{"id":2240,"date":"2025-05-12T05:43:17","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T05:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/essays-in-software.com\/good-day\/?p=2240"},"modified":"2025-05-12T09:18:03","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T09:18:03","slug":"relative-dates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essays-in-software.com\/good-day\/relative-dates\/","title":{"rendered":"Scheduling tasks – it’s all relative"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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When it comes to scheduling new tasks, the most natural response is for a person to think in relative terms.\u00a0“Yes, I’ll do that next week<\/em>,” or “I’ll aim to get that done next month,” or “Sure, I’ll get that done tomorrow.”<\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

This reflects how most people think in relative time frames.\u00a0 \u00a0Depending on how you work, that’s likely to revolve around a daily, weekly or monthly cycle.\u00a0 \u00a0That’s why, when it comes to scheduling tasks, the “Good Day” app provides the user with a relative date scheduling feature.<\/span><\/p>

\"\"<\/p>

When setting the value for a date field\u00a0in “Good Day”, the user has the option to choose either a relative date value (e.g., “This week”, “Next month”) or a specific date value (e.g., Monday, 12 May 2025).\u00a0 The value of relative dates is that the task is scheduled and not lost.\u00a0 \u00a0It has the advantage of setting the task into a timeframe that allows the user to consider more detailed planning as that relative timeframe approaches.\u00a0 Hence, if a user decides to schedule a task for “next week”, then this allows them to postpone more detailed planning until they start their detailed planning for that particular week.<\/p>

OK, that makes sense, but what does “next week” actually mean when I look at tasks over a longer timeframe?\u00a0 \u00a0With “Good Day”, the app provides the user with a facility to define how relative dates are translated into actual dates, and this can be changed and configured within the user settings form.\u00a0 Relative dates work at three levels:<\/p>

  • Week<\/i><\/b>. When choosing a relative week date, the task will be scheduled by default for a Friday. Therefore, if today is a Wednesday and the user selects “This Week”, the task will be assigned to the upcoming Friday.\u00a0 Alternatively, If the user chooses “Next week”, then the task will be scheduled for the following Friday.\u00a0 Setting the task to the end of the working week provides enough leeway for the user to change the specific data as part of their weekly planning process.\u00a0 \u00a0Friday is the default setting, and if the user would like another day of the week employed, then they can change this via the user settings form.<\/li>
  • Weekend.<\/i><\/b> When choosing a relative weekend date, the task will be scheduled by default for a Sunday. Therefore, if today is a Wednesday and the user selects “This weekend”, the task will be assigned to Sunday.\u00a0 \u00a0Sunday is the default setting, and if the user can change this to any other day of the week.<\/li>
  • Month<\/b>. When choosing a relative month date, the task will be scheduled by default to the last day of the month. Therefore, if today is 10 June and the user selects “Next Month”, the task will be assigned to 31 July.\u00a0 \u00a0 Again, the relative month settings can be changed via the user settings form.\u00a0<\/li><\/ul>
    \u00a0<\/div>
    Using relative dates is all well and good, but how does a user get to view the tasks assigned to these timeframes?<\/div>

    \u00a0<\/span><\/p>

    That’s easy with Good Day as the Tasks feature includes a “Horizons” view that allows the user to display tasks organized by one or more relative date columns,\u00a0 as shown below.<\/span><\/p>

    \"\"<\/p><\/div>

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    When it comes to scheduling new tasks, the most natural response is for a person to think in relative terms. “Yes, I’ll do that next week<\/em>,” or “I’ll aim to get that done next month,” or “Sure, I’ll get that done tomorrow.”<\/i> <\/span><\/p>\n

    This reflects how most people think in relative time frames.   Depending on how you work, that’s likely to revolve around a daily, weekly or monthly cycle.   That’s why, when it comes to scheduling tasks, the “Good Day” app provides the user with a relative date scheduling feature.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    When setting the value for a date field in “Good Day”, the user has the option to choose either a relative date value (e.g., “This week”, “Next month”) or a specific date value (e.g., Monday, 12 May 2025).  The value of relative dates is that the task is scheduled and not lost.   It has the advantage of setting the task into a timeframe that allows the user to consider more detailed planning as that relative timeframe approaches.  Hence, if a user decides to schedule a task for “next week”, then this allows them to postpone more detailed planning until they start their detailed planning for that particular week.<\/p>\n

    OK, that makes sense, but what does “next week” actually mean when I look at tasks over a longer timeframe?   With “Good Day”, the app provides the user with a facility to define how relative dates are translated into actual dates, and this can be changed and configured within the user settings form.  Relative dates work at three levels:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Week<\/i><\/b>. When choosing a relative week date, the task will be scheduled by default for a Friday. Therefore, if today is a Wednesday and the user selects “This Week”, the task will be assigned to the upcoming Friday.  Alternatively, If the user chooses “Next week”, then the task will be scheduled for the following Friday.  Setting the task to the end of the working week provides enough leeway for the user to change the specific data as part of their weekly planning process.   Friday is the default setting, and if the user would like another day of the week employed, then they can change this via the user settings form.<\/li>\n
    • Weekend.<\/i><\/b> When choosing a relative weekend date, the task will be scheduled by default for a Sunday. Therefore, if today is a Wednesday and the user selects “This weekend”, the task will be assigned to Sunday.   Sunday is the default setting, and if the user can change this to any other day of the week.<\/li>\n
    • Month<\/b>. When choosing a relative month date, the task will be scheduled by default to the last day of the month. Therefore, if today is 10 June and the user selects “Next Month”, the task will be assigned to 31 July.    Again, the relative month settings can be changed via the user settings form. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
       <\/div>\n
      Using relative dates is all well and good, but how does a user get to view the tasks assigned to these timeframes?

      <\/div>\n

       <\/span>That’s easy with Good Day as the Tasks feature includes a “Horizons” view that allows the user to display tasks organised by one or more relative date columns,  as shown below.<\/span><\/p>\n

      \n

      \"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

       <\/div>\n
      \n

      To access the ‘Horizons’ view:
      <\/p>\n

        \n
      • Select the Task feature from the left side feature panel.<\/li>\n
      • When the Tasks page displays, select the ‘Horizons’ view<\/li>\n
      • By default, the horizons view shows tasks by week.  Change this by clicking on the cogwheel ‘configure’ button in the toolbar.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n

        <\/div>\n
        \"\"<\/div>\n
        \n
          \n
        • This will open the Horizons view configuration form.   Change the ‘Horizons basis’ setting to ‘Custom’ and then click on the ‘folder’ icon in the custom horizons control to select the relative date options you would like displayed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

          <\/div><\/div>

          \"\"<\/p>

          Hopefully, this short article has given you a sense of how Good Day supports the naturalistic approach to scheduling work<\/p>\n

          <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          When it comes to scheduling new tasks, the most natural response is for a person to think in relative terms.\u00a0“Yes, I’ll do that next week,” or “I’ll aim to get that done next month,” or “Sure, I’ll get that done tomorrow.”\u00a0 This reflects how most people think in relative time frames.\u00a0 \u00a0Depending on how you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2249,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essays-in-software.com\/good-day\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essays-in-software.com\/good-day\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essays-in-software.com\/good-day\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essays-in-software.com\/good-day\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essays-in-software.com\/good-day\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2240"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/essays-in-software.com\/good-day\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2284,"href":"https:\/\/essays-in-software.com\/good-day\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240\/revisions\/2284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essays-in-software.com\/good-day\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essays-in-software.com\/good-day\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essays-in-software.com\/good-day\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essays-in-software.com\/good-day\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}