On Mon, Mar 09 2009, Carsten Dominik wrote:

> since you want to use the same semantics as for deadlines, i.e. the
> same warning period etc, this really is a psychological issue :-)

But isn't that why we have org-mode in the first place-- to help us
label our way out of these pesky psychological issues?  :P

> What I would do if I was bothered by this would be
>
> (setq org-deadline-string "DUE:")
>
> which captures both the colors of DEADLINE and GOAL pretty well, I
> think.

Yes, I will use this.

I think that the case I described where I wanted both a GOAL and a
DEADLINE for the same task can be handled reasonably well by creating
two different tasks and giving each a due date.  So instead of

* TODO submit manuscript
  GOAL: <optimistic date>
  DEADLINE: <hard deadline>

I can do

* TODO submit manuscript
  DUE: <optimistic date>

*** publisher deadline
    DUE: <hard deadline>


This way I have all of the information in one place, and both dates get
into the agenda.  The top level TODO and its due date represent my goal
for submitting.  The sub-heading isn't a TODO because I'm working on my
schedule, not theirs.  But, I put the hard deadline there just in case
my schedule and the official deadline get too close for comfort.  Also,
if I keep them close together, then follow mode helps me see both at the
same time.

I don't know if DEADLINE timestamps are supposed to be applied to
non-TODO headings, but it didn't seem to break anything, so I'm going to
go forward with this approach for now.

Thanks,
/au

-- 
Austin Frank
http://aufrank.net
GPG Public Key (D7398C2F): http://aufrank.net/personal.asc