This is deferred from the completion date because the next time you need to do it depends on the last time you did it.ĭefer until 4:00 PM due 6:00 PM repeat every 1 week on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday: bring Sarah to soccer practice. This repeats on a fixed schedule because it is necessary to do it at the same time every week, regardless of when you last did it.ĭefer until today 12:00 AM due today 6:00 PM defer another 5 days: clean the kitchen. To schedule an action on specific weekdays, enter a Repeat Every interval in weekly increments and then select the days on which you’d like to repeat the item from the buttons below.ĭefer until Tuesday 5:00 PM due Tuesday 10:00 PM repeat every 1 week: take out the trash. This can be any number of minutes, hours, days, or months. Refilling a 30-dose medical prescription every 30 days is an example of this type of repeat.Įnter a repeat interval. This is most useful for items with internally set constraints based on the time they take (or require) to complete. If your insurance covers dentist check-ups every six months, for example, you’ll want to make an appointment later in the year based on the date of your previous one.ĭue Again After Completion-When the item is completed, it’s due again after the repeat interval has elapsed. This is useful for repeating items that can’t be considered again until a specific amount of time has passed-when your scheduling has to be flexible because it’s regulated by some external constraint. This is the repeat type for most common uses.ĭefer Again After Completion-When the item is completed, it’s deferred for another instance of the repeat interval. This is useful for repeating items that are locked to the calendar, like paying the rent. Repeat Regularly-With the initial due date as its starting point, the item will come due again at the lapsing of each repeat interval, like clockwork. Repeating actions can occur regularly-every few hours, days, weeks, or months-based on when the item was first scheduled, or rescheduled to be deferred until (or be due again) based on a set time after you mark it completed. Instead of creating a new item every time you need to take out the recycling, you can set that task up so that you’re reminded every Thursday night to put the recycling bins by the road for pickup Friday morning. In the case of the Mars mission, if you miss the launch window, you’ll have to wait another 24 months for your next opportunity. This serves as a warning to you that you should either get that task done, or reschedule its due date. To change this, go to Settings and choose a different value for Due Soon.ĭefer and due dates can be entered by tapping an item in the main outline.Īctions that have reached their due date are styled in red. By default, actions become due soon two days before the specified due date. When due dates are approaching, OmniFocus considers actions and projects to be Due Soon and represents them as such by changing their color from black to amber and adding them to the Forecast perspective.
When the defer date arrives, the action’s text appears in black to let you know it is available and the clock is ticking. Actions with a future defer date are in gray. To see all of the actions in your Colonize Mars project, choose Remaining in view options (All includes completed and dropped items). Items that have not reached their defer until date are not considered available so they won’t clutter your view until you can work on them. Regardless, that is the day you know you’d like to launch the rocket, and if that date passes, OmniFocus reminds you until you’re past the due date and off to explore the Red Planet. So why not just a due date for Launch Spacecraft? Well, because weather conditions for a launch could be bad that day, or there could be some sort of mechanical failure that delays the launch. While you’re at it, you also create a Launch Spacecraft action with a defer until date of Januand a due date of April 30, 2016. To keep track of this, you might create a Launch Window action with a defer until date of Januand a due date of April 30, 2016. A quick online search shows that the next window is from January 2016 to April 2016, so you decide to launch your spacecraft on January 6 to commemorate your birthday. The due date is the date when an action or project needs to be completed.įor example, to make progress on your Colonize Mars project, you need to know when Mars is in opposition so you can schedule a date during the launch window. The defer until date is the date when an action or project can be acted upon until that date arrives, the item remains grayed out. Actions and projects can have due dates and defer until dates with a less specific notion of time constraint than items in your calendar.