Org-mode 4.43

Org-mode 4.43

[Carsten Dominik]

Version 4.43 fixes the latest bugs reported here by Christian Egli, 
Philip Rooke, and Steven Rogers.  The new release is available now, 
through Emacs CVS and at

http://www.astro.uva.nl/~dominik/Tools/org/

This is the "summer release", I will be offline for a few weeks.  I'd 
like to thank everyone who has contributed here over the last few 
months.  I certainly had a lot of fun, hope you did too.

- Carsten

GTD, Projects, and Next Actions in org-mode

[Jason F. McBrayer]

I thought I'd ask to see how other people who are using org for
Getting Things Done are handling projects and their relationship to
Next Actions.  I've tried out several approaches, and while I can rule
out a few as no good, there are some with enough plusses and minuses
to keep me from being really happy with any of them.

My first go was to have a top-level category for projects, with a
headline for each project under that.  This worked for keeping track
of my list of projects, but it didn't give me any way to tell what
project a Next Action was associated with.

My next attempt was to mix together projects and next actions, with
next actions coming hierarchically under the project they were
associated with.  Projects have a tag unique to that project, but
distinct from the tags I am using for contexts (contexts start with @,
projects with nothing).  This works, but the only way to get a list of
projects is to either look manually through the file, or get the list
of tags and ignore the ones that are contexts.

I've tried two others:  one is to make PROJECT an org-todo-keyword.
This makes it very easy to get a list of projects, with the negative
side effect that projects can show up in context lists if they are
tagged with a context so that their Next Actions can inherit it (e.g.,
home improvements are all tagged @Home).  This would work fine if I
didn't use tag inheritance, or was conscientious about not putting
contexts in projects.  The other thing I've tried is to make "Project"
a tag.  This obviously works only if one is not using tag
inheritance --- if you're not, then it's easy to get a list of
projects, but if you are, you'll get all your next actions, too.

What are other people doing to keep track of their projects?  Is
having projects listable all that important?

-- 
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Jason F. McBrayer                    jmcbray@carcosa.net  |
| A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, |
| even though we do not love it.            -- Dogen        |

Re: GTD, Projects, and Next Actions in org-mode

[Tim O'Callaghan]

On Thu, Aug 03, 2006 at 04:36:51PM -0400, Jason F. McBrayer wrote:
> 
> I thought I'd ask to see how other people who are using org for
> Getting Things Done are handling projects and their relationship to
> Next Actions.  I've tried out several approaches, and while I can rule
> out a few as no good, there are some with enough plusses and minuses
> to keep me from being really happy with any of them.
> 
> My first go was to have a top-level category for projects, with a
> headline for each project under that.  This worked for keeping track
> of my list of projects, but it didn't give me any way to tell what
> project a Next Action was associated with.
> 
> My next attempt was to mix together projects and next actions, with
> next actions coming hierarchically under the project they were
> associated with.  Projects have a tag unique to that project, but
> distinct from the tags I am using for contexts (contexts start with @,
> projects with nothing).  This works, but the only way to get a list of
> projects is to either look manually through the file, or get the list
> of tags and ignore the ones that are contexts.
> 
> I've tried two others:  one is to make PROJECT an org-todo-keyword.
> This makes it very easy to get a list of projects, with the negative
> side effect that projects can show up in context lists if they are
> tagged with a context so that their Next Actions can inherit it (e.g.,
> home improvements are all tagged @Home).  This would work fine if I
> didn't use tag inheritance, or was conscientious about not putting
> contexts in projects.  The other thing I've tried is to make "Project"
> a tag.  This obviously works only if one is not using tag
> inheritance --- if you're not, then it's easy to get a list of
> projects, but if you are, you'll get all your next actions, too.
> 
> What are other people doing to keep track of their projects?  Is
> having projects listable all that important?
> 

At the moment my current project 'template' is:

* Project name                                             :proj:projectcontext:
  Project outcomes/visualization/rationale
  file:link to project reference files/directories
  file:link to project source files/directories

*** [DONE|X|10|15|30|45] next action                       :Next Action context:
***** [DONE|10|15|30|45] sub action                        :Next Action context:


Where :proj: means its a project description context. [DONE....] is
the next action type. This is either DONE, X (untimed),
10... estimated next action time.

Still its still very hard to manage lots and lots of projects.

Tim.

Re: GTD, Projects, and Next Actions in org-mode

[Piotr Zielinski]

On 03/08/06, Jason F. McBrayer <jmcbray@carcosa.net> wrote:

> I thought I'd ask to see how other people who are using org for
> Getting Things Done are handling projects and their relationship to
> Next Actions.

Thanks for bringing up this topic.  You're definitely not alone with
this problem, and I'd also like to know how others use org-mode for
GTD stuff.

I have a headline "* projects" with individual projects as
second-level headlines, sorted (manually and approximately) from the
most-important to the least important.  To mark  "next action" items I
just use the TODO keyword.   (Alternatively you can define a special
NEXTACTION keyword or tag.)  If I need to see the global list of my
nextaction items I use one of the following commands:
org-show-todo-tree (C-c C-v),
org-tags-sparse-tree (C-c \), org-agenda.  A bit of self-publicity
here: I find context-menus of org-mouse.el useful for invoking these
commands.

Allen recommends keeping all your info as a series of various lists,
but the advantage of org-mode is that some of those lists (such as the
list of current nextaction items) can be autogenerated every time it's
needed and not kept anywhere explicitly.

Apart from the "*projects" headline, I also have a "*todo" headline,
where I put all the todo items which are not clearly assignable to a
specific project (or when I simply don't have the time for finding the
appropriate project to put them under).  Once every while, I go
through the "*todo" hierachy and move some items into the appropriate
projects.  Sometimes groups of entries in the "*todo" hierarchy evolve
to the point of becoming a separate project by themselves.  This might
 look like a mess, but actually it allows me to spend more time doing
things than organizing them.

Actually, I was lying a bit: I don't have one "*projects" headlines,
but several of them: "*research activities", "*research projects",
"*other projects", all sorted from most-current to least-current.  I
recommend having separate project lists only if you have a clear-cut
distinction between them.  I also periodically move all projects
further than 10-15 places from the top of each list to one common list
"* one day / maybe".

Piotr

Re: GTD, Projects, and Next Actions in org-mode

[Claudine Chionh]

I am doing postgraduate study, have two jobs and sit on a few
committees so perhaps this busy-ness is reflected in my system.
I use an ever-growing collection of org files, all stored in the
~/org/ directory.

Each file falls into one of the following categories:
- a single project
- "diary" file for one-off tasks and appointments that don't fit into
  a project
- reference material
- lists of lists

Regarding projects, I have a projects.org file that links to
individual project files.  The project list is divided into different
domains of life (personal, job 1 and job 2) and further divided into
current/active projects, closed/archived projects and
deferred/postponed projects.

Most project files have the following level 1 headings:
- Actions
- Diary
- Notes

Actions can be further subdivided so I might have something like this:

* Actions

** TODO code X

*** TODO ask Y what he means by "Z"

I use tags like "waiting", "delegate" and people's names to identify
actions that depend on other people.

The diary section combines future appointments with notes relating to
past appointments.

The agenda view is essential for drawing all these separate files
together and giving me an overview of what I should be doing at any
time.  All of the files are stored in a CVS repository.

Hope this helps,
Claudine

-- 
Claudine Chionh <claudine@chionh.org>
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
http://chionh.org/

Re: GTD, Projects, and Next Actions in org-mode

[Carsten Dominik]

Hi Jason,

thanks for starting this discussion.

It seems to me that you are mainly concerned about dynamically 
producing a list of projects.  Have you thought about using a special 
tag for the top line of all project, something like :PROJECT:?

You can then get a list of all projects by making a tags search on
:PROJECT:, for example through a custom search like

(setq org-agenda-custom-commands
       '(("p" tags "+PROJECT")))

This will get you the list with `C-c a p'.

You may run into problems with this approach if you have set 
org-tags-match-list-sublevels to a non-nil value, because then, due to 
tag inheritance, every headline *inside* each project will also show up 
in the resulting list.  To work around this, you may define your own 
special command like this:

(defun my-org-project-list ()
   "Get me a list of projects."
   (interactive)
   (let ((org-tags-match-list-sublevels nil))
     (org-tags-view nil "+PROJECT")))

Hope this helps.

- Carsten

On Aug 3, 2006, at 22:36, Jason F. McBrayer wrote:

>
> I thought I'd ask to see how other people who are using org for
> Getting Things Done are handling projects and their relationship to
> Next Actions.  I've tried out several approaches, and while I can rule
> out a few as no good, there are some with enough plusses and minuses
> to keep me from being really happy with any of them.
>
> My first go was to have a top-level category for projects, with a
> headline for each project under that.  This worked for keeping track
> of my list of projects, but it didn't give me any way to tell what
> project a Next Action was associated with.
>
> My next attempt was to mix together projects and next actions, with
> next actions coming hierarchically under the project they were
> associated with.  Projects have a tag unique to that project, but
> distinct from the tags I am using for contexts (contexts start with @,
> projects with nothing).  This works, but the only way to get a list of
> projects is to either look manually through the file, or get the list
> of tags and ignore the ones that are contexts.
>
> I've tried two others:  one is to make PROJECT an org-todo-keyword.
> This makes it very easy to get a list of projects, with the negative
> side effect that projects can show up in context lists if they are
> tagged with a context so that their Next Actions can inherit it (e.g.,
> home improvements are all tagged @Home).  This would work fine if I
> didn't use tag inheritance, or was conscientious about not putting
> contexts in projects.  The other thing I've tried is to make "Project"
> a tag.  This obviously works only if one is not using tag
> inheritance --- if you're not, then it's easy to get a list of
> projects, but if you are, you'll get all your next actions, too.
>
> What are other people doing to keep track of their projects?  Is
> having projects listable all that important?
>
> -- 
> +-----------------------------------------------------------+
> | Jason F. McBrayer                    jmcbray@carcosa.net  |
> | A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, |
> | even though we do not love it.            -- Dogen        |
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode
>
>

--
Carsten Dominik
Sterrenkundig Instituut "Anton Pannekoek"
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Kruislaan 403
NL-1098SJ Amsterdam
phone: +31 20 525 7477

Re: GTD, Projects, and Next Actions in org-mode

[Carsten Dominik]

Hi Piotr,

one question:

On Aug 4, 2006, at 15:38, Piotr Zielinski wrote:

> Actually, I was lying a bit: I don't have one "*projects" headlines,
> but several of them: "*research activities", "*research projects",
> "*other projects", all sorted from most-current to least-current.  I
> recommend having separate project lists only if you have a clear-cut
> distinction between them.  I also periodically move all projects
> further than 10-15 places from the top of each list to one common list
> "* one day / maybe".

What you write here look like you are using headings in which there is 
no space between the stars and the text.  I was considering to require 
this space in order to avoid confusion with *bold* emphasis.  So I am 
wondering, are you, or anybody else relying on the fact that you can 
write

***This is is a heading

as well as

*** This is a heading.

Thanks

- Carsten

Re: GTD, Projects, and Next Actions in org-mode

[Tim O Callaghan]

Thinking of next actions this morning while cycling to work, made me
wonder if it is possible to vet your org mode outlines.

By vet, I mean check for consistency. For example, in my case, asking
agenda to give me a list of projects that have actions associated with
them that are not next actions. I use the concept of :proj: tag to
denote a project (an idea which i thank whomever is stole it from), I
then use the TODO types to denote next action, and possibly other
context tags.

An example would be:

* Org Project                                                 :proj:
  This is an example of an ok project
*** 10 This is a next action - email about blah               :email:
*** TODO This is an untimed next action to consider purple.

* Stuck Project                                               :proj:
  This is an example of a stuck project. No next actions though some tasks.
*** Should i nuke the site from orbit? it *is* the only way to be sure.
*** check the batteries on the cargo lifter?
*** check out the APC

* unthought about Project                                    :proj:
  I don't even have next actions for this project :(

I would like to be able to highlight up the 'stuck project' and the
'unthought about project' automagically during my morning review.

What do you think?

Tim.Thinking of next actions this morning while cycling to work, made me
wonder if it is possible to vet your org mode outlines.

By vet, I mean check for consistency. For example, in my case, asking
agenda to give me a list of projects that have actions associated with
them that are not next actions. I use the concept of :proj: tag to
denote a project (an idea which i thank whomever is stole it from), I
then use the TODO types to denote next action, and possibly other
context tags.

An example would be:

* Org Project                                                 :proj:
  This is an example of an ok project
*** 10 This is a next action - email about blah               :email:
*** TODO This is an untimed next action to consider purple.

* Stuck Project                                               :proj:
  This is an example of a stuck project. No next actions though some tasks.
*** Should i nuke the site from orbit? it *is* the only way to be sure.
*** check the batteries on the cargo lifter?
*** check out the APC

* unthought about Project                                    :proj:
  I don't even have next actions for this project :(

I would like to be able to highlight up the 'stuck project' and the
'unthought about project' automagically during my morning review.

What do you think?

Tim.

Re: GTD, Projects, and Next Actions in org-mode

[Carsten Dominik]

Hmmmm,

of course everything is possible.  The problem I see is how to 
implement this in a general way so that it will be useful to many 
people with slightly or strongly different ways of getting things done 
with Org-mode.  For example, if I understand you correctly, you 
consider a project OK if it has a TODO keyword, or a context tag.  
Other people might require TODO together with a context tag, because 
when they mark the entry done they do not want to remove the context 
tag.  Furthermore, you would have to have a way to specify the relevant 
context tags, so that Org-mode could find them and ignore other tags 
used for a different purpose.  Etc Etc.

So if anyone has an idea on how a general concept of vet'ing a project 
would look like, in addition to what Tim has proposed, please come 
forward.

- Carsten

On Aug 10, 2006, at 11:14, Tim O Callaghan wrote:

> Thinking of next actions this morning while cycling to work, made me
> wonder if it is possible to vet your org mode outlines.
>
> By vet, I mean check for consistency. For example, in my case, asking
> agenda to give me a list of projects that have actions associated with
> them that are not next actions. I use the concept of :proj: tag to
> denote a project (an idea which i thank whomever is stole it from), I
> then use the TODO types to denote next action, and possibly other
> context tags.
>
> An example would be:
>
> * Org Project                                                 :proj:
>   This is an example of an ok project
> *** 10 This is a next action - email about blah               :email:
> *** TODO This is an untimed next action to consider purple.
>
> * Stuck Project                                               :proj:
>   This is an example of a stuck project. No next actions though some 
> tasks.
> *** Should i nuke the site from orbit? it *is* the only way to be sure.
> *** check the batteries on the cargo lifter?
> *** check out the APC
>
> * unthought about Project                                    :proj:
>   I don't even have next actions for this project :(
>
> I would like to be able to highlight up the 'stuck project' and the
> 'unthought about project' automagically during my morning review.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Tim.