Hi – In the Asana app one can specify a date range for a task, & it will show in the ‘MyTasks’ display for that date range. I want to do something similar in Omnifocus. I have tried Defer & Planned dates but the tasks only show up on those dates & the Due date, in the Forecast, but not the inbetween dates. Is there a way of showing that for example a bill needs to be paid between the 10th & the 20th - & for one to see that task in each day in that range - until it’s marked completed.
If you assign a tag to the Forecast perspective (assuming that’s what you’re trying to use), and apply that tag to the task, it will show on the current day each day until it’s completed, I believe. Defer is your ‘start’ date and due is your ‘end’ date.
However the problem may be more that you’re trying to make OmniFocus work like Asana instead of learning how it might be best to use OF itself. While it has date functions, I find its strength lies in tagging and creating perspectives. This aligns with the general productivity advice that it is a good idea not to schedule too many tasks on any given day, and to use your calendar to mark hard deadlines, so you make sure you schedule time for work on a task if necessary. I create simple time-blocks for work in different ‘modes’ and then tag tasks with whichever mode is appropriate. For paying a bill, I know that I will get around to my Admin mode at some point each week (usually a Wednesday) and if a task appears on that list because it has passed its defer date, and it has a due date coming up, it will appear near the top of that list (if my perspective is set up correctly of course).
Hope that helps either way.
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Hi Ben - thanks for your response. I had seen mention of similar while googling, but didn’t quite twig what to do. I did have to look up setting a tag in the Forecast perspective but I think this may give me what I was looking for. Appreciative your ‘Perspective’
I’m struggling a little to understand the use case. I can see the value in having a task not show before its defer date (that’s baked into OF through the “available” status of tasks) but do you really want a task that for some reason hasn’t been completed by its due date (ie it’s now overdue) to drop out of a perspective? The standard advice in OF is to use due dates sparingly for situations where bad things happen if a task isn’t completed (tax return deadlines etc!) rather than aspirational “would be nice to get it done by then” situations so an overdue task means something’s gone badly not to plan?
Hi Rob, thank you for your response, but I think you’re answering a question I didn’t ask. I was wanting, if possible, to have a range of dates that a task could be done, bills being a classic example. So in the example I gave I suggested wanting to pay a bill between the 10th & 20th. I want it to stay visible to me, not just on the 10th, but on the 11th, 12th, 14th etc until it’s done. The tagging suggestion above seems to give me what I want.
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