I forgot to mention. Another aspect of recurring tasks is a facility to skip an occurrence. I wouldn’t say I am entirely happy with how this is handled in MLO but here is the dialog…
I currently use reminders in Gmail, so I want them to basically replicate that.
I would also like it to be pretty easy to get a record of how often I completed a recurring task. e.g. if I had a recurring task for “brush your teeth” and the dentist asked how often I brushed my teeth, I could easily look it up and tell them (assuming I completed the task in Dynalist whenever I did in the real world).
First, I just want to thank you for starting to explore this feature and including your users in the process. The recurring date feature will provide Dynalist with a crucial component to making it a time management tool. So thank you.
I would add that recurring dates (or tasks) are a very well established field and its good the wheel does not need to be reinvented for recurring tasks. I like other users in this forum used MLO and loved it (but no web version, so bye bye). MLO though has one of the most advanced repeating engines. So if that was implemented, it would be well beyond our imagination and the needs of the average user. So it might be overkill.
Another very solid repeating task solution is found in Outlook. While I dislike Outlook tasks, the repeating feature is reasonably robust. So this would be probably less powerful than MLO, but still very powerful.
Another user mentioned Todist, and that might be the best model to folllow as the “common denominator” that covers most use scenarios.
For me, recurring tasks fall into a few categories:
- a task repeats on a time based interval (example: repeat this item once a month, or every two weeks and so on).
- a task may repeat on certain days of the week (Example: a task that has to be performed Tuesdays and Thursdays).
- Tasks that begin at the beginning of a month or at the end of the month.
Another simple but flexible solution is the Trello “Repeater” powrup. It provides simple repeating cards. You define the card template, how often it should repeat and where the card should appear when its generated. This has also proved to be a slick way to generate repetive tasks.
I would add, I already do repeating tasks in Dynalist. I have a place where I have all my recurring tasks defined, and then once a week when I do a weekly review of my schedule (GTD old school), I duplicate the repetitive task and set the date for the task on the duplicate. In the end it works well.
Which brings me to a last point. It would be useful considering the dynamic nature of dynalist, if I could define a repetive task, but also define where it appears (example, to define in which node, like the Inbox, that the recurring task should be generated.) the problem with dynalist and many documents, you might have repetive tasks being generated, but then you have to go look for them. If we can define where they are generated (or spawned), this would probably help manage the possible chaos of many tasks being generated from many diffferent places.
Warm regards,
Chris
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The one single feature I’ve been seeking for ages in mobile is simply to copy a task. Though not based on dates. If this repeat feature could solve my problem i woukd be happy.
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Whatever we decide, hopefully it looks as simple and textual as !(21 Nov 2018 every wednesday) or !(01/01/18 every four days after completion)!
Although I initially voted for it, modifying the task doesn’t make too much sense: If you hit complete, then the task would have to be uncompleted to be useful, and that’s weird. Generating another item right below would make more sense.
Seems sensible. Now if you mark it off do you get
[x] Bob !(01/01/18 repeat every four days after completion)
[ ] Bob !(01/01/22 repeat every four days after completion)
Or
[x] Bob !(01/01/18).
[ ] Bob !(01/01/22 repeat every four days after completion
Or some other scheme?
I chose for the second question “A new instance appears and the new instance has the date set to the next date (from the completion date)” but I’d like the option of both from the completion date OR from the due date.
The best UI I’ve seen for creating recurring tasks is in the Tasks app for Android (previously known as Astrid Tasks).
It packs all of the essential options into just three lines (due date/time, repeat by X Y, repeat type):
Video demo (really helpful to see the extent of “repeat by X Y”)
2 Likes
Interesting question! I think the pertinent question is: What do we want to happen if we uncomplete the task? I like the ability to undo an accidental completion, so that would imply leaving the recurring part in.
Yeah, modifying itself would be weird and unsatisfying (I did work but nothing was checked off!).
The biggest problem I see with adding a new instance is that some people might think that makes the document too crowded. Right now 54% of people voted for having a new instance, so I guess that’s not too big of an issue.
I use “is:completed -edited:3m” to remove completed task older than 3 months, so too crowded is not a big problem for me. But what happen if a task have two different days (sometime I put start and due date in a task)? I hope it will automatically choose the recurrent/due day when completed. Thanks.
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If you make one date recurrent and the other non-recurrent (i.e. a normal date), I don’t think that would be a problem.
I’m curious to know how you purge the completed tasks. If you select all, it seems to include the top nodes which are uncompleted, which naturally you don’t want to delete. Doing it branch by branch is quite a lot of work.
Unfortunately as far as I know we do need to do it branch by branch, but I discover in the search all result if you click the document title, it will direct you to that document and retain the filter result, so I have a bookmark for the purpose which I check it from time to time. Another reason this is not too much work for me is because I don’t create a lot of level for my to do, for example under my todo document I only have today, schedule, someday and note, and most of them only have one level under them, so even I have like hundreds completed task that I want to deleted, I can delete them in seconds. But I don’t keep my work tasks/notes together with my personal document, because for me they usually need tracking and reference much more often than my own, so they have their own document and I will keep them much longer.
There’s a command for that: Delete Checked Items in the hamburger menu.
Thanks. I actually hadn’t noticed that. But it doesn’t work with @KC’s system which is to purge those completed after a certain date.
I voted for “other” in the second question - my ideal solution would be:
- create a new task (rather than modify existing one) on completion
- options for EITHER repeat from due date OR repeat from completion
- ideally that option would be set when creating the repeating date
- there should be a default (ideally that you select in options) then you can choose the other option if you wish when you create a new repeating date
Repeating dates will be great but to me, even more important than repeating dates, would be a start-date as well as a due-date - where the item was hidden until the start date arrived.
EG so I could forget about renewing my car license until it was 1 month before it was needed next year, but also have a due date for when I had to have completed the task by.
Thanks
I voted for other on the second question as well.
For my workflow, I use tasks for a couple of functions:
- To lay out what needs to be done
- To archive what has been done
I’m in alignment with what @Chris_Kunicki uses: I need some flexibility to both capture all the tasks that have been accomplished and then replicate them to a designated spot. Right now, I’ve got a template dynalist doc that I use, and I simply copy/past as I plan the next day and week. So, ideally, the recurring tasks would take that and automate it; placing the tasks in nodes I can choose.
Let me know if you need more info.
Edit: I’m extremely excited you guys are getting ready to tackle this feature!
Cheers,
Sean
Thanks for working on this important feature! I agree with others who say the exact way recurring dates should work will vary depending on the list. Here’s my suggestion:
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When you complete a recurring item a dialogue box pops up. It gives you two sets of options: the date of the next recurrence and where the next recurrence should be created.
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In the first set you can choose to create the next recurrence based on the completion date or the due date.
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In the second set you can choose where the next recurrence is created. You can have the next recurrence created directly below the last recurrence, have it added to a specific document or have it copied to your clipboard. When you choose the last option you can then navigate to any document you like and paste the next recurrence in the appropriate place.
Also, please be sure to include advanced options for recurrence (e.g. “Every second Friday,” “The last Wednesday of every month,” etc.)
I think this approach would provide the balance between flexibility and functionality that makes Dynalist such a powerful tool in the first place.
Additional question: to everyone who voted “a new instance appears when the date is completed”, what should happen when a really large list (with lots of children items)? Should they be duplicated as well? I think being duplicated would be the desired behavior, but it would potentially make the document really large.
What do you guys think?
“Cloned” would be ideal. Second choice would be to move the children. Use case is those children are instructions on completing the task. Failing these, I wouldn’t make children but rather put a link to details in the recurring item.