Due Dates in DailyBalance vs other apps
Many task manager apps are built around the idea that all tasks have due dates. In reality, some tasks do have deadlines, but most tasks can be handled whenever you can fit them in. In these apps, to see your plan for today, you need to set fake due dates on the tasks that you want to work on today.
THE PROBLEM WITH FAKE DUE DATES
Setting fake due dates isn’t a good practice. This can lead to you overlooking tasks that have actual deadlines. It can also create more work for you when change happens – which it inevitably does. When a new task pops up or something becomes a high priority, this might mean that all those fake dates now need to get pushed into the future.
For a task that has a deadline, the due date is often not the date you would start working on it. Say that you are a student and you have a paper due next Wednesday. You are going to start on that paper well before Wednesday. Due dates should be reserved for hard deadlines for those tasks that do have them.
START DATES AREN’T GREAT EITHER
Some apps add another field to track when you should start working on a task in addition to the due date. This isn’t a great solution since how much time you need to get something done actually depends on how much other stuff you need to get done. You are better off deciding how to meet deadlines by regularly reviewing everything on your plate.
INSTEAD BREAK THINGS DOWN AND PLAN DAILY
With DailyBalance, we avoid adding extra fields since this results in you spending more time managing your tasks. Instead of making up dates it is a better practice to break your tasks down into small steps to understand their scope. Then, to plan daily to understand how to get tasks done before their deadlines.
In DailyBalance, you simply choose what you’ll work on today by selecting a subset of tasks from your Master List. You can set due dates on only tasks that have actual deadlines. Those due dates are information that you can use when planning your day and week.