Hey there,If you want to change your deadline,you can edit to change.
If you have overdue your task,it will show overdue.
Or did I understand correctly?

Yes, I understand that it works the way you are saying as long as I don't edit or move the task. However:

If I have an overdue task in my "Today" folder and either drag and drop it to "Tomorrow" or "Scheduled", then not only the start date (the date for "Tomorrow" or the date I enter if I choose "Scheduled") will change, but also the due date will change. For example, I have a task with start date 12 Nov and due date 23 Nov. I start working on it and it remains in my Today box because I have not finished. On 23 Nov I realize that I do not have time to finish and I have to apply for an extension. I temporarily move the task to Tomorrow to get it out of the way - there's something urgent I have to do today. This changes not only the start date, but also the due date to 24 Nov.

The same thing happens if I open the task to edit it and change the start date to 24 Nov. The due date will also be changed to 24 Nov.

This does me no good, and is potentially disastrous. I need to know that the task is overdue until I have verified a new due date that I enter explicitly. Moving the task to Tomorrow does not change the fact that it is still overdue, and I still need to know how much.

Tom

@tek Sorry for that,we designed this feature of showing due date because it will make you to finish it.
We set it by GTD theories.If this feature cannot satisfy you,we will discuss about it.
Thanks for using Doit.im

Hi again.

Perhaps we misunderstand each other. I am not talking about showing due dates, I am talking about changing due dates automatically as a function of changing scheduled date.

I am no GTD expert, but as far as I have understood GTD only recommends due dates that are hard. If you set due dates for other tasks - as part of your own management of your time - you may end up with a lot of overdue tasks that are not really overdue. To me this seems to imply that, according to GTD theory, if a task is overdue it is actually overdue. It is not something you can assume that you can simply reschedule - you may have to do something to rectify the situation. But you may not be able to do that right now, so you may still want to move the task away from your "today" list. Doing so means that you will not perform the task or obtain a new due date now, but it does not mean that the task is not still overdue. The due date means that there is an external reason why you should have done the task within a certain point in time, and that external reason does not simply disappear. You may have to do something to obtain a new due date, and until you have done so the task is still overdue - as a matter of fact, because there are external reasons, and GTD theory cannot change that fact.

If this was not the case (if you could change the due date arbitrarily on your own whim), then, according to GTD, you should not have a due date at all.

So the way things are set up now, my only option is to leave any overdue task in my "today" list until I have obtained a new due date - but this is contrary to GTD, because "today" should not include tasks I am not going to act on today at all.

All this is according to my understanding of GTD, which may not be correct. But whether it is or not, the current set up is problematic for me. Overdue tasks that remain in "today" retain their original due date, while overdue tasks that are moved to "tomorrow" will receive a new due date. That means I loose information regarding the original "due date" by changing the "scheduled" date - and I can see no reason for this. The two do not depend on each other, and it is entirely possible that tasks actually are overdue - and if they are, I need that information until I have actually obtained a new due date.

Thanks,
Tom

@tek Hi there, I understand your need to keep the info of the overdue task even if you extend the task. But to most users, overdue tasks that are extended are not overdue anymore, as you have more time to finish the task now. If you want to be reminded that the task is overdue, I would suggest you change its due date and keep it in today list. Or you can find the tasks that are deferred from "Daily Review". Click the link below to see the details: http://faq.doit.im/web.html#167

For me this is not a problem, because I have disabled Tomorrow. I will keep such tasks Next - if the only thing keeping me from doing them right now is my own busy-ness and prioritizations. I schedule only tasks that would be irrelevant to even consider before that date - even if I had nothing else to do. I never use dates for "planning" my own time. I have enough of that i my job - time planning is necessary when you must agree with other people, but is, IMO, a waste of time for your own personal tasks.

But I agree with @tek in principle. I too use deadlines in the "hard" (GTD) sense, for the last date that someone else will accept (e.g. last application date, last payment date etc). This date is not affected by any prioritization or scheduling or anything else that I might do from my side, so I think it is wrong in principle to auto-adjust the deadline just because you alter the task's start date etc.

Most of my tasks do not have a deadline, but they can be extremely urgent anyway (imagine your bathroom taps are leaking gallons of water every hour) - I use the Priority indicator a lot, and never use fake schedule dates or deadlines.

I realize that many Doit users try to emulate "project management" even in their own personal sphere - they assess time requirements, they schedule their time etc etc. So it is probably good that Doit has some features that permit such "project management". But it is equally important that Doit polish the more fundamental features that allow for convenient "time-less" task management. Projects, Goals, Contexts, Tags, filtering and reordering are some of the existing features, and these could certainly benefit from an overhaul, as has been requested in many threads. And a proper, normal "starred" feature (instead of the current "scheduled-for-Today" list) would certainly be useful. And there is plenty of room for further enhancements in that field.

@Folke Hi there, thanks for sharing your experience in using Doit.im. We will work more on improving Doit.im.

I agree with Folke that a proper "starred" feature (which in my opinion would not remove the task from the list it is currently in, e.g. Next, but it would end up in a "meta list" of tasks I want to focus on right now).

Regarding the due dates: I use doit.im at work. My work involves numerous tasks with official due dates. We have a docketing system for that, but it is not particularly flexible and does not have any kind of workflow functionality. I also have many other obligations; they would never be in the docketing system anyways.

So the only place I can collect all my various tasks and obligations is in doit.im. The due dates I have are real, and they are not determined by me. I am unable to change the due date until I know what they due date will be. This may follow from the old due date - in which case the old due date should not be changed automatically because the old due date is needed to determine the new one - or I may have to wait until I receive confirmation for the new due date. Actually, I have tasks that if they are performed after they are due I will have to pay a late fee, and that fee increases with how much overdue the task is. I need this information - even if I am not going to work on the task Today. And if I don't want to work on it Today, I don't want it to be present in Today - I want to reschedule its start or move it back to Next.

Consider this: If I have two overdue tasks in Today. I move one to Tomorrow and leave the other in Today. The following day I will have the same two tasks in Today, one will be overdue, the other will be due that day. This makes no sense to me. By that logic it would be more correct to change the due date for a task in Today to today's date every day, automatically. But that would obviously be wrong.

@tek Hi there, thanks for your advice. We will take it into account.