In a now closed topic someone asked:

I am trying to set up recurring routines and am hoping that someone can recommend ways that work best. I guess I am trying to determine whether parent items and their children should both be set to “routinely” or whether either one should be set to “once” and the other set to “routinely” or ???

For example, I am considering a simple end of day routine which might be set up something like:

- End of Day Routine
--- Clear work spaces (everything in its place)
--- Process collection boxes
------ Pocket Notebook
------ Acecad Digimemo
------ In-Box
--- Label new files
--- Review Calendar
--- Review To Do List

What happens differently in the above scenario if I set the top item to “by routine” and the children to “once”, the top item to “once” and the children to “routinely” or all of them to “routinely”? Or maybe there is a better way than any of these.

I use special places for each routine.

In the example above I would make a place "End of the day" and assign this place to the 'End of Day Routine' task and all its children. I would set the time of the 'End of Day Routine' task to 'routinely, every day, lead time 8 hours', and the time of the children to 'once'. I would also check 'complete subtasks in order'.

When it is time to carry out your end of the day routine, open your to do list, set the place to 'End of the day' and the first task ('Clear work spaces') appears. When you check it off, the second one appears ('Pocket Notebook') and so on until you see "End of the Day Routine". When you check this last task off, the place becomes empty and you know you're done. The place will remain empty for the next 16 (24 minus 8) hours when 'Clear work spaces' appears again.