org-dblock-write:count

org-dblock-write:count

[Adam Spiers]

Hi all,

I just had an awesome conversation with Sacha about more effective
daily/weekly reviewing with org-mode :-)  One of the things we talked
about was quantifying the number of tasks (TODO keywords) in any given
state, as a means of becoming more aware of your progress over time.
I have had some success in the past using the "measure what you want
to manage maxim"[1], and wanted to start applying this to my horribly
massive TODO.org file.

Back in 2008, Carsten very generously implemented the
`org-map-entries' API function at my request[2] in order to facilitate
this kind of measurement, and I'm somewhat ashamed to say that I've
only just started to take advantage of it:

    (defun org-count-matches (search)
      "Count the number of matches from the given tag search in the
    current buffer, respecting any scope restriction."
      (interactive "sMatch: ")
      (length (org-map-entries t search)))

    (defun org-dblock-write:count (params)
      "Write a table showing the number of occurrences of each of the
    specified keywords and tag searches.  Example usage:

    #+BEGIN:dynamic block
    #+BEGIN: count :keywords (\"NEXT\" \"DONE\") :searches (\"@phone\" \"@home\")
    | NEXT       | 522 |
    | DONE       |  69 |
    | @phone     |  77 |
    | @home      | 182 |
    #+END:
    "
      (let ((keywords (plist-get params :keywords))
            (searches (plist-get params :searches))
            (format "| %-10s | %3d |\n"))
        (insert
         (concat
          (mapconcat (lambda (keyword)
                       (format format keyword (org-count-matches
                                               (concat "/" keyword))))
                     keywords "")
          (mapconcat (lambda (search)
                       (format format search (org-count-matches search)))
                     searches "")))
        (backward-delete-char 1)))

Sacha deserves a lot of credit for reminding me how easy it would be
to do this :-)

I suppose the next step would be to automate appending counts to a CSV
file or transmitting them to some kind of graphing service like
https://tempo-db.com/ (or preferably some free alternative like
quantifiedawesome ;-) via a REST API.

[1] http://blog.adamspiers.org/2011/05/15/email-nirvana/
[2] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2008-06/msg00208.html

Re: org-dblock-write:count

[Sebastien Vauban]

Hi Adam,

Adam Spiers wrote:
> I just had an awesome conversation with Sacha about more effective
> daily/weekly reviewing with org-mode :-)  One of the things we talked
> about was quantifying the number of tasks (TODO keywords) in any given
> state, as a means of becoming more aware of your progress over time.
> I have had some success in the past using the "measure what you want
> to manage maxim"[1], and wanted to start applying this to my horribly
> massive TODO.org file.
>
> [...]
>
>     #+BEGIN:dynamic block
>     #+BEGIN: count :keywords (\"NEXT\" \"DONE\") :searches (\"@phone\" \"@home\")
>     | NEXT       | 522 |
>     | DONE       |  69 |
>     | @phone     |  77 |
>     | @home      | 182 |
>     #+END:
>
> [...]

To me, the best thing would be to see that count up-to-date with every
custom agenda view.

See http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2013-09/msg01075.html
for a patch I proposed in that direction.

However, I had some comments of Bernt saying that some edge cases are
not covered (when the block separator is empty). I still have to fix
that, and come back with a fully working solution.

Best regards,
  Seb

-- 
Sebastien Vauban

Re: org-dblock-write:count

[Sebastien Vauban]

"Sebastien Vauban" wrote:
> Adam Spiers wrote:
>> I just had an awesome conversation with Sacha about more effective
>> daily/weekly reviewing with org-mode :-)  One of the things we talked
>> about was quantifying the number of tasks (TODO keywords) in any given
>> state, as a means of becoming more aware of your progress over time.
>> I have had some success in the past using the "measure what you want
>> to manage maxim"[1], and wanted to start applying this to my horribly
>> massive TODO.org file.
>>
>>     #+BEGIN:dynamic block
>>     #+BEGIN: count :keywords (\"NEXT\" \"DONE\") :searches (\"@phone\" \"@home\")
>>     | NEXT       | 522 |
>>     | DONE       |  69 |
>>     | @phone     |  77 |
>>     | @home      | 182 |
>>     #+END:
>
> To me, the best thing would be to see that count up-to-date with every
> custom agenda view.
>
> See http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2013-09/msg01075.html
> for a patch I proposed in that direction.
>
> However, I had some comments of Bernt saying that some edge cases are
> not covered (when the block separator is empty). I still have to fix
> that, and come back with a fully working solution.

An alternative could be `org-effectiveness', and having a hook to
display the count (in the mode line) at each opening of an Org file...

Best regards,
  Seb

-- 
Sebastien Vauban