Unless I am missing something crucial, I am failing to see overdue tasks in my today widget, which only displays tasks strictly due today (therefore only yellow but no red items). Allow me to say that this is disastrous. In my world, at least, overdue items are much more urgent and require more immediate attention than tasks that simply popped up today. I would be surprised to hear that any users find the current implementation intuitive. The snapshot of “today” that it provides is simply misleading. Please, please provide a fix.
Indeed. It doesn’t show “Past”, but only “Today” :-(
This, and other frustrations reported on another thread…
I suggest you (and anyone else) to report this via email as well. It would raise awareness/priority ;-)
(Help>Contact Omni: omnifocus@omnigroup.com or omnifocus-ipad@omnigroup.com).
Thanks, @ediventurin, I will send a bug report to the Omni folks. I just noticed that the extension of the built-in Reminders app does display overdue in addition to due-today tasks, as one would reasonably expect. At the risk of sounding blunt, I find this to be just common sense. It is actually dangerous (again at the risk of bluntness: irresponsible), in a system intended to help you stay on track, to make overdue tasks less prominent than any other tasks.
Hypothetical scenario: When no tasks expire precisely today, but 5 tasks expired yesterday, my OmniFocus extension will display absolutely nothing. How much sense does this make?
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Gotta disagree about Common Sense. The pane is called Today. not outstanding.
I would expect it to only show things due today.
But it should be an “outstanding” pane. It would make much more sense—common or otherwise—in an app that, I will repeat, is intended to help you stay on track.
Exactly. So, why to show only Due tasks on Today extension*?
* and even worst, not even the Overdue. “Fines, Penalties, Court fees, …”, remember? ;-)
Depends if you’re gonna work from the Today pane, or out of Omnifocus itself.
I would only ever use the Today pane to check off items as I do them, I don’t want overdue things in there.
Well, all that’s needed is an option to include or not include overdue items in the Today widget. In my view, it makes conceptual and practical sense to include them. Overdue items do happen in real life, and when they do, they tend to have higher priority than items due today. This is precisely because deadlines in my system are used sparingly, only when they are meaningful and genuine constraints.
As implemented, when the Today widget is empty, it gives the erroneous impression that, well… nothing else is due today, therefore I can call it a day and go to the movies. But what if I have three overdue items from yesterday? The widget is dangerously misleading.
“As implemented, when the Today widget is empty, it gives the erroneous impression that, well… nothing else is due today”
But that is true, those items weren’t due today, they were due yesterday, or before then.
There’s no point arguing any further. It’s going to come down to how you use it, I prefer it as a quick check of what’s actually due today.
I would prefer to view this as a question of function and use cases, not one of conceptual rigor. Because if conceptual rigor were indeed the main priority, then one could argue that a “Due Today” widget should indicate only items that are due today (i.e. marked yellow) and not items that were due today (overdue, marked red). But obviously, such semantic rigor would be totally missing the point. As long as OmniFocus allows due times, and not only due dates, to be specified for a task, the crucial question is not whether the task was due “today” or “yesterday” or “earlier”, but whether it is overdue (and secondarily, by how much time, measured in days or hours).
So, I am not suggesting that we have a debate on the tense of the implied verb (“was” vs. “is”)! I am however emphasizing that overdue items, whether they expired today or yesterday, or earlier, require immediate attention — and immediate attention is indeed the target of an iOS widget.
I would also like to see the Today extension include past due items, and maybe even open deferred items too.
We already have a configurable answer to this on the iPad/iPhone. We can select whether the App badge shows Overdue, Due Soon or Flagged in the count. I believe this same list should go on the Widget.
However, I disagree that it is common sense that overdue items require immediate attention and actually prefer the current implementation. Most of my overdue items do not require immediate attention, otherwise they wouldn’t have become overdue. Examples being Get my haircut. That was due last week and its looking a bit shaggy but does not require immediate attention.
My items that require immediate attention are normally due Today - as this is the first time some of them have popped up.
@simoncasey, If your “overdue items do not require immediate attention”, as you say, then these dates were probably not real deadlines.
I would actually be the last one to say that there a single “right” way do things. If your system works for you, fine! That said, I am much more frugal with due dates. I assign a due date to a task only if missing it would incur actual consequences, which is why I would leave the field empty in a “have haircut” task (unless there were specific reasons, not an arbitrary wish or “preference”, necessitating the haircut by a given date).
A deadline, as the word evokes is a serious thing, with possibly much at stake. And this is why, once again, I believe the Today widget should include overdue items, as well
I don’t think due dates are the same as hard deadlines. I have a number of items that are overdue but don’t require immediate action. Eg I have two items that are waiting on delivery but haven’t arrived yet. They are over due, but they do not require my immediate attention. I could as you say not put in a due date but that is not correct as they have a due date. but they need to have a due date to appear on the forecast as OmniFocus is a bit weak at dealing with items that have a defer date but no due date. In terms of my haircut, there is a real due date and not a preference. Once the due date has passed, my hair is too long and so my hair cut is over due. But it is not a deadline. As you mentioned, there is no right way to do this just a preference.
