Defer date
A defer date keeps a task out of sight until the day you named. It is the same idea as a start date, and the opposite of a due date, which says when something must be finished.
By Bohdan StefaniukLast updated
Defer, start, due — three different jobs
A due date says when something must be finished. A start date says when you intend to begin. A defer date adds one behaviour to the second: until it arrives, the task is not shown to you at all.
The word comes from OmniFocus. Most apps that have the behaviour call it a start date instead, which is why the two terms are usually interchangeable in practice. See start date.
Why it only matters at scale
With forty tasks you can see everything and skim, so hiding is pointless. With four hundred, a list that shows you March in January is a list you stop reading — and a list you have stopped reading is worse than no list, because you still believe it.
That is the failure people are trying to fix when they search for this. Todoist is unusually direct about not having it: it “does not support start dates that hide your tasks until their start date is due”, and its help centre offers six workarounds instead.
How TaskPocket does it
The start date is the defer date — one field, and a task does not appear in Today until its day. It is filed rather than hidden: Upcoming groups everything ahead by day, so it is one click away rather than in front of you. See start dates and deadlines.