Hi Andrew On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 11:54 PM, Andrew M. Nuxoll <nux...@up.edu> wrote: > Here an example scenario that illustrates my problem: Say, at the end of > each week I need to sit down and generate a report on my progress to send to > the boss. So I have recurring, weekly TODO entry on Friday morning. Well, > one week the report is delayed because a coworker was ill and couldn't send > me the data I needed on time. So, I have to delay that TODO entry until > Monday *just this one time.* I need to get it off my agenda for the day but > I don't want to mark is as completed because it's not. > > Right now the only way to do that is to mark it as completed anyway but make > a one-time copy of the TODO item with the new scheduled date. The problem > is that I have roughly thirty TODO items per day and, on any given day, I > need to delay about 10-20% of them for various reasons. (It's the nature of > my job though I don't think it's that unusual.) So making a copy of a TODO > item each time is inconvenient because I end up with dozens of copies > floating about. > > Furthermore, a delayed TODO item should have more urgency since it's been > delayed. But creating a copy means i can't do that. When Monday rolls > around and it's time to prepare that report it shows up in green text like > this in my agenda: > Scheduled: TODO [#B] Prepare TPS Report > > but I want it to be in red text like this: > Sched. 4x: TODO [#B] Prepare TPS Report > > This is why I'm looking for a distinct "snooze" or "delay" functionality. I > want a TODO item to disappear from the agenda until a specified date and > then reappear again waiting to be done with all the urgency associated with > that delay.
Let me only suggest an idea to deal with this, item-based: When the DEADLINE “warning period” would be generalized to allow positive numbers then it would extend to a “warning and delay period”. Starting with: * TODO [#B] Verify login to the virtual machines DEADLINE: <2013-01-22 Tue +1w -0d> It could be delayed to <2013-01-24 Thu> which means two days later by changing the “warning and delay period” to 2d: * TODO [#B] Verify login to the virtual machines DEADLINE: <2013-01-22 Tue +1w 2d> This would not show up in the agenda until <2013-01-24 Thu>. At that date it would be shown with the desirable “In -2 d.:” for overdue to get the higher priority. When set to done it would become: * TODO [#B] Verify login to the virtual machines DEADLINE: <2013-01-29 Tue +1w -0d> Note the change from 2d to -0d: It is important that when the date repeats and has a positive warning period aka delay period then it must be reset to -0d. Otherwise undesirable suprises are guaranteed. The same “warning and delay period” could also be allowed for SCHEDULED, mainly usable with a positive range for a delay. Probably what you would prefer over DEADLINE for your use case. I would even allow negative numbers for a warning for SCHEDULED, with a default warning period of -0d to reflect current behavior. Michael
