"Do date" or "due date"? How using the wrong one might be sabotaging your productivity.
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This is the third in our series, Language Matters. If you missed the first 2 pieces, you can catch them here and here.
Let me ask you a question: Is it helpful to sort your task system by due date?
(Are you thinking “Is this a trick question??“)
Because virtually every task app has a date field, and that date field is usually labeled “due date”, and you can sort by that field, it would seem obvious that sorting by due date must be useful. Right? Right??
Wrong!
In my experience, sorting by due date is far less useful than you would think. In fact, there are 2 big problems with sorting by due date when it comes to actually getting things done:
Sorting by due date doesn’t actually help you to know what to do right now, today, to move things forward. (It provides a data point, but you're then left doing a lot of mental math.)
Many (if not most) items don’t actually have a hard due date. Rather, they have an arbitrary due date that you’ve assigned hoping you’ll get it done by that date. (But in actuality, it’s just stressing you out unnecessarily.)
Now, you might be thinking that I’m about to say we should do away with dates altogether. But, no, definitely not. A task system without dates is just a list. A big, overwhelming list. And we don’t want that!
But if we’re not sorting by due date, how are we sorting? What other dates are there?
Well, let me tell you!
There’s a tweak you can use to make your task system much more useful. And that’s to think of the “due date” as a “do date”. So it’s not “when is this thing due?”, but “when am I going to do what needs to be done to meet the due date?”
It’s a homonym of epic proportions; one that can revolutionize how you prioritize!
Once you start thinking in terms of “do dates” (which I actually call “next action dates” most of the time to avoid the “do/due” confusion) it becomes much easier to plan your days and weeks to ensure that everything can get done before the “due date”. When you start thinking in terms of “do date” you starting thinking about about 2 really important factors:
The steps it will take to get to completion (aka the next actions).
When you will do those steps. (I.e. Where does the time exist on your calendar to do these things? Realistically, not aspirationally.)
The more granular you can get about exactly what steps you need to take, and when you actually have time to do them, the better able you are to plan your time realistically, stop overcommitting and start being accountable (without overworking).
What about things that really do have a due date?
Yes, there are tasks and projects that have hard deadlines. For sure.
You’ve got projects for work. Timelines you’ve committed to. Even telling someone, “I’ll get that back to you by Friday” introduces a hard deadline.
And for those tasks and projects, it’s really important to know what the “due date” is. But not because you want to sort by it.
Why then? Because knowing the “due date” will help you figure out the “do dates” to help you make sure you meet the “due date”. (See why I call them “next action dates"? If you were listening to that sentence instead of reading it, you’d have no idea what I’m talking about!)
Now, if you’re thinking “but my task app only has one date, and it’s labeled “due date”, don’t worry, we have a fix for this. Here’s what you’ll do:
You’ll simply co-opt that “due date” field, and use it as a “do date” field to determine when you’ll actually do the next action. Simple as that.
And where will you put the actual “due date”? Well, if there truly is a due date, then you can append it to the task name, so you can still see it front and center. (I.e., “Big report” becomes “Big report (DUE 12/1/21)”).
If your task system allows for multiple date fields or custom fields, then you can actually just add another field for “final due date” or whatever you want to call it.
And if you’re thinking, “well, if I can add extra fields, why wouldn’t I just create an extra field called “next action date” or “do date” when the “due date” field already exists?”, here’s why: Most task apps, even if you can add multiple date fields, use the built-in date field for native sorting throughout the app. So, if you want to be able to easily sort by “do date”, you’ll want to use that built-in date field as your “do date” or “next action date” field.