I see the value of not seeing a task until a certain date (several threads here have suggested the value of a start date), but I am less clear why it's better to have a task float than to have it reflect its initial due date.

On Palm PDAs, users of Pimlico's DateBk software always rave about the value of floating tasks, but I'm afraid I don't get it. Sorry to be so dense, and if you can explain it to me, I'll be very appreciative, as I've wondered about this for years now.

There are tasks that I want to try for starting by a particular date...just when I think I might have time. However, if I don't get to it on that date I'd like that task to stick with me until I either do it or drop it.

An overdue task implies more urgency to me. That is a task that truly had a due date that I failed to hit...hopefully few and far in between.

Having the floating task is simply a convenience. I can postpone a couple tasks every day for awhile, but why do that when the program is perfectly capable of doing that for me.

Floating tasks are by far the most important feature in a calendar for me. It's HUGE. I used to love the ability to float a task on a Palm. The reason is because it enables a whole new way of forcing oneself to accomplish as many VAGUELY time-specific tasks each day as possible - and those that you don't do overflow to the next day. So if you think you might have a window to pick up the dry cleaning at 4pm on Tuesday, when you know it will be available - you set a floating task to hit that window. But if something comes up, then the next day at 4pm you will get another shot. It's about predicting when you think you will have a chance to do something - but not having a hard "due date" attached to that task... and having that integrated along side more solid, time-specific appointments on your calendar. That way you only have one place, that you trust, to look at to figure out what your next action is.

Every calendar app should have this option IMHO. Why it's sort of died out since the days of Palm is beyond me... Total no-brainer.

+1 on floating tasks! Especially repeating floating tasks. My canonical use case is "make haircut appointment" or "vacuum under couch"; anything where the ELAPSED TIME BETWEEN the tasks is more important than doing it every 3rd Wednesday or whatever. In other words, if I don't get around to making the haircut appt til a week later than it was originally due, the next repeat shouldn't occur until 3 weeks after I actually schedule it, not on the original schedule.

Just use "after 3 weeks" instead of "every 3 weeks". It's already built in.

I don't get this one... if the due date auto-updates, then it's not really due on that date, is it?

I can kind of see this one. If a task needs to be done periodically, but not on a strict schedule.

Say I want to check my tire pressure about every week or so, but it doesn't need to be done precisely every week. If I don't get to it on the date it's "due" I may not want to have it listed as "overdue". I moves from day to day. I mark it as done and it is rescheduled "after 1 week". At that time it floats again.

Can't say I would use it though.

@christopher.weible: I see, that is certainly a use case, but I would say that it is a mis-use of the "due date". I would prefer this feature to be implemented instead:

"Hide tasks until a certain date"
https://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/2771/

Don't get it - if this is to have a task to "do as soon as possible", there should be no due date, at least in GTD mindset. I have very few tasks with a due date. Day specific actions reside in my calendar.

I do not like the idea. The due da should remain as is.

I would find it helpful - some tasks must be done by a certain day/time but there are others that I want to be reminded of but if I can't fit them in this week or today they could be attended to tomorrow or next week so don't need them to be "overdue" or to have to go back set a new date/reminder

I think this is better achieved through start dates and a Smart List like this:
dueBefore:tomorrow OR startBefore:tomorrow.
Anything with a start date of today or in the past is a "floating task" as you call it, and this way you can still give them a hard deadline if you want to.

I am thinking about moving over from Toodledo (I’m in the “testing” phase with RTM right now), and this is functionality that I use all the time and may be a dealbreaker for me.

Simple use-case scenario: Wash car. It doesn’t have a “hard” due date, and is not high priority, but I’d like to try and get it done today. If I don’t, then I would like this uncompleted task to automatically move forward by some specified period of time (e.g.: 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, next Saturday, etc.), until completed, rather than showing as being overdue. This could be done using a repeat (or floating) function based on due date to automatically move uncompleted tasks forward until marked completed.

Most comments in this discussion seem to either be against this, or not understanding the concept, but I hope this is considered.

As I mentioned, not having this may be a dealbreaker for me, because needing to manually adjust due dates for non-critical tasks every day is very time consuming. I realize that RTM will do just fine if I don’t choose this as my new To-Do “life manager”, but I am liking everything else so far.