Tasks need daily work to be finished by the due date

OmniFocus OmniFocus for Mac
#1

Summary: I need a quick view to see thing that I’m supposed to be working on but which are not due today or in the next couple of days. For example, if I am to make a speech outline. I need to work on it a bit here and there over the span of a couple of weeks.

Some tasks take several days to complete and I’d like a way to see tasks that I’ve begun but have not finished. Is theresome perspective where I dont have to look through 40 tasks scheduled for the next week. I would only like to see those tasks who’s start dates have begun, but due dates have not been reached and which have not been yet completed.

Ideally, I’d be able to see them on the forecast perspective, much how Appigo’s ToDo does it: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s1/sh/1691f185-6588-49b0-a9f9-b8e89527cc8f/581e9bb39f95c518a5abb372660c4b5f

Any ideas on a work-around so that I don’t have to look through all scheduled items to pluck out one that needs to be worked today in anticipation of finishing it by the due date?

Thanks very much in advance.

#2

This is a case where one would typically use Review.

You could imagine placing your “Speech” task in a “Homework” project that is set to review daily. To quiet distractions from non-homework related tasks, focus on your Homework project. This is likely to be a frequent thing to do, so you might want to create a Perspective with a built-in Homework focus.

In general, OmniFocus does not try to manage your time. That’s up to you. OmniFocus feeds you tasks that you can accomplish, but scheduling their completion is up to you.

2 Likes
#3

Kyle,

Thank you for your suggestions. My current “work-around” is to use a perspective as follows: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s1/sh/fe2a7fbd-c665-460b-aec2-14d9f2a281e6/bd826b0c7245a8a0c02f9110169e4171

This shows me tasks that were started and tasks that I need to start today and in the near future.

I’d like to kindly ask the wonderful people on this forum if I am missing a more elegant way to achieve the same. Thanks!

#4

Flagging plus a “Due Soon or Flagged” perspective would be an alternative approach. See below:

#5

Brian,

Thanks very much for your reply. This is essentially what I did, as you may have been able to tell from the screenshot link that I attached.

I was just wondering if there was a more elegant way to keep things that I need to be working on front and center. To me, it would make sense to have a task persist in forecast for several days if it needs doing over the course of several days, but seems that there is no way to do that as the forecast perspective doesn’t seem to be customizable like other perspectives.