Due and Time Sensitive Tasks

Fourth in a series on task management. Read part 1, part 2, and part 3.

OmniFocus is a great tool for capturing and organizing tasks, but when it comes to getting certain stuff done I need a bit more of a kick in the pants. That’s where Due comes in.

Due is a very persistent reminders app. By default it will sound an alert not only at the date and time you set for the task, but every five minutes thereafter. It’s great for things that need to get done at a certain time, like taking the trash can out to the curb on trash day.

While you can use it for one-off tasks, most of the stuff I’ve got in there are repeating tasks. Due has a very powerful system for this that goes beyond just the daily and weekly repeats you see in other apps. It allows you to set a task to repeat on a certain day of each month, or just on weekdays, etc. The only repeat interval I think is missing is one for a certain number of days before the end of the month (which would be useful for things like mailing my rent check that needs to arrive by the 1st of the following month).

I use Due for things like reminding myself to back up my iOS devices to a Mac every week, to top off the charge on a USB battery pack every month, and even to call my parents on their birthdays. One of the most critical things I have in there is a reminder to do my weekly GTD review in OmniFocus. I have a tendency to skip that, so it’s great to have an app as persistent as Due to get me to do it.

Due is a great looking and well designed app on iOS. The Mac version is not nearly as impressive (and has a completely different look). It basically seems kind of phoned in on the Mac, the iOS version is definitely the flagship. I’ve got it installed on my laptop just so I get the reminders, but I don’t usually interact with it much on the Mac (the reminders sync back and forth via iCloud or Dropbox).

May 8, 2017


Previous post
Analog Task Management Third in a series on task management. Read part 1 and part 2. For many years my task management system has been all digital. Recently, though, I’ve
Next post
Laptop vs. Desktop For most of my computing life, I was a desktop and laptop person. A desktop machine at home for heavy duty tasks and gaming, and a laptop for