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* Archiving and not archiving...
@ 2009-03-10 20:56 Robert Goldman
  2009-03-11 15:07 ` Carsten Dominik
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 4+ messages in thread
From: Robert Goldman @ 2009-03-10 20:56 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: emacs-orgmode

[My apologies in advance if this is a FAQ.]

I have a bunch of Org files in which I have tasks some of which involve
doing something for work (trivial or non-trivial), and some of which
involve doing something for home (trivial like picking up laundry or
more important like doing a call to a company that needs to be logged).

My question has to do with archiving.  I archive my tasks to separate
archive files.  What I'd really like to be able to do is to identify
some tasks as being worth archiving (calling a company to request them
to fix a billing error, for example), and some of which are not (picking
up the dry cleaning, returning library books).

Does anyone have a technique for marking tasks so that they get
electively archived when one uses one of the archiving commands?

Or would it be best to just archive some tasks to a "garbage" location
and some to a "keep" location, and just periodically empty the garbage
location?

Thanks for any suggestions!

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread

* Re: Archiving and not archiving...
  2009-03-10 20:56 Archiving and not archiving Robert Goldman
@ 2009-03-11 15:07 ` Carsten Dominik
  2009-03-11 15:32   ` Robert Goldman
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 4+ messages in thread
From: Carsten Dominik @ 2009-03-11 15:07 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Robert Goldman; +Cc: emacs-orgmode


On Mar 10, 2009, at 9:56 PM, Robert Goldman wrote:

> [My apologies in advance if this is a FAQ.]
>
> I have a bunch of Org files in which I have tasks some of which  
> involve
> doing something for work (trivial or non-trivial), and some of which
> involve doing something for home (trivial like picking up laundry or
> more important like doing a call to a company that needs to be  
> logged).
>
> My question has to do with archiving.  I archive my tasks to separate
> archive files.  What I'd really like to be able to do is to identify
> some tasks as being worth archiving (calling a company to request them
> to fix a billing error, for example), and some of which are not  
> (picking
> up the dry cleaning, returning library books).
>
> Does anyone have a technique for marking tasks so that they get
> electively archived when one uses one of the archiving commands?

Hmm, this really seems to make sense only if you are using a command  
that scans the buffer for DONE tasks and archives all of them.  Is  
that what you do?

One possibility is to give tasks their own ARCHIVE property which  
could point to a garbage file for boring tasks.

I myself archive everything.  I don't care how big the archive gets  
because I only need to look at it if I need to find something back.   
Who cares how big this file is.

- Carsten

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread

* Re: Archiving and not archiving...
  2009-03-11 15:07 ` Carsten Dominik
@ 2009-03-11 15:32   ` Robert Goldman
  2009-03-11 15:42     ` Carsten Dominik
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 4+ messages in thread
From: Robert Goldman @ 2009-03-11 15:32 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Carsten Dominik; +Cc: emacs-orgmode

Carsten Dominik wrote:
> 
> On Mar 10, 2009, at 9:56 PM, Robert Goldman wrote:
> 
>> [My apologies in advance if this is a FAQ.]
>>
>> I have a bunch of Org files in which I have tasks some of which involve
>> doing something for work (trivial or non-trivial), and some of which
>> involve doing something for home (trivial like picking up laundry or
>> more important like doing a call to a company that needs to be logged).
>>
>> My question has to do with archiving.  I archive my tasks to separate
>> archive files.  What I'd really like to be able to do is to identify
>> some tasks as being worth archiving (calling a company to request them
>> to fix a billing error, for example), and some of which are not (picking
>> up the dry cleaning, returning library books).
>>
>> Does anyone have a technique for marking tasks so that they get
>> electively archived when one uses one of the archiving commands?
> 
> Hmm, this really seems to make sense only if you are using a command
> that scans the buffer for DONE tasks and archives all of them.  Is that
> what you do?

I typically have all of my tasks in a top-level headline, * Tasks, and
then use the subtree archiving command.  That is really equivalent to
what you say here --- it scans the buffer and (prompting me for
agreement) archives all of the tasks.

> 
> One possibility is to give tasks their own ARCHIVE property which could
> point to a garbage file for boring tasks.

Right, or (I think) I could have one archive file, with two top-level
items,

* Interesting Tasks
and
* Boring Tasks

and selectively archive to one or the other.

Probably this is too much trouble, since it would bloat up each of the
individual tasks.

Alternatively, in the org file that contains all my chores, I could have
a top-level "chores" headline, in addition to my top-level tasks
headline, I could put ARCHIVE properties on each one, and have two
different remember templates, one for routine chores and one for more
interesting tasks....
> 
> I myself archive everything.  I don't care how big the archive gets
> because I only need to look at it if I need to find something back.  Who
> cares how big this file is.

Possibly that's the right answer.  I was just concerned that I might
want something back and not be able to get it because it was surrounded
with a bunch of "pick up laundry" tasks...

Thank you very much for your advice,
Robert

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread

* Re: Archiving and not archiving...
  2009-03-11 15:32   ` Robert Goldman
@ 2009-03-11 15:42     ` Carsten Dominik
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 4+ messages in thread
From: Carsten Dominik @ 2009-03-11 15:42 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Robert Goldman; +Cc: emacs-orgmode


On Mar 11, 2009, at 4:32 PM, Robert Goldman wrote:

> Carsten Dominik wrote:
>>
>> On Mar 10, 2009, at 9:56 PM, Robert Goldman wrote:
>>
>>> [My apologies in advance if this is a FAQ.]
>>>
>>> I have a bunch of Org files in which I have tasks some of which  
>>> involve
>>> doing something for work (trivial or non-trivial), and some of which
>>> involve doing something for home (trivial like picking up laundry or
>>> more important like doing a call to a company that needs to be  
>>> logged).
>>>
>>> My question has to do with archiving.  I archive my tasks to  
>>> separate
>>> archive files.  What I'd really like to be able to do is to identify
>>> some tasks as being worth archiving (calling a company to request  
>>> them
>>> to fix a billing error, for example), and some of which are not  
>>> (picking
>>> up the dry cleaning, returning library books).
>>>
>>> Does anyone have a technique for marking tasks so that they get
>>> electively archived when one uses one of the archiving commands?
>>
>> Hmm, this really seems to make sense only if you are using a command
>> that scans the buffer for DONE tasks and archives all of them.  Is  
>> that
>> what you do?
>
> I typically have all of my tasks in a top-level headline, * Tasks, and
> then use the subtree archiving command.  That is really equivalent to
> what you say here --- it scans the buffer and (prompting me for
> agreement) archives all of the tasks.
>
>>
>> One possibility is to give tasks their own ARCHIVE property which  
>> could
>> point to a garbage file for boring tasks.
>
> Right, or (I think) I could have one archive file, with two top-level
> items,
>
> * Interesting Tasks
> and
> * Boring Tasks
>
> and selectively archive to one or the other.
>
> Probably this is too much trouble, since it would bloat up each of the
> individual tasks.
>
> Alternatively, in the org file that contains all my chores, I could  
> have
> a top-level "chores" headline, in addition to my top-level tasks
> headline, I could put ARCHIVE properties on each one, and have two
> different remember templates, one for routine chores and one for more
> interesting tasks....
>>
>> I myself archive everything.  I don't care how big the archive gets
>> because I only need to look at it if I need to find something  
>> back.  Who
>> cares how big this file is.
>
> Possibly that's the right answer.  I was just concerned that I might
> want something back and not be able to get it because it was  
> surrounded
> with a bunch of "pick up laundry" tasks...


In this case, tag important tasks with some tag
like :important: and do a sparse tree search for
this tag in the archive file.

C-c \ important RET

Also, Org stores a lot of
context info with the task as properties.  If you remember that
the task you are looking for had the "important" tag and used
to be a subtask of

* Tasks
** Financial

then you can do a tag search with

C-c \ +important+OLPATH="Task/Finance" RET

Archive files are org files, and all the searching facilities are  
available there.

- Carsten

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2009-03-11 15:42 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 4+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2009-03-10 20:56 Archiving and not archiving Robert Goldman
2009-03-11 15:07 ` Carsten Dominik
2009-03-11 15:32   ` Robert Goldman
2009-03-11 15:42     ` Carsten Dominik

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