Hard and soft recurring items

[Jalm1]

I've been struggling with my system for a while. One pain point is specifically around recurring items that do not have hard dates. For example I have a number of recurring tasks that require action on a specific date for one reason or another and must be done. These are easy to setup and follow.

However, I have more repeating actions that are soft date in nature (e.g., review recent bank transactions, do some house chore, update some report). These are generally actions I would like to due on a particular day but they are not part of my hard landscape, and sometimes cannot be done when intended (either other priorities consume my time or I don't have the context necessary (I can't do a house or office specific actions if I'm traveling), but these are actions I should do in a timely fashion (within a few days) of the reoccurring date.

How do people Handel these? Some are borderline habits while most are not. Ideally I would like to keep them in my current system (currently using Todoist), but I'm finding myself distracted by overdue / due today items that are not hard dates, which has only encouraged me to add soft due dates to other items which leads to a prioritizations / fake due date race to keep my attention (something I'm trying not to do).

 

[Folke]

Todoist has only one date, as far as I can remember. I think it is called due date. I think maybe chirmer will be able to tell you how to set it up if you only have one available date. You could also consult the Zendone forum. They also have only one date, and this problem has been discussed extensively on their forum.

But let me explain how I set it up myself in apps that have at least two dates (e.g. Toodledo, Nirvana, Doit):

- one date usually called scheduled date or start date - which I use for the GTD tickler date (hide the action until this date)
- another date usually called due date or end date or deadline date - which I use for hard deadlines

So for the types of actions you mentioned I set them us a repeating tickler date. And if, but only if, the action also has a hard deadline I will add that as well.

Example: If you need to do some monthly reporting after each calendar month you would set that up to "tickle" (become visible on your next/today list) on the 1st of every month. From this day onwards it will be relevant to consider doing the task. If, in addition, you are bound by an agreement or promise etc to send someone the report by the 15th you would set that up as a deadline date also. Both dates will repeat automatically, in sync (15 days apart in this case).

If you have only one date I believe the most common solution is to somehow "mark" or categorize the incubating tasks ("tickled" tasks) such that they are not in the way (set them to low priority or Someday or whatever options your app offers) and to use the due date field as the tickle date. The action will then show up in a higher position as "due" on the tickle day - and on that day you change the due date such that it actually represents the real hard deadline date instead (if there is a hard deadline.) If there is no hard deadline you just leave the due date empty (remove the tickle date if it does not remove itself - you don't want to see the task as overdue just because it has become relevant to consider).

You might also want to rephrase the action slightly on the tickle day, for example you could initially have it phrased as "Write report (due every 15th)" and then remove the reminder (about it being due every 15th) on the tickle day when you actually insert that due date in the due date field. In this way you will be able to tell the state of the action - whether its due date field represents a tickle date or a deadline date.

 

[Oogiem]

One pain point is specifically around recurring items that do not have hard dates. For example I have a number of recurring tasks that require action on a specific date for one reason or another and must be done. These are easy to setup and follow.

However, I have more repeating actions that are soft date in nature ......

How do people Handel these?

I have no idea how to do it in Todoist but in my tool, Omnifocus, I set up a start date that functions as a tickler. OF has both start and due dates so it works well for that. That way I see the stuff when it's available but don't get a false due date. If Todoist only allows a single date then perhaps you can set up a separate set of contexts maybe nested so that if you look at the top level context you see them all but only the true due date ones if you look at one piece?

 

[Gardener]

Omnifocus also has a "start again after" and an "every" for recurrence, which is really nice. If, for example, you're supposed to mow the lawn once a week, and you finally get around to it a week and a half late, "start again after" will automatically set the reminder for a week after the task is checked off, so that you don't have to adjust its date.

 

[notmuch]

Recurring items require a date, no way around that, and Todoist has one field. So you either hide the "soft" recurring stuff by filtering on some other attribute (like Oogiem suggested), or you manually advance the date. Todoist has pretty good repeating functionality, so I think it make sense to keep them there. Personally, I've yet to meet an app that didn't require a workaround with some types of repeating items.

 

[mikelawr]

I created a digital tickler file in Google Calendar (separate from my regular calendar) and I'm able to handle soft recurring items nicely. I add the recurring task to my tickler file and then on that date it automatically gets added to my inbox so that I can process it just like any other task.

 

[devon.marie]

How do people Handel these? Some are borderline habits while most are not. Ideally I would like to keep them in my current system (currently using Todoist), but I'm finding myself distracted by overdue / due today items that are not hard dates, which has only encouraged me to add soft due dates to other items which leads to a prioritizations / fake due date race to keep my attention (something I'm trying not to do).

Hello, fellow Todoist user! I do the same - "Floss after lunch" isn't quite the same priority level as "Complete agenda before next meeting", so we need some way to differentiate these items in our apps (or at least, we want a way to do this since it makes prioritizing quicker and easier). I do this using Todoist's Priority levels. If it's P1 (red) and has a date, that's a hard deadline. If it's P2 (dark blue) and has a date, that's a Scheduled task (can only be done on that date, and if not completed either cannot get done or gets pushed back to the next possible date). I hardly use P3, except in situations where it's urgent or timely that it be done sooner rather than later. And if it's P4 (no color), that means I'm tentatively scheduling it for that date (rare), or if it's a habit I'm trying to build.

On your Today and 7 Days lists in Todoist, it will sort these in P1, P2, P3, P4 order, meaning Hard Deadlines, Scheduled, Urgent/Timely, and Desired. To me, that's most to least important, so that's why I set it up this way. You can also create filters like "(od, tod, 7 days) & p1" to see your deadlines for the next 7 days. There are loads of options, and I like that those hard deadlines are screaming red at me. It keeps my eyes on them, that's for sure!

How do people Handel these?

Woo boy, this autocorrect brought me Bach to my music school days

 

[Oogiem]

The only soft events I put on my calendar are meetings, or movies or similar events that are really time limited but that I am not sure I'll go to.I code them with ?event so I know it's a maybe not a certainty. So for example looking forward this week I have ?mtg courthouse re Rogers Mesa station possibilities and ?mtg re River Park Signs both for events that I amy or may not attend depending on what happens that day and how I feel. Both are a bit if a drive away from home.

 

[Folke]

The only soft events I put on my calendar are meetings, or movies or similar events that are really time limited but that I am not sure I'll go to.I code them with ?event

I do it similarly. And yes, these action are "soft" (perhaps "Someday/Maybe") in the sense that I am not sure I will go, but they are "hard" in the sense that the time as such is nothing I can change at my own whim.

In my current system, this includes items with "soft" due dates. In other words, even tasks such as "water the plants" are on my calendar.

I never ever do that. Such things I would "tickle" for the "first possible day" and then it stays on my next actions list until it is done

If the task has a hard deadline, such as a submission deadline or a "latest date" that I have promised someone, I will enter this as a hard deadline in my task app, but I never put pure deadlines on my calendar (unless it is also an "event" that I actually plan to do at that particular day/time, e.g. submit a tender just before they close at noon and see who else is submitting).

I strongly dislike the "due date" feature of productivity apps. I think it blurs the line between tasks that belong on the calendar and tasks that belong on Next Actions lists.

I think the opposite. I think it makes it clearer than your approach. Next actions belong on the next actions list even if they have a deadline (e.g. a submission deadline). They definitely do not belong on the calendar unless they really need to be done on that very day.

But I agree that the due date feature seems to be overused by many. Apparently people often set up "phony" (pardon the expression) "target deadlines" etc, something that I never do. I have very few deadlines, because I only note those that are "hard" in the sense that I cannot unilaterally change them. If it would take me additional actions to renegotiate the date, e.g. apply for an extension, I will write it down as a "hard" deadline (until I have the extension approved, and can safely update the deadline date).

 

[Gardener]

I too hated how these tasks cluttered up my lists with overdue alerts when my mind knew that these alerts were less important than other tasks with actual hard deadlines. I ended up not trusting my system, which we all know results in your brain picking up the slack (which it's not good at). I could never achieve any peace of mind because my brain could not help but thinking something with a REAL deadline was falling through the cracks.

One strategy that I've tried is pulling these sorts of things out to a separate list by category, a list that serves as project support material, and then having a single item in my main lists that refers to that list.

For example, I might have a Household Maintenance list, maybe on paper or in an Excel spreadsheet, that lists tasks, preferred frequency, and when I last did it. So that list would "know" when I last replaced the air conditioning filter or mopped the kitchen floor or mowed the lawn or weeded out the bamboo that comes under the fence from the neighbors' yard.

And then my main list has a weekly repeater, "Check Household Maintenance list."

If I have time for household maintenance this week, I might work small items directly from the list. Larger or multi-action items (maybe weeding out the bamboo requires that I borrow those giant clippers from Joe next door, or replacing the filters requires that I buy filters) might get entered on my main lists as short-term projects.

This means that during weeks when the very idea of doing household tasks is laughable, I just check off that item to repeat next week. And I've designed that Household Maintenance list to include only tasks that can safely be delayed, so I can feel comfortable about that checkoff. So, for example, if delaying an oil change will potentially harm my car warranty, that task does pop up in my main lists.

I say I've "tried" this--I haven't yet entirely succeeded in making this work. The issue has been that I'm not happy with my list application, but I'm not quite sure why. I'm thinking that maybe I want to go primitive--list on paper, plastic cover, wipable marker.

Edited to add: Part of the "why" I haven't been happy with these lists is that I used to store them IN OmniFocus, the application that I use for my main lists, with (IMO now) insufficient division between the active lists and the "reference" sorts of lists. That had the possibility that I might accidentally put an active item in a reference list, and sometimes I put a reference item in the active lists, and so I felt obligated to review all the lists, and that negated the purpose of the reference lists.

Now every reference item must have one of two specific "on hold" contexts, AND must be in a reference list, in order to vanish. It's all but impossible to do that by accident, so I find that I am able to ignore the reference lists until I actually want to refer to them. The remaining issue with using OmniFocus for something like Household Maintenance is that the date and notes fields aren't displayed just exactly right for that purpose, so I think I am going to go with plastic-cover-and-wipable-marker and see how that works.

 

[ChrisNYC]

I use Toodledo for my 'on-line' stuff. In its date field it has a feature called "Due Optionally On ... " It allows you to have the due-date be optional... if that date comes and you don't check it off, it won't show up again.

Or, in my case, I use this especially for things on-line that I want to do/review on a repeating basis (weekly, monthly, whatever) but these tasks are not "hard" enough or important enough to warrant putting on a calendar.

So for instance I'll set up a task to visit this forum with a "due optionally on" date, and a "repeat weekly", and if that date comes and goes without me checking it off (ie, I was too busy, or the task wasn't important enough on that day), it will simply show up again a week later (or a month later, etc. ) So in this case it's a way to have things "come at me" that I can decline, or do, and know they'll come back to "give me another chance on a better day" so to speak.

I think "calendar" items can be broken down into 1) tasks that have a hard date, and 2) tasks that repeat and need a little bit of "calendar" in that they repeat every x days, x weeks, x months, but aren't tied to an exact date.

For my off-line life, I just have a folder called "review", and I have to actually open the folder, and, you know, "review" stuff ...

Chris

 

[Folke]

So for instance I'll set up a task to visit this forum with a "due optionally on" date, and a "repeat weekly", and if that date comes and goes without me checking it off (ie, I was too busy, or the task wasn't important enough on that day), it will simply show up again a week later (or a month later, etc. )

I have understood that you and many others find that handy, but I (being a dinosaur) simply cannot understand this obsession with dating things. If you don't do the thing when it shows up, that's fine, but if you don't do it I simply do not understand the point of having to wait a predetermined number of days (with automatic timers etc) until you consider it again. Why don't you just leave it on your next actions list (after the initial "tickle" date has arrived)?

Or, if you have too many of a certain kind of things, why not do like Gardener does - keep a checklist/log/status of related things:

For example, I might have a Household Maintenance list, maybe on paper or in an Excel spreadsheet, that lists tasks, preferred frequency, and when I last did it. So that list would "know" when I last replaced the air conditioning filter or mopped the kitchen floor or mowed the lawn or weeded out the bamboo that comes under the fence from the neighbors' yard.

You can check this list anytime you want to - no need to wait for some stupid timer, and if you want to play very safe you can set up a single tickler (timer) to review the whole checklist, say, weekly, in case you forget.

 

[Folke]

However, what do you mean "tickle for the first possible day"? Isn't that what I'm doing by using my calendar as a tickler? I want to be tickled during my reviews "Ah yes, I can't forget the plants!"

I just meant in the "incubating" sense that David Allen uses the word "Tickler file" (in a sense quite different from the everyday sense of the word tickler = reminder/nagging/alert). If you have just had a haircut there is no point in even considering another haircut for the next X weeks, but from that point onwards it will be a next action. (But as you point out, every time you see that action on your next actions list you will be reminded or "tickled" to consider it.)

Interesting. I have not yet experienced any issues with including such hard deadlines on my calendar. This is "day specific information" that warms up relevant Next Actions for me.

Perfectly OK. And I would probably do the same if I did not have a deadline feature in my app.

I just feel it would be quite messy to tickle that deadline in the calendar AND include it on a Next Actions list (though I do realize this may be the better way to handle it, and I may have to experiment with my system*).

We all have to deal with it differently depending on the tools we use. The last three apps I have used have all had at least two dates - a "start date" ("tickler date, "hide until" date) and a deadline date ("due date", "end date"), so it has not been a problem for me for many years. And I keep appointments etc in the calendar. That's three kind of dates, all in all:

- incubate until ("first possible day")
- deadline ("last possible day")
- calendar ("this exact day")

 

[Gardener]

Just to be clear, I do wonder, though, how would you handle things like bills? I have the deadlines in my calendar, but I've never turned them into actions on my Next Actions lists. That is to say, I've never seen "Rent due" on my calendar, and then wrote "Write rent check" on my "At Home" list. But maybe I should.

I stopped trying to time my bills, because I kept stalling for a week and getting too close to the edge. Instead I do "bills" twice a month and pay everything that I can pay, even if it's three weeks early.

But if I trusted myself not to stall for a week, I would use both a Start Date and a Due Date and I'd put the Due Date in the task name as well. So if my Visa bill were due on the 10th, I'd have a repeating task in OmniFocus named "Pay Visa! Due on the 10th!" and I would give it a Start Date of the first and a Due Date of the ninth or tenth. It would not appear at all until the first, and then it would be in my active lists until I paid it. Then I would check it off and it would vanish until the first of the next month. It would never be in my calendar at all.

 

[Folke]

I may start implementing a "bills" session twice a month as well, or maybe just schedule automatic payments to get it off my list all-together.

That's what I do, too. I do not write actions for each bill. I collect them in a special "bills to pay" folder as they arrive (print them immediately if they come by email and put them in that folder.)

I pay everything by internet and set the payment date to the bill's due date; I therefore can finish the whole internet processing anytime I want before the due date (and can even cancel if I change my mind).

I also have a lot of automatic payments.

But I'm also just using bills as an example -- there are also other soft repeating tasks such as changing the air filter, or watering the plants.

I think it makes sense to have different kinds of such "batches" or "checklists" for different kinds of things. For example, paying bills share the same context and frame of mind. Similarly, you may have checklists for "indoors chores", "car maintenance", whatever etc

But would you transfer actions from that checklist onto your Next Actions lists?

Yes, either that and/or simply work straight off the list. The former is often best if it may take days until you get round to it or if you do not necessarily do the all the selected things on the list in one fell swoop in a single context. The latter is often best if you have a bunch of things to check off as "inspected". (For the items you did do it is sometimes convenient to make a note of the date you did it, if this is relevant for a future decision, e.g. the date you cleaned a filter etc.)

 

[Folke]

However, I do like the idea of processing bills in batches, I'm just trying to figure out a good system with the tools I'm using (putting aside the option of automatic payments). Any thoughts?

Well, yes, but it is the same thought once again:

Do not list the bills as individual actions. Just collect them in a folder called "Bills to pay". Then, if you need to, you can have a "tickler action" recurring once or twice a month to "Pay bills". When these actions show up (whatever the exact mechanism) you make sure they get onto your next actions list, and when you do eventually do them (within a few days, presumably) you enter ALL the bills from your "Bills to pay" folder into your internet bank and set the actual payment date for each individual bill to whatever date that creditor had stipulated. You won't lose interest until it is actually paid. It makes it simple if you empty the whole folder in one go.

Isn't that good enough? That's how I do it, anyway.

 

[Folke]

What you can do (depending on your email app; I can in Google Apps email) is label certain emails with something like "Batch" or "Bills" or whatever. Then you can easily find these "unprocessed" emails when it is time to deal with them.

For bills, though, I do not use this method, because both my own system and my accounting firm's system are paper-based, so I print any email invoices immediately when they come - < 2 minutes - and put them in my "Bills to pay" folder.

But you could easily use an electronic folder also - and empty both the paper folder and the electronic folder when you decide to do your bills. No problem. Depends on your accounting needs.

 

[Mike Simms]

Hi: two quick thoughts on this general issue, though apologies I've no experience with Todoist:

I (used to) use http://mgsd.tiddlyspot.com/#mGSD which had a tickler facility, which with a little customisation I set up so that the ticklers would always be displayed at above next actions list. It worked well because even if I didn't do the task on a day, it would hang around on the list and whenever I went to look at the next actions list, I would see the bunch of tasks (typically supposed to be done at the start of the month) building up. Ideal for invoices, quarterly tax returns. The tickler itself can be one-off or repeat periodically.

I'm using a paper based system now, and just saw this http://www.autonozone.com/2014/11/24/three-ring-gtd-ultimate-paper-based-organization/ which is basically a custom calendar with monthly pages. Look a Periodic Tasks at the bottom of each page, which you fill in (say) at the start of the year. Fill in the date you did it on when you do it. The absence of a date is your visual reminder that it's not done yet.

 

[ArcCaster]

Just wondering -- do people still use Sciral Consistency? Its interface allows you to define repeating tasks and to specify the interval -- daily, weekly, monthly, every other day, every three months, whatever. Great for establishing new habits and anything that should be done periodically but is not tied to a specific date.

Your list of repeating actions is displayed on a color coded horizontal calendar -- green, yellow, red.

 

[OF user]

The other way you can control something like this is with a checklist of routines. You can check this list daily and track soft dates if you need to or create a checklist matrix where you actually record the last date you checked it.