Scheduling
There are two basic types of scheduling in Everdo:
- Deferring an action by setting a start date
- Making the action repeating by setting up a repeating schedule
Note
Projects can be deferred, but cannot be made repeating.Scheduling vs Due Dates
Everdo has the concept of a due date, which is unrelated to action scheduling - it does not cause an action or a project to activate. Instead, a due date will automatically flag an action or a project that is past a deadline. A due date can be used on actions in any state and in any list. For example if you have an action in the Next Actions list, you can give it a due date, and the action will still remain a Next action, now with a due date.Deferring an action or a project (set start date)
Deferring an item is achieved by setting the start date of the action to a specific date. When you do so, the action will automatically move to the Scheduled list and stay there until the specified day comes. On the specified day, the action or project will automatically move to the Next list and gain Focus.
Making an action repeating
To understand how repeating actions work in Everdo, we introduce the concepts of a Template action and a Clone action.
The Template action appears on your Scheduled list and contains the repeating rules which you specify when making an action repeating.
When the time comes for the action to repeat, the Template gets copied, and the Clone action gets added to the Next Actions list, inheriting all attributes of the Template. As a result, you end up with the clone and the template as two separate items on different lists. You can now complete the Clone action, or edit it, while the template remains unchanged in Scheduled.
Having explained how repeating actions work in general, let us consider some additional repeating settings that may be useful. These options appear in the “Make Repeating” dialog.
Set due date when action repeats
This option will assign a Due Date to the Clone action every time an action repeats. The due date will correspond to the day of creation of the Clone action. This means that the due date it will be different for every clone.
Note
Do not confuse setting a due date on a Template action with using the Set due date checkbox in the “Make Repeating” dialog. If you assign a Due Date directly to a Template item, then it will not affect any of the Clones that will be created according to the schedule.Do not repeat until the previous iteration is complete
As described earlier, every time a repeating action repeats, it creates a new Clone of itself, even if the previous one is still unfinished. This works well for actions that have to be done on a specific dates, regardless of when the last completion was. But for many actions it does not make sense to repeat them on rigid schedule if the previous iteration has not been competed yet.
To configure such actions, you can use the Do not repeat until the previous iteration is complete checkbox in the repeating configuration dialog. For example, suppose you want to clean the house, or water flowers every seven days. You set up a Daily repeating action to repeat every seven days and check the Do not repeat until… checkbox. As a result, this action will repeat in 7 days after the last time it has been completed. However, if you don’t set the Do not repeat until… checkbox, then the action will repeat every 7 days since the Start Date, regardless of when you complete each iteration.
A repeating action with the “Do not repeat until…” flag set is only considered completed if all its clones have been either marked as done, or moved to Trash. If these conditions do not hold, the action is not considered completed and so it will not repeat.
Using due dates
To understand how due dates work in Everdo, it’s best to ignore the concepts of deferred and repeating items completely, as they are not relevant.
A Due Date on any Everdo item means that when that date comes, the item will automatically become Focused and will remain in the Focus list until it’s completed. This makes overdue items stand out and be difficult to miss.