From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Carsten Dominik Subject: Re: GTD, Projects, and Next Actions in org-mode Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 19:32:27 +0200 Message-ID: <7bfcc1f98f63171ee53531eebe9faca6@science.uva.nl> References: <3dbac09fcc4853019690ee76c8c4a73f@science.uva.nl> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v624) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1GA8xq-0000kO-Vw for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Mon, 07 Aug 2006 13:32:31 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1GA8xq-0000j6-0j for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Mon, 07 Aug 2006 13:32:30 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1GA8xp-0000j2-SB for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Mon, 07 Aug 2006 13:32:29 -0400 Received: from [194.134.35.175] (helo=smtp04.wanadoo.nl) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.52) id 1GA927-0002dP-2p for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Mon, 07 Aug 2006 13:36:55 -0400 In-Reply-To: List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: "Jason F. McBrayer" Cc: emacs-orgmode 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