I "borrowed" this idea from a series of posts in one of these forums. I have tasks with no due date, and these could easily get "lost" in my system, along with tasks with no priority or no tags. So I have a Smart List called "~Check". (The tilde forces this Smart list to the end of the Smart list tabs so it's not in the middle of my "regular" Smart lists like "Due Today" and "Due in the next week"). The "~Check" list is there to help me find tasks that might hide in my system. The filter is due:never OR isTagged:false OR priority:none AND NOT list:Someday. Most tasks that have no priority, no tags or no due date are in my Someday list and I haven't assigned these properties to them. In reality, many of them are really projects, not tasks, which are there to remind me that I have these projects to do when time permits. When I get to work on them, they''ll be broken down into actual tasks and have the requisite tags, priorities and due dates assigned.

So the "~Check" Smart list is to ferret out any tasks which I have forgotten to assign a priority, tag or due date. I have some that I have deliberately not assigned some of these properties to, and I ignore those. I'm looking for the ones I forgot, or maybe are just now ready to be worked on.

I also have a repeating task, "Check Inbox, Someday and ~Check lists" which repeats every Monday and Thursday, so I don't forget to check each of these lists at least twice a week to see if I''ve somehow missed something along the way.

Hope this helps in your world.

There has been a lot of discussion about using so-called "sleeper" tags; those can be an effective, if not complex, method for doing what you describe.

Personally, I (try to) devalue due dates as much as possible. The clear majority of my tasks don't have a due date attached to them, mostly because unless it's crucial for it to be done on a given day, there's no point (for me) to take the time to set it (and then reset/postpone it when that day comes and I haven't done it yet ;).

Of course, there are exceptions (work tasks, for example), and ultimately if it's something that has to be done by a certain date, I'll make the due date for that automatically.

Hope this helps!

By the way, is your "Now" list is a Smart List? From the way you describe it, you should be able to populate it automatically with a search, e.g. NOT due:never OR tag:"-now" or dueBefore:today OR tag:"-now".

Thx for the advice, guys! I've set myself up a little system today, where I assign tasks with not due-date something like a "+1week"-tag, which means, if I haven't gotten to the task until then, it'll automatically show up in my "Now"-List. On the opposite there is a "Next Tasks"-List which lets me review and find those task.

"Nonsense" you say, since I could set the due date to "in 1 week"? True, but this way I can easily push those tasks back without thinking. I just change to a tag "+2weeks".

Those tags are also used on the tasks with a due-date. In that case they show up like "+1week" before they are really due in my "Now"-list. That way I really have time to do them.

Anyway - this is still in evaluation. I somehow got the feeling it's already to complex.

How is your guys whole setup?

I'm a new user to RTM, and would like to hear further input on how you guys use due dates when the task doesn't have a real due date.

I've been trying to use something resembling Getting Things Done (which I first heard about through this website). I took the advise of a past blog post, and made hard lists of all major projects, and then made context-dependent smart lists and tags involving contexts and "next actions".

My problem: I want to plan to do a small handful of tasks each day through the week that don't have a firm due date to give myself some guidance.

My current plan is to plan out my week during my weekly review and just add the due dates to items not currently due, and take it from there. After the week is complete, I'll add and update tasks along with assigning new due dates during my next weekly review.

The problem I currently see with this plan is that I can't then filter out the things I just want to to that day from things that have a hard due date set.

I hope I've been clear about what I'm looking for. Any advise and input concerning my current setup would be greatly appreciated.

Maybe you could tag the tasks you want to do on Monday with "monday" instead of giving them a due date Monday. Then you could make a filter searching for tasks due Monday or with a tag monday.

Or add priorities to the tasks you want to focus on even though they don't have a due date and then search for those.

Thanks for the reply, rajjan.

What I've decided to do for now is to put hard due dates straight into google calender, and create a hard list with a dash in front (so it sorts to the front of the tabs) for all projects that have a hard due date.

That way, google calender will remind me of the approaching deadline while I can still manage each step of the project in RTM.

Then, for all steps within a project, I type in a due date in RTM so that I have a to-do list for the week.

Thus, hard due dates are managed in google calender, and my weekly plan of things to do without a firm due date is managed within RTM.

You could also add a tag (either something like "firm" or "notfirm", depending on which way you go ;) or bump up the priority on the firm due dates, then create a Smart List (e.g. dueBefore:tomorrow AND tag:firm) to show your important/firm tasks.

That way you could separate them the way you want, and even to show the important ones in Google Calendar via iCalendar, similar to what it sounds like you're doing with your current method.