Re: How to define a start date for a task?

[Bernt Hansen <bernt@norang.ca>]

Karl Maihofer <ignoramus@gmx.de> writes:

> Bernt Hansen <bernt <at> norang.ca> writes:
>> I assume you have a few typos in the following description:
>> > I'm not sure if this helps. What I'd like to archive is that an unavailable 
>>                                                ^^^^^^^
>>                                                achieve
>
> Of course, that is a typo. ;-)
>
>> > I do not want the task to show up on my daily agenda when it 
>> > becomes available.
>>        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>        not want the task to show up [only] on my daily agenda
>
> But that is not a typo. 
>

Ah - sorry about that.

> Correct me, but with your solution, tasks become available 
> (schedule date arrives) and then they will show up on the 
> daily agenda. And they will show up there every day until 
> I mark the task as done. That is not really what I'd like 
> to achieve (not archive!) since tasks with start dates are 
> tasks I can do when the start date arrived but do not have 
> to do on a special date.

That is essentially what SCHEDULED: is for.  It shows up on the
scheduled (start) date and stays on your daily agenda until you mark it
done.

If the task is supposed to be on a specific date I just put a plain date
stamp on it (without the SCHEDULED: prefix)  I use this for appointments
etc which have a fixed date and time.

>
> My workflow is as follows: I have a look at my daily agenda 
> to find out what I have to do that day. There I can find 
> tasks that are scheduled or have a deadline. When I finished 

The use of SCHEDULED in org-mode can be confusing.
From the org-mode manual

,----
| SCHEDULED
|      Meaning: you are planning to start working on that task on the
|      given date.
| 
|      The headline will be listed under the given date(1).  In addition,
|      a reminder that the scheduled date has passed will be present in
|      the compilation for _today_, until the entry is marked DONE, i.e.
|      the task will automatically be forwarded until completed.
| 
|           *** TODO Call Trillian for a date on New Years Eve.
|               SCHEDULED: <2004-12-25 Sat>
| 
|      Important: Scheduling an item in Org-mode should not be understood
|      in the same way that we understand scheduling a meeting.  Setting
|      a date for a meeting is just a simple appointment, you should mark
|      this entry with a simple plain timestamp, to get this item shown
|      on the date where it applies.  This is a frequent misunderstanding
|      by Org users.  In Org-mode, scheduling means setting a date when
|      you want to start working on an action item.
`----

> these tasks and still have time to do some more work, I do 
> agenda searches for tags and/or todo keywords. So, tasks 
> with only a start date should never show up on my daily 
> agenda. They should be hidden from all agenda searches until 
> the start date arrives. Until then they should be available 
> for all agenda searches (but they should not show up on the 
> daily agenda list until I define a schedule date).
>
> Is that also possible or am I the only person that has a 
> need for this? ;-)

I think you'll need to write a custom agenda skip function that skips
your tasks with an inactive START: [date] in the future.  I don't know
of a way to apply a custom skip function to the global todo and tags
searches so you'll probably need to use custom agenda searches for this.

Regards,
Bernt