Hi, Bastien writes:
>> How do you decide what to do next? > > I bind `=' to a custom agenda command that will find out what to do > next depending on the Emacs context. > > For example, when reading emails, C-c a = will find next emails to > process; when in *.el C-c a = will find next Emacs/Org bugs to deal > with; when in my big garden.org file, C-c a = will find the next > useless stuff I want to watch/read. > > (See `org-agenda-custom-commands-contexts' if you don't use it yet.) > > I don't use clocking that much, but I do set efforts nonetheless, > because I like using `org-agenda-max-effort' in agenda views: this > way I'm sure the agenda is not cluttered with tasks I didn't care > enough about to set an effort for them. That sounds interesting. > And above all, I try to discipline myself not setting to many > "NEXT" tasks. First my notion of "NEXT" was "Yeah, I can do this > quickly!", now it is more like "This *needs* to be done next", > obviously a small set. I currently use the following agenda, which I have always visible on a second monitor together with my single org file in a split view. (setq org-agenda-custom-commands '(("g" "My GTD Agenda" ((agenda "" ((org-agenda-ndays 1) (org-agenda-start-on-weekday nil) (org-agenda-entry-types '(:timestamp :sexp)) (org-agenda-overriding-header "Appointments"))) (agenda "" ((org-agenda-ndays 1) (org-agenda-start-on-weekday nil) (org-agenda-entry-types '(:deadline)) (org-agenda-overriding-header "Upcoming Deadlines") (org-agenda-sorting-strategy '(priority-down time-down)) (org-agenda-skip-function '(org-agenda-skip-entry-if 'todo 'done)))) (agenda "" ((org-agenda-ndays 1) (org-agenda-start-on-weekday nil) (org-agenda-entry-types '(:scheduled)) (org-agenda-overriding-header "Scheduled") (org-agenda-sorting-strategy '(priority-down time-down)) (org-agenda-skip-function '(org-agenda-skip-entry-if 'todo 'done)))) (todo "WAIT" ((org-agenda-sorting-strategy '(priority-down)) (org-agenda-overriding-header "Waiting For"))) (todo "NEXT" ((org-agenda-sorting-strategy '(priority-down effort-down)) (org-agenda-skip-function '(org-agenda-skip-entry-if 'scheduled 'deadline)) (org-agenda-overriding-header "Next actions not being scheduled nor having a deadline"))) (todo "TODO" ((org-agenda-sorting-strategy '(priority-down effort-down)) (org-agenda-skip-function '(org-agenda-skip-entry-if 'scheduled 'deadline)) (org-agenda-overriding-header "Future actions not being scheduled nor having a deadline"))) (todo "PROJ" ((org-agenda-overriding-header "Active Projects"))))))) Everything that consists of two or more sub-tasks is marked as a project (PROJ) until it is DONE. A NEXT action is an action that could be done immediately, i.e. there are no other actions that need to be done for being able to do that. In GTD speech a loose end. If a task is just marked with TODO, then there is one or more task that needs to be done, before I will be able to do it. So I end up with a lot of open NEXT and TODO tasks. To select some to be done on a specific day (e.g. today) I use scheduling and deadlines. Sometimes I use efforts, but clocking I use consequently. Project review is supported by using '(org-enforce-todo-dependencies t). So projects with no defined next action are colored differently. Sometimes I go through my big list of open tasks and close some which I am not going to do anymore by setting them to a special done state CNCL. Even if I have only six tasks on my scheduled list for today, knowing that I will not be able to finish all of them really today, I see me constantly judging one against the others trying to find the most important. This eats mental resources, that would be better used doing one of them, but doing simply a random task, keeps me reconsidering, what also eats up mental resources. Has anyone an idea how to escape from that mental state of constant reconsidering? Daniel -- Daniel Bausch Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter Technische Universität Darmstadt Fachbereich Informatik Fachgebiet Datenbanken und Verteilte Systeme Hochschulstraße 10 64289 Darmstadt Germany Tel.: +49 6151 16 6706 Fax: +49 6151 16 6229