To-Do's v. Calendar Events

What's the difference between a Calendar Event and a To-Do? I believe that tasks and events are merely different views of the same thing: Things To Do That Happen Over Time. But my notion of these things isn't reflected in many software applications. Most applications treat these as different species, with different *screens* and *set-ups* for events and tasks.

Tasks don't place in a vacuum: they're typically assigned, and due, on a given day and time. Similarly, few events are without associated tasks--an event is often just a task's deadline. For example, a court hearing on a motion is a calendar event that requires preparation: re-read the briefs, prepare for the judge's questions, and perhaps prepare a form order. Consider a Statute of Limitations: If you merely "calendar" the 2-year Statute of Limitations on the appropriate calendar date, you don't account for all of the actions required to appropriately satisfy the Statute, most of which should happen many months before that date.

I would like to see all of my To-Do's in a Calendar view. Some will terminate with a Calendar Event, in which case I'd like to be able to see on my calendar that I've got, for example, 30 days before a court hearing, or 45 days before a brief is due. This would help inform my agenda for the day or week. Some might object that tons of tasks would unduly muck up a Calendar view, but my answer to that is *filters*, as well as the ability to view everything in a traditional list view, as with most To-Do lists. So far I've only seen something approaching what I'd really like in Central Desktop and Same Page.

I've also been searching for what I'd call "Count-Down" and "Count-Up" functionality in a Calendar View. Count downs track the number of days left to prepare for a given calendar deadline. I'd like to view tasks by count down to focus on my shortest deadlines first, and be reminded of count down tasks regularly. Count ups could help track things like billable hours and CLE. Suppose I need 30 hours of CLE in a given year, with a Calendar count-up I can log the hours I've put it and be reminded on a regular basis of how many hours I've yet to finish before the year-end deadline.

If anyone is aware of this type of functionality in a single-user environment (and preferably free), please leave a comment. I've given feedback to the good people at Scrybe suggesting that they include this in their next beta release, but I'm not holding out hope. Interestingly, Plaxo's calendar does Count-Downs. However, I can only get my GroupWise calendar to synch with Google Calendar, and when I synch Plaxo with Google it creates an all-day event across all of the count-down days, which creates a mess.