I am going to submit this as a feature as well, but I’ll post it here before just to check my point
My issue is this:
When I postpone a due or deferred date, using the “+1day” button, the app always add one day to the date in the field, but if it’s already an old date, it doesn’t fit my needs, because the only thing I have is a new date but already overdue.
With a example should be easy to understand: today date is April, 29, and I have a deferred date of April, 24. If I add one more day, the date will change to April, 25, (24+1) instead of April, 30 (today + 1), which is overdue.
For me what makes sense is, if we have a old date in the deferred (or due) field, the app should consider always the todays date to add/postpone “X” days, if we have a future date, the app should consider that date
I hope my explanation is clear
In other words, you would prefer to replace the “+1 day” button with a “tomorrow” button, but only for dates that have already passed?
Actually, having the due date pull to the defer date always, i.e. what case could there be for a due date before the defer date? This has been frustrating for me often OF1 as well. If I set the defer date to 5/5/14 for example, then the due date should move to 5/5/14.
This would work when the change is intentional, but would also mean that data entry errors in the deferred field that went undetected could cause you to blow a deadline - with real-world consequences.
One of the feature requests we have on our Someday/Maybe list is kind of the opposite of your feature request; it’s to more obviously point out weird combinations like this, to make mistakes less damaging. Similar to the “Violations” that OmniPlan shows you when stuff in your projects can’t actually happen in the order/timeframe you’re planning on.
The equivalent feature in OmniPlan also helps you resolve the issues, by presenting common resolutions and letting you pick from them with a few clicks. I’m not on the design team, but it seems likely that we’d do something similar in OmniFocus.
Exactly
Actually I have a script to do that, but I thing it should be more interesting if this could be done directly in the dates fields
I see this and can see the problem. However, when I run through my inbox processing items and assigning them defer/due dates the current approach makes data entry very slow-going.
I can see how that would be frustrating - but if I can offer some unsolicited advice, I wouldn’t recommend putting due dates on a lot of items. A few times, I’ve tried to use due dates as a motivational tool - to try get more done or as a stretch goal to strive for. Every time, I ended up finding myself spending time bumping those due dates a few days down the line, sometimes repeatedly.
Eventually, I realized I’d be better off using that time doing actual work. And eventually I just end up kinda ignoring all my due dates due to there being so many of them. These days, I use the defer field very liberally but I find that due dates are more powerful when I use them as sparingly as I can.
(The above may or may not be applicable to your workflow, of course. Just tossing it out there in case it’s helpful to you or someone else reading the thread.)
Brian
Thanks for your advice.
My workflow is exactly as you said, I use the due date only it is absolutely necessary
But the “+1day” button have the same behavior as the due date, and my issue is the same
