Re: Interpretation of priorities in org-mode

[Stephan Schmitt <drmabuse@cs.tu-berlin.de>]

Hello,

I think there are two possible interpretations of 'priority', /importance/ and 
/urgency/.

It is up to the user which is preferred.  You propose the interpretation as 
urgency: "I have to do that thing today/this week/sometime".  Importance may 
come into play with your daily decision, what to do next.  The advantage of this 
approach is the better quantifiability of 'urgency'.

At the moment in org-mode you have to opt for one interpretation.  But with the 
fresh and cool property feature in org-mode it should be possible to incorporate 
both aspects together.  Somehow.

Just a thought, though.

Greetings,
	Stephan

Piotr Zielinski wrote:
> Hi.
> 
> I'd like to find out how different people use priorities (#A, #B, ...)
> in org-mode.  I've always assumed the standard interpretation (#A =
> high priority, #B = medium, #C = low).  However, the problem with this
> approach is that what "high priority" means is not well defined, and
> if you are not careful, then all your items will quickly become high
> priority, which defeats the whole point.
> 
> I've been recently experimenting with a different interpretation of
> priorities: #B = tasks to do today, #C = tasks to do this week, #D =
> all the rest, default.  #A is reserved at the moment.  One good thing
> about this system is a clearer interpretation of priorities.  Another is
> that it separates the action of inserting new items into your todo
> list and that of assigning a particular priority to them.  In
> particular, at the beginning of each day, you can look at your list of
> todos/deadlines/scheduled, and pick a few to complete on that day by
> giving them the #B priority.  At any time of the day, the agenda will
> show you these #B items clearly separated from the rest.  Previously,
> I had to do a mental rescanning of the agenda items each time I
> was wondering "what do I have to do now", which was rather stressful.
> 
> Of course, I've tried this only for a couple of days, so my
> conclusions might be completely bogus.  Maybe there is a better way
> than priorities to mark items as "to complete today".  I'd definitely
> like to know what others think about it.