> In some cases, and I interpreted (perhaps incorrectly) @tonyp's
> comment as referring to this kind of case, is when you have a Next
> action, perfectly possible to do now, but still no hurry, but with a
> "latest safe starting point" (in order to be able to complete it in
> time).
I generally don't use a "latest safe starting point" but instead an "earliest plausible starting point." I see it as a sort of combination of prioritization and someday/maybe.
For example, I *could* start planning my bulb planting for fall of 2014 right now. I could measure spaces, look at pictures, fuss with color schemes, and so on. But I have more important and immediate gardening tasks, and hobby tasks, and the holidays are coming up, and therefore I know there's no real chance that I'll be touching this for several weeks. But I don't want to forget flower bulbs altogether.
So I create a project in OmniFocus. I call it "Get fall 2014 flower bulbs in the ground." and give it a start date of January 15, because that's roughly the earliest date that I might conceivably do anything about flower bulbs. I might give it a Next Action, or its Next Action might just be, "Write a Next Action for this project." On January 15, that action will pop up in my main lists.
> If you hide those away among your ticklers you are actually
> increasing the risk of being late with it and you are definitely
> setting yourself up for doing it "later rather than sooner", a
> potentially stressful situation.
But for many tasks, later is fine. If the latest safe date to start a project is, say, June, and I expect that I'll likely start it in May, then there's no real risk associated with putting it on hold until March.
> I personally prefer to see these
> tasks clearly in my list the whole time, in normal priority color, and
> will try to start on them early if possible. This means I can also
> make better use of whatever suitable contexts I may just "happen" to
> find myself in in the meantime.
I think that this comes down to one's tolerance for long lists. I like my lists nice and short, and a little time spent tweaking Start Dates to make that happen, is worth the trouble for me.