* daniela-s...@gmx.it <daniela-s...@gmx.it> [2020-12-12 05:41]: > > And I think it is possible for anybody regardless of programming skill > > level to make one's own system of management of tasks within less than > > a week that will get more aligned to personal individualized way of > > handling tasks, then trying to accommodate personal needs to software > > that may have gone one completly wrong direction. > > If I said that I would be barraged by accusations of rudeness! :)
The key is in steganography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography Org mode is popular within subset of population using it where each other encourage to use it more regardless of how much tedious efforts it needs itself just to function how users would like it. Additionally majority of users use functions of Org mode which they would not need would they be simple be organized. A person well organized does not look throug agenda as that means lack of organization. Agenda helps those which are not organized. Just look at any friend or person who organizes life without computer and compare to people using Org mode. Software should replace slow methods with papers and make planning faster and non-repetitive. Any software shall help human to speed up actions. In general Org mode is excellent for personal TODO lists. That is what is offered in the menu, that is what is advertised. Problem is that there is no warning for users that personal TODO lists are not meant for anything but that. There is no collaboration, putting TODO items eveywhere IS procrastination. Using org-agenda to find procrastination is another procrastination. Trying to glue everything together is absence of good planning and not planning. While reading how people write to mailing list trying to solve problems they would never solve in the real world with paper I am getting more and more surprised. What Org mode needs is at least few Wiki pages where various methods of planning are presented as that could be useful to help people minimize their procrastination. My experience comes from writing plans since more than 25 years. I was always writing it on paper. Actions are chronologically and logically ordered. Main objectives are always well defined for which purpose subordinate actions have to be conducted. If main objectives are fullfiled those subordinate actions become redundant or superfluous. >From Org info file: > 5 TODO Items > ************ > Org mode does not maintain TODO lists as separate documents(1). > Instead, TODO items are an integral part of the notes file, because TODO > items usually come up while taking notes! For personal planning this may be fine for many, but I consider it bad habbit. If there is an action item then put any information necessary for that action within the action item. Print it along if necessary. Handle your thinker notes first once and completely and include what is necessary in action items. - person will not read the notes written back in time over and over again. - if notes are not necessary for the action, why put them in front of oneself to be read - horrible situations will take place if those notes which are not necessary are put in front of collaborator who is now expected to read action item and fulfill the action > because TODO items usually come up while taking notes! My action items have been written in project documents executed by multiple groups of people in multiple countries on distances of 5000+ kilometers away including by people who have never seen me face to face. I have never put "notes" together with action items. Whoever wrote that "TODO items usually comes up while taking notes" was referring to oneself and imposes this habit which I never had onto others. In other words the manual imposes specific method of planning without comparison to other methods of planning. Then users learn that is right thing to do, ah, let me put everything together. Since 2016 almost all project planning was written by Org mode as I find it useful to get LaTeX/PDF output. It is then printed, carried physically by people on the ground and signed with initialy physically by hand as DONE with the date and time. There known objectives and those are targets to be fulfilled. Any notes arriving back from collaborators are not placed into project planning. If such would enhance project planning they could become part of planning for the next project. But generally the feedback notes do not relate to project planning itself, they relate to people, organizations, findings on ground, they are part of the report. It is not necessary to re-write the report back into any Org file as the plan is separate from reports and executions. Conclusions which come later could result in some new plan. But initial plan is not to be mixed with new information, it is rather kept intact and maybe improved for next time execution. > With Org mode, simply mark any entry in a tree as being a TODO > item. In this way, information is not duplicated, and the entire > context from which the TODO item emerged is always present. That is the method I speak about. It is method of lack of planning but making "any entry in a tree as being a TODO item". That may be good for personal planning if those TODO lists are not many. As soon as lists become even little complex it will become opposite of what one intended to have. Instead of organized lists one get disorganized lists. TODO is everywhere. > Of course, this technique for managing TODO items scatters them > throughout your notes file. Org mode compensates for this by > providing methods to give you an overview of all the things that you > have to do. The Org manual does admit that the offered method is not a method at all. It speaks of habits of some disorganized authors who simply did not knew better. That TODO items are scattered it is not even considered bad habbit. That it prevents any kind of collaboration is not considered a bug. That it will ask for millions of compensations to get the overview of all things one has to do is presented as something common or normal. It is common only to procrastinators. My projects in Org mode were not written with TODO tags mostly because the projects are often duplicated or enhanced for various groups and persons and are NOT personaly. Duplicated projects would give me duplicate results if I would be using Org agenda. Which I do not use. I was looking at it from viewpoint to see what it does, but I never used. Why should I if I have not scattered my lists of actions around? If I have assigned some actions to me personally yesterday, I will know next day what is to be done. If there are many there will be list of things. Because list of things is anyway action item there will be no need to place large "TODO" tag there. Everything is TODO. When completed check it out. In collaborative execution of projects it has to be signed by initials and checked out with date and time. We want things done, and not spend time on computer to satisfy bad design of software that is not meant to be project planning software. Why should I be switching TODO items on computer back and forth when completed? Sounds redundant to me personally. If item is action it is in the list of actions, there is no need to mark it TODO. I may mark it completed and never turn it back again as TODO. Maybe every Org user could improve their execution of tasks in life by actually printing the tasks, by actually using PDF export and using papers. Prepare the list for printing. Your thinking will be different if you need to print it. Your list will have more sense. Especially try to prepare the list for other people to understand it. You will minimize the number of scattered intertwined notes around the action items this way. Print your list. Execute what is in the list. Compare the time you spend by using papers. You want your things done, you don't want marking properties, tags all the time. Get it done. Mark whole project as DONE in your computer file, archive or discard it. Then later in some other project try to do it with the Org mode alone on computer and without printing. Then see how much time you spend in making "decorations" in your Org file like tags, properties, etc. Review how many times you changed your schedule, deadline, etc. In other words observe your own procrastination. Compare the time you spend by using Org mode directly with the time you spend by using papers. Jean
