Re: Re: depending TODOs, scheduling following TODOs automatically

["Piotr Zielinski" <piotr.zielinski@gmail.com>]

Hi,

I am generally against introducing very specialized features to
org-mode, for the same reasons as described by others in this thread.
The power of org-mode lies in simplicify of the model it offers:
information is a collection of lists that can be queried in various
ways.

This model is simple yet powerful.  For example, org-mode can be used
not only to store ordinary tasks ("pay rent", every month), but also
meta-tasks concerning the org-file itself ("make sure there are no
stuck projects", every week).  I find this simple idea of storing
meta-tasks very useful.  It gives your org-file "life", making it the
single point of trust.  As long as you remember to check your org-mode
every day, you will never forget anything.  Instead of following the
books that tell you to "develop a habit of ..." just put this habit as
an repetitive task in org-mode.

Back to task dependencies.  I use three tags: NEXT for enabled
actions, TODO for actions that wait for the previous one on the list,
and WAITING for actions that wait for something else.  Whenever an
action is completed, you can easily check whether the next TODO should
be enabled (changed to NEXT) or not.

WAITING actions (with dependencies across different lists) are more
tricky, but in my experience, are quite rare.  Here, if you know that
completing task A will enable task Q in another part of the file,
insert a meta-task "TODO enable [[Q]]" just after A.  No special
functionality needed, just standard linking.

Of course there are some cases in which this scheme doesn't work, but
these are not many, and I don't believe making them work automatically
is worth the effort.  This is because, in my case, most of the WAITING
actions rely on external triggers (email, phone call), which are
simply not automatable.

Piotr