I’m using OF 3 (although considering upgrading to 4)
I’m finally considering a bit of an overhaul of my OF system. Historically, i have only used due dates even when things weren’t truly due. Here are two examples.
A credit card bill is due the 2nd of every month. I have an OF task that says to pay the bill on the 27th of the prior month. This gives me a few days in case I’m super busy and can’t pay it the day I have assigned it. Once I complete the task, I have it set to repeat the following month on the 27th.
If/when I switch to a defer date system, how should i set it up?
Do I have a defer date of the 27th with no due date? There is clearly a hard due date of the 2nd lest I incur a fee for not paying on time. Or do i also put in a due date for the 2nd?
I have a task of invoicing clients for my client. I do that on the 1st of every month. This is a date that although not strict, it’s one I’ve always adhered to since I took over this responsibility. There is one caveat - if the 1st falls on a Sat or Sun, I then invoice the clients on Monday. For this example, should I switch to just a defer date of the 1st with no due date?
Separately:
Just want to confirm this:
The Today perspective shows me tasks that have defer dates that have passed or deferred to today.
If I click on today in the Forecast perspective, it shows me tasks with a defer date of today only. But it does not show me any tasks with a defer date that has passed. This sorta makes this view not useful. I don’t see a way to change a setting so that older defer dates will show.
Firstly – there is no “one right way”: part of the beauty (and trepidation for some) is that OF supports many “philosophies” and “styles”.
That said it is generally agreed that due dates should be used sparingly — although I think your credit card example would I think qualify as deserving one (Bad Things happen if you miss the date). You can set both the defer and due dates of a repeating task (“don’t bother me about this before 27th but make sure it appears already with a due date of 2nd of following month”)
Your second example probably doesn’t need a due date. As far as I’m aware there’s no easy way to specify “first of the month unless it’s a Saturday or Sunday”. You could specify “first Monday of the month” or (probably simplest) specify 1st of the month and then if you notice the task in your Available perspective on a Saturday or Sunday just manually defer it one or two days to Monday
This is how I handle monthly bills in OF4—defer date is set to a week before it’s due, due date set to the actual due date. The only thing, so far, that’s pissing me off about OF4 coming from Things 3 is you can’t set “last day of the month” dates automagically.
Defer Date is a week prior and the due date is the actual date. This gives me that view that I have bills coming up and so I can see when/where things are coming up. Another item I have tried that I thought would be helpful, but haven’t really seen a benefit yet…having the mortgage and utilities paid before the 15th, having credit cards, etc after the 15th. You can usually call them to set a new bill date. I didn’t really notice a benefit in my OF workflow, but it helped with better budgeting and more awareness.
99% of all my OF (Currently)
I have tried not using just the due dates and just relying on the defer dates. I noticed that I got more lax in some of the tasks, because there was no ‘feeling’ of 'it needs to be turned in today. Eventually, after maybe a year of experimentation, it wasn’t working for me. So now every task has a defer date and a due date. I know it’s not “proper official OF usage” but for me: Defer dates are when I want a task to start reminding me, Due Dates are when it needs to be absolutely completed.