Alert on an overdue task only when due dates are set deliberately rather than by default. On a board where most items carry an arbitrary date, the alert fires constantly and stops being read within a week. Fix the dates first, then the alert has something real to report.
Why this one is worth an interruption
This is the alert most likely to be switched on first and abandoned first. The reason is almost never the alert. It is that the due dates it reads were never commitments, they were placeholders typed to get past a required field.
A due date is worth alerting on when somebody agreed to it out loud. Everything else is a wish with a timestamp, and interrupting people about wishes is how you teach them to ignore interruptions.
The threshold
The settings that matter are about which tasks qualify, not about how late they are.
| Condition | Set it to | Why that number |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | tasks with an agreed owner | Unowned tasks are not late, they are unassigned |
| Grace period | a few hours, not days | Removes the end-of-day false alarm |
| Escalate | 48 hours past due | The first alert did not produce a decision |
| Exclude | tasks with no explicit due date | A default date is not a commitment |
| Digest instead | anything below your priority bar | Most overdue items are digest material |
Who should receive it
To the owner first, and only then to anyone else. Skipping that order turns a reminder into an escalation.
- The task owner, privately, on the first trigger.
- Whoever depends on it, only if the escalation trigger fires.
- Not a manager on the first alert. That converts a reminder into a report and makes people avoid due dates entirely.
What to do when it fires
- Ask whether the date was ever real. If it was not, that is the finding.
- Re-date it once, explicitly, with the owner agreeing to the new date.
- If it has been re-dated more than twice, the task is not a task. Either drop it or break it into something that can actually be finished.
- If several tasks are overdue for the same reason, the reason is the thing to fix.
When not to set this alert
Do not set this at all until due dates on your board mean something. Turning it on over placeholder dates guarantees the team learns to dismiss it, and you will not get that attention back cheaply.
Do not set it on a personal task list. Self-imposed dates slip for legitimate reasons and being interrupted about them helps nobody.
Common questions
Why do overdue task alerts get ignored?
Usually because the due dates were never commitments. If most items on a board carry a default date typed to satisfy a required field, an overdue alert is describing the board rather than reporting a problem.
Should a manager see the first overdue alert?
No. Send it to the owner privately first. Copying a manager immediately turns a reminder into a report, and the predictable response is that people stop setting due dates.
What if a task keeps being re-dated?
After two or three re-dates it is not a task. Either drop it honestly or break it into a piece small enough to actually finish.