help with sorting a property that is a link to daily note

[mbderden]

I hope I'm just missing something really simple - but could use some help with sorting by a date property.
I have a date property "startdate: " that I would like to sort by...
The problem arises when the date is a link to the daily note. Whether or not the daily note exists throws off the sort.

I have tried: sort startdate and sort date(startdate) with no luck

TABLE without ID
file.link AS "Project",
startdate as Start, enddate as End,
status as Status
from "Projects/Work"
where (archive != true) and (status != "Done")
sort date(startdate) ASC

Appreciate any help from you legends!