Forums / Ideas

Yeah, I'm with you. I will just use RTM for real when it implements "start date" feature.
For now, there's a workaround by rajjan:

rajjan Pro says:

Try this:
1 Add tag zzz to all tasks that should treat the due date as a start date.
2 Search for NOT due:never AND NOT (dueAfter:"2 days of today" AND tag:zzz) (Change number of days to your taste.)
3 Save this as a smart list.

The smart list will only show dated tasks, either due sooner than 2 days in the future (with tag zzz) or due whenever (without tag zzz).

Hope this helps!

Posted at 1:05am on June 26, 2008

rajjan

Read about a more complete solution here: www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/1524/

"You can tweak RTM in order for it to hide tasks until a preset number of days until it's due. In order for this to work, the task must have a due date.

Add a tag like zzz/z1d/z2d/z1w/z2w/z1m to your task and create a smart list ¤zzz with the following search criteria:

(tag:zzz AND dueAfter:now) OR (tag:z1d AND dueAfter:"1 day of now")OR (tag:z2d AND dueAfter:"2 days of now") OR (tag:z1w AND dueAfter:"1 week of now") OR (tag:z1m AND dueAfter:"1 month of now")

Finally you add AND NOT list:¤zzz to your normal smart lists. The task will not show until the preset number of days before it's due."

Posted at 9:10am on June 26, 2008

Raijan~

The link doesn't work, but I definitely will try the tag thing...I'm not fully understanding it by reading, but I'll try to implement it and see if that works.

Thanks to both Raijan and Gabrielchites!!

Posted at 9:02pm on June 26, 2008

Raijan~

I just noticed that it doesn't work if I can't have ALL my tasks preset to the same amount of days.

i.e. My taxes begin on the 1st and are due by the 31st...but I have tasks that are not relevant until the 15th but are due on the 31st or begin on one day and are due in 2 weeks...your "fix" doesn't allow for variation, unless I continually add "ANDNOT:"s to my other smartlists...RTM is becoming more complicated than I thought!!! I haven't even set up smart lists at ALL yet (except to try out the tags ones) and how does this interact with Google Calendar and GMail?

Posted at 9:14pm on June 26, 2008

*sigh*

I can't seem to figure out how to make it work that way with Goggle Calendar and GMail (which is mainly where I am using RTM). I can't even find a way through RTM how to show only smart lists on the caledar and mail...

I have no wish to keep a separate window open, I typically leave my mail and calendar open...I don't need to add a 3rd one for nothing.

I will just keep doing it the hard way until RTM comes up with it, or until I get fed up or find a better task management system!

Thanks!!

Posted at 9:23pm on June 26, 2008

rajjan

Sorry about the link, this should work: www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/1524/

daystrike: As for preset number of days, you can invent any number of tags, you only need to catch them in the zzz smart list. For example, you can have
zzz
z1d
z2d
z3d
z4d
z5d
z6d
z1w
z2w
z3w
z4w
z1m
z2m
etc

If you want, you could use z15d, just add it to the zzz smart list criteria.

The idea is to hide tasks until you can do/want to do something about them. For instance, I have a recurring task "Clean freezer" due every few months. Having completed the task, it immediately appeared in my At home smart list, up at the top to as it was dated. By adding a tag z1w, it only appears one week before it's due - works great for me!

In my experience, the exact number of days in advance a certain task appears is not important, sooner is better than later in this case.

Posted at 7:05am on June 27, 2008