Re: [O] Still Wishing for Snooze

[Michael Brand]

Hi Andrew

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 11:54 PM, Andrew M. Nuxoll <address@hidden> 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