SmartDay for Mac

We get this question a lot:  “My task is set to start three months from now, why is it showing up in my calendar today?” The short answer is: because you have time today.  Allow me explain:

The Smart logic from SmartCal (iPhone), SmartPad (iPad) and SmartDay (Mac) takes the tasks from your Task list, and schedules them into the free time in your calendar, in the exact same order that they appear in your Task list.  (SmartPad and SmartDay do this for the current day only; SmartCal does it for an entire week.)

Tips for Organizing “future” Tasks

Drag to Prioritize

Drag your Tasks up and down in the Task list, to change their order. You’ll be able to see which ones will fit into today, by observing the ‘today’ line in the list.

SmartPad

SmartFilters

You can sort your Task list by “Start” or “Deadline”, and you can also apply the unique GTDo filter which only shows the top task from each project Category. There’s also a great manual filter called “Star” – this only shows the tasks that you mark with a Star.  If you do not want to see some of your ‘future start’ tasks, just do this:  first apply the “Start” filter which sorts your tasks by Start date. Then, mark only the ones that you want to see, with a Star.  Then, apply the “Star” filter. Voila!

SmartCal

Assign Specific Dates

If you absolutely want to assign a specific Start/Do date for a specific task, you can easily convert it into an Event, or an All Day Event. How? In SmartCal and SmartPad, just double-tap the Task to get to the Edit Detail view.  Then tap “Event” at the top. Done. In SmartDay, go to the Day Calendar and just drag the task over to a time in the timeline. That automatically converts it into an Event.

Converting your Task into an Event

This allows you to assign a specific Date, and a specific Time, to do the Task.  It is now a ‘calendar Event’ but that’s just a name, right? (Note this will remove the task from the Task list.)

Converting your Task into an All Day Event

This allows you to assign a specific Date, but no time.  The Task will then appear in the ‘all day’ pane at the top of your calendar (and at the top of iCal as well). On that date, you can then convert the All Day Event BACK into a Task by clicking on the “Task” button in the edit view (SmartCal, SmartPad) or dragging it to the right side of the Day calendar (SmartDay).