Consider *not* setting a Due date

[lpb]

Many best practices say, “Always set a Due date,” so is my recommendation to consider leaving Due date unset part of some new Forum Leader Tips > Heresy Edition subcategory?

I believe there are times to legitimately leave Due date unset, but only if you’re aware of the implications. For example, doing so won’t be compatible in a project or My Tasks view that’s sorted or grouped by Due date.

So when would it be appropriate to leave Due date unset?

For private tasks in your My Tasks, use your Today, Upcoming, or other appropriate sections to indicate when you should be working on a task and leave Due date unset (that’s not what Due date is for). If you do have a known Due date, by all means, set it, but urgency is not a due date. A good reason to set a Due date on a private task is to use a “Due date is approaching . . .” rule (aka task auto-promotion).

For public tasks in projects, leave Due date unset if you don’t know the actual due date, unless you have a clear team-wide protocol for using desired/hopeful due dates and a means for distinguishing them from actual requested or imposed actual (hard) due dates. (You may want to consider using Shift+Tab+F to create your own private follow-up task and set the desired Due date on that task instead.)

For a little more depth on the above points, and some broader related topics, see two earlier Forum Leaders tips of mine:

Use Due Dates Differently in Public and Private

What do your Due dates mean? I bet at times yours have very different actual meanings. That’s ok, but only if you are sticking to a workable policy, such as the example below. In private (in My Tasks with private tasks or in my own private projects) I often set Due dates for use with Rules (formerly auto task promotion) so I make sure I get reminders and nothing falls through the cracks. The Due date represents the day I’d like to be reminded, perhaps to follow up on the task or to begin workin…

Your Simple (or Advanced) Strategy for Asana’s My Tasks

Note: Most recent article update: April 2024 I’ve just published the article linked above to Medium (free access). I hope both existing Asana users grappling with My Tasks version 2 (currently being deployed), as well as new users to Asana, will check it out because it was written with all of you in mind. This comprehensive article on My Tasks: Outlines a simple but highly functional My Tasks setup with brief, step-by-step setup and use instructions, Explores an advanced My Tasks approach…

Thanks,

Larry Berger, Asana Services Partner, Trilogi Solutions

[Bastien_Siebman]

I do agree that in many cases, due dates are useless, or worse they give the false impression you’ll do something at a specific date, when in fact it could simply be a reminder…