Re: How to specify birthdays?

[Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>]

Dominic Surano <sk8ingdom@gmail.com> writes:

> Josef Wolf <jw <at> raven.inka.de> writes:
>
>> 
>> Hello,
>> 
>> I am trying to use org-mode for birthdays. I have tried those two entries:
>> 
>> * Calendar
>> ** Birthdays
>> *** Somebody
>>     SCHEDULED: <1970-05-20 Mo +1y>
>> *** Somebody1
>>     SCHEDULED:
>>  %%(org-anniversary 1970  5 20) Somebody1 is %d years old
>> 
>> The first entry is shown in the agenda for the current day as:
>> 
>>   Calendar:   Sched.358x:  Somebody
>> 
>> I find this a bit strange. I want a reminder a couple of days before the
>> event. But I don't want an everday reminder of how days have gone past the
>> last event.
>> 
>> The second entry doesn't appear at all in the agenda.
>> 
>> Any ideas what I am missing here?
>> 
>
> Make it a deadline instead of a SCHEDULED item and set it to the current 
> year with the +1y modifier. That way it will only come up a few days before 
> it's due.
>
> * Calendar
> ** Birthdays
> *** Somebody
>     DEADLINE: <2014-05-12 Tue +1y>

Deadlines and schedules are generally for things that require an action
on your part, and thus will continue to show up in the agenda as
un-acted-upon if you don't do anything. Usually, for things like
birthdays, you just use a plain timestamp (no scheduled or deadline),
and then you can just see it coming in the usual org agenda. I don't
think there's any other way to give a specific warning about an upcoming
timestamp, though...

Eric