Due date for tasks (separate from start date)

Comments: 15

• 29 Jun, '22
  Lucian Admin

  Hey Revanth! Thanks for this suggestion!
  
  A good workaround in the meantime is to consider two "levels" of tasks. At the first level, there are tasks that have deadlines - setting a Start Date for a task like this one means it is *due* at that time. These tasks can go into a separate note/separate tag/separate Task Domain to make it easy to filter on.
  
  The second level of tasks can be "time-blocking tasks". Setting a start date for a task in this category merely means you are scheduling a work session. These tasks can go in different notes/tags/domains to keep them separate from Deadline Tasks.
  
  Let me know if this makes sense.

• 05 Aug, '22
  Jocelyn

  This is really essential. I need to be able to schedule a task on a day I have the time and resources (Start Date) even though it also has a firm deadline (Due Date--date past which bad things happen if undone). I have been only able to use Things for task management because so few apps get this right.

• 14 Sep, '22
  Caleb

  *This is a must-have for students like me.* I've been trying to track my assignments in Todoist, my notes/plans in Notion, and my schedule in Google Calendar, but seeing that I could do all three in one app blew my mind -- until I tried to plan my week and each assignment I scheduled to work on reset its "due date". The day(s) I schedule to work on an assignment (start date), the day it needs to be completed by (due date), and the day it actually gets done (completion date) are each VERY different things if I'm mangaging my time well. The workaround Lucian suggested is possible, but a lot of extra work, especially since hierarchy in task view is still pending as well. (Thanks for planning that!)
  
  *Adding a due date allows you to quantify urgency* (for the Task Score); a task doesn't become more urgent when you decide to work on it sooner, it becomes more urgent the closer you get to the deadline. Tasks without a due date can still get some constant score bonus for "urgent" priority.

• 15 Nov, '22
  Sami Paju

  find it strange not to have due dates / deadlines in task attributes. As I'd imagine it to help a lot in calculating the Task Score if you know 1) How long a task is going to take, 2) What is the latest date it needs to be done, and 3) When should you start working on it - especially helpful and useful in creative work, where more pondering time often leads to better ideas. Start date can also be used to compensate poor estimates of how long it takes to get something done. The more uncertainty there is, the earlier the start date should be.
  
  I think this would be especially helpful with bigger tasks that take multiple days to complete (e.g. preparing a big presentation): In these cases the task needs to be rescheduled multiple times, changing the start date. However, if it also had a due date, then it would make sense for Task Score to also become higher the closer it gets to that deadline. (1/)

• 15 Nov, '22
  Sami Paju

  And not all tasks have a due date. Or necessarily even a start date if they're fairly small, and just having a deadline is enough. Which is why I think for prioritization it would make sense to use both/either/neither depending on situation and the task at hand.
  
  My real worry is that if I start to use Amplenote the way I now use Todoist for all kinds of tasks, work and personal, the Tasks view will become so cluttered that something is going to get overlooked, a deadline is going to be missed, or a promise is going to be broken. And the longer the list, or the more you have to check different notes and filters, the more time it takes to do daily or weekly planning. Imagine: 10-20 tasks on the list, all fairly big (1h+ or more), only 1-2 have a pressing deadline. Yet you want to have all those tasks visible (maybe they're more long-term inportant ideas that get worked at a slow pace). (2/3)

• 15 Nov, '22
  Sami Paju

  This worry is exacerbated by Task Score not seeming to take into account at all if a task was planned for an earlier day but is still undone (I tried changing an uncompleted task with a past start date to an even earlier start date, and Task Score did not change). (3/3)

• 07 May
  Sami Paju

  I just came up with another use case where this would be really helpful, as I am struggling with having so many different things going on at work. With some I am responsible for Next Actions and with others I am waiting for someone to do something. And since we don't have any shared task management system in use, I am relying on Amplenote to manage my own work.
  
  I was trying to figure out the best way to have a quick overview of all these different things, their next actions, due dates, and who is responsible. Inline tags and saved filters in Tasks view help a lot, but it would be even better to be able to have a visible Due Date especially for those tasks that are not on my table (I already use an inline tag for the person responsible).
  
  So when opening Tasks view, now underneath the task description it shows when task was created, and in which note it is located. Having (color coded similar to Task Score when due date is near?) Due Date added there would be so useful!

• 19 Jun
  Sami Paju

  One thing related to considering this feature is how Motion implements due dates: In addition to the date / time, itself you can specify if it’s a 1) hard deadline, 2) soft deadline, 3) or not a real deadline (more like an aspiration by when you’d like to get something done).
  
  Not something I would particularly need myself (I consider ”Important / Urgent” to fill that purpose well enough), but others might find useful.

• 20 Jun
  Pat

  First, the fact that the docs say “Start Time (aka Due Date)” and in some places uses “Start Time” and in other places uses “Due Date” is confusing. They’re not the same, as people here point out.
  
  Things and OmniFocus both do this well. Things calls is assigned date, and it can also have a separate deadline where it shows up in Deadlines view. OmniFocus simply has start and due dates for actions.
  
  With the current setup, we have to create multiple tasks for a single due thing. That may work well if it obviously needs multiple time blocks up front, but not if it should get done in one time block but doesn’t.
  
  I have a report that I need to send tomorrow. I want to work on it today. If I don’t complete it today, I need to work on it tomorrow. Right now there’s no way to indicate that it needs to go out tomorrow, other than to create a separate task.

• 03 Aug
  Brett Palmer

  I really think you have some great ideas here but hope to see the product implement basic core functional features like a Due Date. Without a Due Date, I had to fumble through the help support documents to figure out how to set a Due Date. The screen shot in the help shows Due Date (very first image: https://www.amplenote.com/help/set_start_time_due_date) but the actual Application (using Chrome) does not have Due Date, only Start Date. I don't need AmpleNote philosophy. I need an app where I can set a Due Date. So I cancelled my trial. This is my second attempt at trying AmpleNote for a couple days without purchasing. First attempt was maybe 6 months ago. I'll be back when you implement Due Date. Ideally you'll implement 3 things. 1) Due Date, 2) Weighted Shortest Job First with my being able to set the exact scoring weights (would be the only app to do it -- LeanKit does WSJF), and 3) Faster way to enter in a task at Omnifocus speed without having to use a clunky dropdown field.

• 03 Aug
  Keith Collyer

  The wonderful, and sadly obsolete, task manager LifeBalance had a great feature where you could assign a due date and a lead time as well as (relative) importance. A task wouldn't appear until the <due date> - <lead time>. Its importance would grow linearly from zero at that point to its full value at <half lead time> ahead of the due date. I found this worked really well for me.

• 09 Aug
  Nataly

  Due dates are crucial. Let's say a task requires 3 days, and you plan to start it on Monday with a Friday deadline, then its priority should spike by Wednesday and keep rising until Friday or until completion. The lack of this functionality compels me to turn to other apps.
  Merely breaking the task into smaller tasks isn't a solution because the priority doesn't rise as the deadline approaches. Additionally, segmenting one major task into daily subtasks reduces flexibility. Please, remember, many people require adaptability in their schedules. They can't simply plan to "work on this for 3 hours every day". Such a system isn't practical when there's a high likelihood of unforeseen circumstances.
  Some professionals might need to report to work at any hour, day or night. There are also new parents and many others who require flexibility in their schedules, needing to adapt quickly to sudden changes without having to rearrange their entire week's plan.

• 28 Aug
  Amie

  I was really surprised to find that this task app doesn't have due dates! This would really make the app more powerful for me. As mentioned above, I would love if the task would start showing on the start date and then rise in points until the due date. There are many tasks I would start working on before the due date, or just get them done before the last possible day. But since there is only a start date in the app, I am forced to use it as a due date, otherwise there is no way to flag when something needs to get done by. Please please add this feature! It seems so basic for a task app.

• 30 Aug
  sjabaker

  Absolutely needed, I agree. I'm always surprised at how few task apps gets dates 'right'. What I'd expect to see is...
  
  (a) "Start date" - the date before which the task cannot (or should not) be done, and so the task should be hidden, at least by default, in the Tasks list mode (but not in Jots/Notes modes so you can still see what you've already planned). E.g. "buy concert tickets" would 'start' on the day tickets become available. Amplenote's "hidden until" date mostly does this.
  
  (b) "Due date" - the hard deadline by when the task must be done or else some specific consequence happens. E.g. "buy concert tickets" has a deadline of the day of the concert! This needs to be added, per this feature suggestion, & should be one of the primary drivers of increasing task score.
  
  (c) "Scheduled/Planned date" - a date (or multiple dates!) on which you intend to work on the task (but may / may not actually happen with no direct consequence). The current "start date" seems to be aimed at this.

• 15 Sep
  Sami Paju

  Please please please add the due dates to tasks already! Task Score fails to live to its promise of saving time from manual prioritisation and planning when such critical information as due dates or deadlines are missing from the equation!
  
  And as mentioned by others here, Start Date is crucial as well, especially for the bigger tasks that you have to start well before due date to actually complish, and in its current implementation it also serves planning and scheduling purposes very well.
  
  But as soon the number of open tasks grows to more than a few dozen, trying to manually figure out in which order to do things just becomes too cumbersome. Especially when you already have the Task Score as a feature, and it could be used to solve this problem and save time and energy!