While it's not entirely ideal, you can use smart lists to accomplish this. You can have a smart list that searches for tasks due within the next week...

example:
dueWithin:"1 week of today" and dueBefore:"today"

The second piece checks for overdue tasks.

...and actually that should be "OR dueBefore:today"

Ah, yeah, after I posted this I remembered about smartlists. But some things (being planning for trip to Germany) need to happen way more than a week in advance whereas other things (buy a gift) usually only need a week or two. Smartlists aren't very useful.

I know expressed this about a year ago when I was similarly bummed and dumbfounded about the lack of this feature, but I'll somewhat rudely do so again ;)

- is it a technical limitation somehow?
- are there really so few of us that want the feature?

... guess I'll check back in another year. It just amazes me that RTM has so much other coolness (accessibility everywhere, heck, even offline with Google Gears!) that a tasks feature that Outlook has had for a decade isn't part of the mix :(

These smart lists can get very subtle, if you wish. E.g., you can see priority 1 tasks a month ahead, p2 tasks two weeks ahead, p3 in 5 days, and p0 with 1 day. You can use time estimates or tags as well, to make sure you don't blindside yourself.

Speaking strictly for myself, I have never missed the start date attribute that is discussed so often here.

Oh, and I forgot to say... thanks, we.kanes, for the prompt response :)

Glad to help...well, sort of help. I've been trying to find a balance myself - I haven't nailed down my organizational method yet in RTM. I went all out Smart lists for awhile, then changed my mind...now I'm just undecided. The big thing I don't like about smart lists like I described above is that if you were to create a task while viewing the list, it would automatically disappear and you'd have to go hunt it down to edit it.

As for hunting down new items, I have a smartlist that searches for newly added items. Quite easy to find the task that just disappeared from view.
But nicer still would be that the task somehow lingered even though it didn't meet the smartlist criteria, maybe because it's selected, once you let go of the selection it would disappear.

Lwallach has some ideas in this area where you tag tasks with zzz1d etc. Searching the forums inside RTM doesn't give any results, but try Google instead.

@rajjan: Right, it's simple to add a smart list like you suggest...but I take a minimalistic approach to my method in RTM and I would prefer to use the fewest number of lists that I possibly can to efficiently and effectively manage my tasks.

Anyway, I now have my few smart lists defined in such a way that once I enter a new task all of the fields I need to keep it in view are filled in.

The notion of a start date is important to me, but I just use the due date for that. To use Adam's example, I'd set a task with a due date of May 1 and put "Get birthday present by May 19" in the text. I'd give something that was likely to take less time a due date closer to its real due date.

That means that lots of things are listed as overdue, but I don't mind. My "normal" view is a smart list that's "due:today or dueBefore:today".

Regards,
Matt

ranbarton AND mdcowles:
These are helpful suggestions. Thanks for sharing them.