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When sorting by due date, sort tasks with due times first

matthauger says:
In my workflow, I tend to prefer 'sort by due date,' as it keeps me from missing time-critical tasks.

In 'by due date' lists, RTM put items with a specific time LAST. In other words, for any given day, all tasks WITHOUT a time are all listed before the tasks WITH a time.

To me, this seems counter-intuitive. Listing tasks this way encourages me to work on items that could be done ANY time that day--rather than the task that is due in (say) 10 minutes!
Posted at 7:23pm on January 11, 2011
Launched
emily (Remember The Milk) says:
We agreed. :) With the new Remember The Milk, we changed how this works.

Thanks for everyone's feedback on this!
Posted 8 years ago
action.manager says:
Totally agree.

In fact, this issue has been raised already (at least twice):

https://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/11930/

https://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/help/10546/
Posted 13 years ago
andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:
matthauger,
Thanks for your feedback!
Posted 13 years ago
kmninbox says:
++1 on this issue, I'm pretty sure I've voiced this over a year ago on the forums. Haven't been using RTM much since but am considering coming back, but this issue seems to have received no attention for some reason.

this is how i would like to see my list sorted by default:

1. due date with specific time (doesn't matter priority)
2. due date no time has priority
3. due date no time no priority
4. no due date but has priority
5. no due date no priority

right now for me to have it sort the way I want... I have to input due date (doesn't matter even if I input time then), and then go back and input priority, and have RTM sort by due date, then priority.

In the end this might be 1 of 2 major reasons why I've abandoned all the todo apps and gtd apps i've ever tried because when the lists get long, it takes more effort to figure out what i should do next, & I know if we are all very tedious with our input of tasks, then we might solve the problem, but then it is more tedious and much more effort to input the task and again leads to abandonment....counter intuitive.

point being these things need to be quick, at a glance, intuitive, both at inputing, and at reviewing

...still looking for perfect app...
Posted 13 years ago
matthauger says:
Thanks for the +1s, kmninbox and action.manager. Yeah, I noticed the earlier threads, but the ones I found had all been closed.

Thought the conversation should be ongoing.
Posted 13 years ago
andh says:
Different levels of sorting would be great :)!
Posted 13 years ago
alphen says:
Time critical tasks first.
Posted 13 years ago
royeharris says:
Agreed - time critical task first.
Posted 13 years ago
amardip.sekhon says:
If we could have a SmartSort (kind of like SmartLists) that lets the user specify the sort order, then that would be most flexible and powerful. For instance, I generally sort by due date and then priority (with time specific on a given day higher up than anytime on a given day) but occasionally I would like to sort by priority and then due date/time and other times I'd like to sort by number of times postponed.
Posted 13 years ago
lapczynski says:
1. due date with specific time (doesn't matter priority)
2. due date no time has priority
3. due date no time no priority
4. no due date but has priority
5. no due date no priority

I totally agree.
Posted 12 years ago
waldir.leoncio says:
so many nice ideas in this forum, and some of them (like this one) seem pretty easy to implement. Not to mention they are very popular. So why don't the development team implement it? Where are you guys?
Posted 12 years ago
(closed account) says:
Yep yep yep!
Posted 12 years ago
m_hersee says:
+1
Posted 12 years ago
repiotraschke says:
+1 for sure. it does seem very counterintuitive to have the tasks that could be done any time that day show up first.
Posted 12 years ago
aka178 says:
-1 There should be an option to put tasks with due date to the END of list. At the moment I see no way to put it behind. All my due tasks (mostly check and control of other people items) should be done exactly at the specified time, or later BUT NOT EARLIER. So I would prefer to have normal flow of daily todo, so timed tasks would not spoil my daily todo list. Timed tasks should just pop up at the required time.
Posted 12 years ago
bklynlauraann says:
If I'm understanding this thread correctly, YES! I totally agree and this may be a deal breaker for me. I need to see the tasks in the order I want sometimes by when I can get them done in the day as well as by priority. So I'm starting to do double work, putting tasks on my google calendar when I can do them. When I used a spread sheet I would have priority 1a,b,c,d etc. Because for me, everything is priority 1 due today LOL.
Posted 12 years ago
ernfors says:
+1
Posted 12 years ago
cshartmann says:
Agree. A due date (no time) should be treated as due at midnight of the date specified.
Posted 11 years ago
gjagils says:
+1
Posted 11 years ago
tyler.szabo says:
From looking at the JS it looks like a pain to add.

If you add 'time_due && '0' || '1'" before "due_date" in sortFields you get all items with an exact time first (including items with an exact time tomorrow) sorting first.

Without a reasonably costly change you can only extract one property from a task object per sort field, so combining the two properties would require rewriting the sort logic, or adding a task property.

The way I like best would be to change the sort logic:
1. Have entriesSort contain references to the appropriate hashMap item, rather than copies of the UI items.
2. do entriesSort.sort(XYZ) where XYZ is a function reference to the desired compatator (set the reference in the same place that sortFields is presently set)
3. BAM! Slightly richer sorting, and avoiding a call to eval.
Posted 11 years ago
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