After listening to David Sparks’ OmniFocus video series, I’ve been rethinking how I use due dates for tasks. Well, actually, I’ve been rethinking it for quite sometime. Usually when I’m postponing due dates.
Forecast
I love the OmniFocus for iPad’s Forecast mode. It’s a custom view into tasks, that presents them in a timeline with past due tasks colored red and near term tasks colored orange. This is a great way to see what you are up against for the coming week or check out what slipped through the cracks.
The problem is that Forecast view is dependent on due dates. If a task does not have a due date then it is not presented in this view. That makes sense. How else would you define a timeline for tasks without a date for each task.
Due Dates
I’m not a strict follower of GTD but I do implement several of the primary principles. For example, I’m a big fan of dumping every task, project or plan into an inbox for processing. I also relentlessly use contexts for tasks so that I never end up staring at a list of tasks that I can do nothing about. Finally, the GTD review is the real strength of the entire system and I review my lists regularly.
Unfortunately, GTD also recommends assigning start and due dates to tasks. That’s where I think the system breaks down for me. I assign wishful due dates to tasks and projects that really had no hard deadlines. Then, during reviews, I would fiddle with all of the due dates again. Finally, the task would come due and I would just reassign the due date to the following week. Let’s face it, if there’s no hard deadline on something, then the due date is just a con to trick yourself into finishing tasks. In the end, you really just trick yourself into feeling like you have everything under control. You are just Sisyphus pushing your schedule up a hill.
Start Dates
Start Dates in OmniFocus have a functional impact on your task list. If your task Perspectives only show available tasks, then start dates prevent tasks from appearing before you can do anything about them. For example of I have a task to renew my car registration, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for that task to be visible for six months before my current registration tag is ready to expire. Setting a start date keeps my task list focused.
The Experiment
Several weeks ago, I cleaned up my tasks and removed due dates from almost everything. The only tasks that I retained due dates for were tasks that had solid immutable due dates. For example, car registration has a due date. Web hosting renewal has a due date. However much I would like my garage to be clean, there is no real due date. There’s just a date that I wish it would be done by.
Instead of focusing on due dates, I have set start dates for all tasks. That keeps my Perspective views tidy but does not set arbitrary end dates. Unfortunately, this new system drastically reduces the utility of the Forecast view on the iPad. I’m ok with that for now.
I watched David’s videos as well, and came to the same conclusion. I wish the Omni Group would consider an optional alternate version of the Forecast view based on start dates that would give you a peek into what’s about to pop up as an available task in the coming days, with counts based on how many tasks start on those days.
That would be interesting. I’m not sure how it would handle tasks that are not completed. I wouldn’t want 100 little red tasks always showing up in the view either. It’s a tough problem. Right now I use several context views to get a handle on what I need to do each week. I’ll post a description when I feel comfortable with the perspectives.
“Unfortunately, GTD also recommends assigning start and due dates to tasks.”
Not sure where you got that idea from. OmniFocus *permits* the assignment of start and due dates, but don’t confuse the app with the system on which it is based.
“Several weeks ago, I cleaned up my tasks and removed due dates from almost everything. The only tasks that I retained due dates for were tasks that had solid immutable due dates.”
That’s what “GTD” (i.e. David Allen) recommends in the first place. Re-reading Getting Things Done can be a valuable exercise: maybe you’re due? (I know I am!)
Thanks for commenting.
From the horse’s mouth: http://www.gtdtimes.com/2010/09/15/davids-coaching-advice-on-tracking-actions-with-due-dates/
If you read my post again, you’ll notice that I state GTD “recommends” due dates. That is true. I recommend no due dates unless it would break a goal or project to omit one.
I’m also not a fan of re-reading reference material. GTD is a general philosophy, not an instruction guide. I prefer to spend my time making stuff and trying to clean out my Instapaper list.
I’m in violent agreement with everything you’ve written here, except for your assertion that GTD “recommends due dates”. Having read all of David Allen’s books, attended live seminars by David and his coaching team, and being a member of the GTD Connect website, I can honestly say I have never come across a recommendation to set due dates for all tasks. The article you linked in response to the other comment outlined David Allen’s recommendations for handling those tasks that really do have due dates (as you correctly point out, some tasks really do have due dates), but I certainly didn’t read anything there recommending the use of due dates on all tasks.
A quick search of the GTD Connect website, in fact, found numerous writings by the David Allen Company coaches to NOT set due dates for tasks that don’t have actual, real world due dates (just as you do). In canonical GTD, things that have hard due dates go on a calendar, not a list (see Getting Things Done, Chapter 7 “The Actions That Go on Your Calendar” pp 142-143 in the paperback edition).
I also have to disagree with the comment in your response to the previous commentor where you said “GTD is a general philosophy, not an instruction guide”. David Allen has stated that he wrote the book as a manual on how to do GTD. In the foreword of “Getting Things Done” he writes “Part 2 shows you how to implement the system. It’s your personal coaching, step by step, on the nitty-gritty application of the models”. That sounds like an instruction guide to me.
Sorry for hammering this so hard, because I think what you describe is a best practice for handling due dates. I just wanted to correct what I feel may be a misperception regarding GTD.
Thanks.
Thanks for replying.
Funny, I read that article to say exactly what you have said. We could debate this all day (with appropriate quotes from “scripture”!).
I think that GTD *is* an instruction guide (tactics) not a philosophy (strategy), but the tactics free you up to have a philosophy (see “Seven Habits”, “Four Hour WorkWeek”, etc).
I’ve found that there’s significant value in re-reading base material, as it’s easy (for me, at least) to lose sight of fundamental principles.
Hopefully your way works as well for you as my way works for me!