. Now that there is any "do or flagged" perspective, I could change the due date to tomorrow, but if it is already flagged, it stays on my flag list, and now I am constantly changing perspectives to avoid looking at/thinking about tasks that I have already decided i don't want to think about.

What I am trying to get at, but not very artfully, is this: what is the best way to defer a task I don't want to do right now with confidence that it will come to my attention again when I want it to? Although I am devoted to OF, and think it the superior application, this is the one area where I think that Things and The Hit List have an advantage.

Any thoughts on how to implement this without constantly changing perspectives and, essentially, searching for tasks that should be jumping to my attention?
 
Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding your question, but couldn't you simply unflag the item and change its due date, either via the Inspector or using the defer script found here? It should then show up in your "Due or Flagged" perspective when it ought to.
 
What is is that Things and THL do in this case?

When I need to defer something, I usually just give it a start date in the future, confident it will show up in my list of things to do at on that date.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by sfkeydel View Post
Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding your question, but couldn't you simply unflag the item and change its due date, either via the Inspector or using the defer script found here? It should then show up in your "Due or Flagged" perspective when it ought to.
Because the "Due or Flagged" selector shows Remaining actions, not Available actions, it would still show up if the new due date is within the "Due Soon" window, even if you put a new start date on it.

Things has a "Today" marker that can be sprinkled about on things you want to do today. The original poster could simply strip off that marker on the task that he'd decided wasn't important to do and not be forced to live with the subconscious guilt of not making that call (so long as he kept looking at the "Today" list) without having to change anything else. Things' scheduling feature will automatically toss items onto the "Today" list.

I like working based on start dates, though I do use due dates as well for things that have concrete due dates. I don't necessarily finish an action as soon as it appears on my "tickler" list (context mode, grouped by start date) by any stretch of the imagination, but I do get a notion of how long something has been active without being completed by noting which group it falls in. Things would just leave any uncompleted action on the "Today" list, as I recall.

I can see how some might find the Things "Today" approach attractive, but I don't see anything that can't be done with possibly a few more mouse clicks, and OF seems much more richly featured.
 
I have a perspective that I use for my daily task list:

group by context
sort by project
show available actions
any duration (I don't really use the duration function)
flagged

The items on this list are selected in my daily review which is the same except I show all remaining actions (which are flagged). This shows all flagged tasks.

During my weekly review I flag the items I want to do over the coming week. Then each day I narrow that list down by putting future start dates (usually just 1 day, but sometimes more if I know I can't do something until later in the week). Then for my daily task list I have just those few tasks I need/want to get done during that day.

So if in the middle of the day I realize I just can't call Simon, I would put a start date of tomorrow (via the inspector or Curt's defer script) and it's gone until tomorrow. I sometimes also flag something with a way out future start date (weeks or months) if it is something I am afraid I will forget or overlook in a review and it has to be started/completed by a certain time or heads will roll... mainly mine. Then it will automatically show up in my daily task list (as well as my daily review).

Just a side note: These are the threads I like best on this forum. I have picked up a lot of good ideas on how to implement my OFGTD system listening to the OF sages who post on here.

Eric
 
Thanks for your responses.

I don't think I expressed myself very well, as is often the case at the end of the day. What I am looking for is a fool proof, best-practice for deferring tasks for a period of time. One example is that I have a task to call Fred RE Barney. I call Fred at 9 AM, and he not there, but I want to be reminded to call him again at 3 PM. Another is that I just can't deal with calling Fred today, and want to get it off my list until tomorrow. I would like to be able to do this quickly and easily, without multiple keystrokes or mousing around, and changing perspectives.

Does this make sense, or am I being a dolt? (A legitimate position.)
 
 


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