[Feature request]: Correlation between due date and priority

[lamyergeier]

Usually its hard to think about what priority to set with so many different tasks on hand. Also, the priority and due dates are correlated. So, I thought that if a task needs to be done within a specified period of time we could assign automatic due dates:

Priority	Due date
A	Today
B	Tomorrow
C	Within this Week
D	Within this month
E to Z	No due date

Implementation Idea

May be we can have an option called as Correlated due date and Priority, and those who enable this option can have

• the due date automatically assigned based on the priority specified by the user
• Or, if the user specifies specific due date then the priority is assigned automatically

Bonus

It would be nice if the app changes the priority when the due date approaches the current date.

[mpcjanssen]

If this is implemented why don't you just use only due date and sort by that?

I don't think this has a big chance of getting implemented.

[smichel17]

When I was using ST heavily, I used a lua script that sorted things into categories based on either the priority or due date. It didn't automatically change the values of one based on the other, but just displayed anything due today in the same bin as anything with priority A. I've posted my scripts in a different issue here before. I'm not quite sure what issue and don't have time to search much right now, but maybe you can search and find it.

[lamyergeier]

@smichel17 May I ask you why did you move away from ST, did you find a better tool, or better system?

[aubreyz]

@smichel17 May I ask you why did you move away from ST, did you find a better tool, or better system?

For what it's worth I have done an extensive search for todo.txt tools on all platforms, and simpletask remains the best tool on android and on all systems (albeit with some flaws). Sleek on Windows is looking very promising but has some major features missing (selecting more than one task at a time so really hard to do any sort of mass change, no predefined filter/sorting sets, threshold dates incompletely implemented).

Which is why I am sad to see any reduction in development activity courtesy of our friends at Google. I'd prefer simpletask to boil down to doing local saves only and leaving and cross system transfers down to the user if that is the roadblock.

[mpcjanssen]

@aubreyz the google situation is not a roadblock anymore. It's more lack of time and also motivation to really improve the app itself. I am still fixing obvious breakages (like the recent Dropbox one) and I should really do new FDroid release. But I don't really see any new functionality written by me being included anytime soon. I do merge and review PRs when they come in though.

[smichel17]

May I ask you why did you move away from ST, did you find a better tool, or better system?

@lamyergeier I moved to a mostly-paper system, which I later discovered is a variant of bullet journal

• Make a todo list on the front of a 3x5 inch index card at the start of each day.
• Anything for further in the future than that day goes on the back of the card.
• When making the list, the previous day's card is recycled.
  • Anything important to carry forward must be copied over to the new card.
• Appointments and other timely events go in a digital calendar, so I get notifications.

That's it (day-to-day).

The bold bit is really the important part (bullet journaling calls it "migration", IIRC). Every other system I've used requires maintenance to stay clutter-free. Discard-by-default avoids this, and forces you to consider whether a task is actually important enough to keep copying forward.

The note card size keeps it from ever being too large a task to copy forward. It also forces you to be realistic about how much you are scheduling for one day: if the card is full, you are not going to get it all done. Don't forget to include chores and relaxation (e.g. dinner, shower, video games)! You can use whatever format makes sense for your list each day, because you only need to know what it means for the next 24 hours.

Outside of my day-to-day, I keep a bucket list ("stuff I'd like to do some day but won't have time for any time soon"), which I look at a few times a year. It's currently in ST, but is just a simple list so it could be anywhere.

Occasionally when I have too much future stuff to fit on the back of the note card, I'll replace that part of the system with another note card, so I don't have to copy it each day. This is a warning sign that I am stretching myself too thin and need to drop some commitments (or move them to the bucket list).

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edit:

In my opinion, SimpleTask remains the best digital system. It worked extremely well for me in college, where I had:

• Assignments from many different classes, all with specific deadlines → more to keep track of → higher likelihood to miss deadlines
• Common for assignments for the whole semester to be scheduled in advance

I would switch in a heartbeat if I ended up back in a similar life situation. Although, I would first try to change the situation. Today I am able to keep fewer in-flight projects and finish them before moving on to the next, which I think works much better. (This is also my main criticism of GTD— it's an excellent system for answering "I'm at X for Y amount of time, what should I do?", but it's entirely reactive, which is a trap. It's much better to start at "What is most important to work on?" and then proactively set aside time and space to do that.)