Bastien <b...@gnu.org> writes: > Slightly offtopic but I sat down this week-end trying to grasp with > very few words what I learned on how to use to-do lists efficiently > over the years, and here it is:
I am wondering if we can incorporate such or similar tips into Org mode manual. Similar to Elisp manual section info:elisp#tips, Org mode may introduce recommended usage of Agenda, TODO-lists, and other major Org mode components. Similar idea was also discussed in https://orgmode.org/list/x9e%2ffv%2f9hd4bl...@protected.rcdrun.com/ > I'm curious if this resonates with your experience. I have very similar experience, though I have several subtle comments on some points you raise. > Write less to-do items and more notes. Having less TODO items is really helpful. At some point, I found myself cherry-picking tasks that are easy to do, but not important in place of tasks that I really needed to do. Moving "wish to" tasks away from visibility really helps to focus as the size of todo-lists grows to thousands of tasks. Yet, I found it helpful to have few "wish to" notes as actual tasks. When you want to take a short break or have some free time it is handy to have some "light" task within reach. Otherwise, social media tends to fill all the free time slots. I have a setup to quickly move groups of "wish to" tasks between notes and tasks depending on my workload. > Your to-do list should be a list of things to do, not to remember While I generally agree with this, removing things to remember from visibility most often results in forgetting them, especially as the number remember notes grows to thousands. Thousands of notes are hard to review regularly. I find it useful to bring such notes to my attention from time to time using spaced repetition. > don't mix notes and tasks I agree with one exception - notes on literature/articles. For my work, I need to deal with a lot of reading. It is common that some book may need to be read multiple times looking for different kinds of information. Having common summary notes right in the "reading" task is quite helpful to get started, especially if the previous reading time was months ago. > Write precise, concise, atomic tasks This is a great suggestion. Vague tasks tends to be ignored or postponed. Having a very concrete action as a task makes it easy to do. Yet, assigning concrete action to some tasks may itself take significant time, especially for complex tasks requiring some research. For such tasks, I often add one simple action required to get started on the task. This does not require spending much time on planning each step to complete the task, yet making complex tasks look less intimidating. Best, Ihor