Try to understand SCHEDULED and the difference between DUE DATE checked and not checked. So I created 2 items to study their behaviour, but seem to have encountered a bug.
I created “Scheduled DAILY w/o DUE DATE checked.” and “Scheduled DAILY w/ DUE DATE checked.” in the INBOX. They both showed up in SCHEDULED as expected.
Now I added tags to them.
Both items were no more in INBOX and showed up with the tags in SCHEDULED, section NEXT WEEK, and the date “Apr 8” was shown. None of them read DUE TODAY (as today is Apr 7). Seems ok so far.
I went to FOCUS and saw those two items without the tags and “Scheduled DAILY w/ DUE DATE checked.” read DUE TODAY. Same with NEXT: No tags but DUE TODAY. I’d expect to see the tags here, too.
Seems to be a bug, doesn’t it?
One other thing: In SCHEDULED the checkbox allowing to check the items as DONE is not displayed for those two items I created. However, with other items that checkbox is displayed in SCHEDULED.
And while I’m at it: What’s the difference between the arrow-icon with 1 circle-shaped arrow and the one with 2 half-circle-shaped arrows? Yet I couldn’t find out about the concept behind this.
UPDATE: I edited the the two items in FOCUS (no tags shown with the items) and see, that the changes have not propagated completely. In SCHEDULED (tags shown with the items) the items are unchanged. In NEXT (no tags here, too) the items have changed.
Strange…
UPDATE 2: A look into FOCUS and NEXT today tells me that now the two items have the tags attached. However, the changes I edited yesterday in FOCUS are lost.
So today everything looks ok today. Seems that Everdo needed a day crossing to sort things.
From what I’ve gathered, the way the Repeating scheduled tasks work, is that it will create a new NOTE when the scheduled date happens, and updating itself to show the next occurrence date. Since you scheduled it as a DAILY, it creates a new note right away
Once it has made a new NOTE that appears in the FOCUS/NEXT section (FOCUS because it’s starred, NEXT because that’s where the NOTE is actually placed (clicking on it will show it’s category on the right), it’s not directly related with the SCHEDULED task anymore, which is why doing changes on the SCHEDULED tasks wasn’t shown on those in the FOCUS section, and opposite.
As for the 1-arrow and 2-arrow repeating icon, I think the 2-arrow is used within the SCHEDULED to indicate it’s repeating, while the 1-arrow is used by the NOTE instance created and placed in FOCUS section to indicate it came from a scheduled task
As for the DUE DATE, this seems to only be shown on the newly created NOTES, and not the SCHEDULED tasks themselves
At least that’s how I believe it works. Think some of this was mentioned from the tutorial notes it comes with, but I can’t recall precisely since it’s been a while since I saw them
So here’s how scheduling works. First, forget about the Due Dates for now - those are completely unrelated to scheduling.
When you create a scheduled repeating task, it will immediately be added to the Scheduled list and serve as a template for upcoming tasks. A copy of this task will be created automatically every time it occurs, according to the schedule you specify (daily, weekly, etc). Such copies are added to Next and Focus lists automatically. You can complete, edit, or remove the copies without any effect on the original “template” task (the one in the Scheduled list).
When you created a repeating task, you probably scheduled it to start on the same day, This is why a copy was created immediately in Next and Focus. Then you added some tags to the original “template” task. But those changes do not apply to already existing copies, only to future ones.
Hope this helps. Please let me know if anything is not clear.
Now for Due Dates. Any task or project can have a due date regardless of whether it’s scheduled or repeating or not.
A due date only means that the task will become focused on the specified date. Being focused, it will appear on the Focus list.
The “due date” option in repeating items will simply add a due date to every item being created on schedule.
Shouldn’t each copy contain a reference to topic and description instead of a copy? All the rest can be a copy or newly generated entry whatever. I have difficulties to see where the original (you call it template) version of my note is. So, if there were one and only one topic line and description of a note copied to all the other slots, there were no confusion.
I see you point and it makes sense. The copies do have a reference to the template, but it’s not used to propagate updates from copies to the template, or other copies.
I think it would be useful in some cases, but bad in others, triggering unexpected or unwanted changes to the template.
For example, I have some “generic” daily actions, which I modify when they occur (change priority, title, or time). Wouldn’t want those changes to affect the template.
When you do want to modify the template, you can search for the action title, and you’ll see it in the “scheduled” section. To search quickly, press S or /.
Maybe it makes more sense to have a special button to push changes from the copy to the template.
Do I really have to search for those templates? When they are in a project, I know their location. What about the STANDALONE items? Are they (they are templates, right?) always in NEXT?