Re: How to estimate effort by week?

[Bernt Hansen <bernt@norang.ca>]

Christoph LANGE <ch.lange@jacobs-university.de> writes:

> Hi Bernt,
>
> thanks a lot for your advice.  Sorry, but it took some time until I
> found the time for trying it.  I think I understood how it works.
> Below I just have some minor questions.

Hi Christoph,

The delay is not a problem at all.

>
> 2011-11-19 16:32 Bernt Hansen:
>> Is this to help limit you to that time per week or for estimating?
>
> Indeed I was interested in limiting the time that I spend on some task.
>
>> For limiting you can set up something like this:
>>
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>> * STARTED Some task
>     ^^^^^^^
>
> OK, so this example uses another TOOD keyword, which I haven't had
> before.  I understand that your example also works without introducing
> a new state, but I'm not yet sure what TODO states I need to use this
> feature most efficiently.  See below for a more specific question
> about that.

Yes, I use STARTED as a todo keyword and it gets automatically set when
I clock in the task.  My setup details are at
http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html in case you want all the gory
details.

>
>> SCHEDULED:<2011-11-21 Mon +1w>
>> :LOGBOOK:
>> - State "DONE"       from "STARTED"    [2011-11-19 Sat 10:27]
>
> If I understand correctly, this mainly follows the habit tracking
> documented on the info page "Tracking your habits" – right?
>

No this isn't a habit because it doesn't have a STYLE property.  It's
just a regular repeating todo task.  A habit needs a repeater and a
STYLE property with a value of 'habit'.

>> CLOCK: [2011-11-19 Sat 10:25]--[2011-11-19 Sat 10:27] =>   0:02
>> CLOCK: [2011-11-19 Sat 09:28]--[2011-11-19 Sat 10:27] =>   0:59
>> :END:
>> :PROPERTIES:
>> :Effort: 1:00
>> :LAST_REPEAT: [2011-11-19 Sat 10:27]
>> :END:
>> Limit work to 60 minutes per week
>> Let it repeat for next week
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>>
>> where the task repeats at some interval (weekly since you want to work
>> up to 1 hour per week on this task).  When you clock in the task the
>> modeline shows your current clocked minutes on the task _since your last
>> repeat_.
>
> OK, that's basically what I wanted to achieve, and it's very nice that
> the clocked minutes are also shown in a warning face here when I
> exceed the limit.

It works for me :)

>
>> Set your Effort property to the limit you want for the task for the
>> interval and set your repeat to the size of your interval (1 hour per
>> week in this case)
>>
>> So when you reach the limit of 1 hour (in this case) you mark the task
>> DONE which stops the clock and rescheduled the task to the next repeat
>> date.
>
> More realistically I won't do that after one hour, but continue
> working on that task (with a guilty conscience), and then mark it DONE
> around the end of the week ;-)

I don't always stop when I go over either - but my clocked time is shown
with a bright red background I can't miss on the modeline and everytime
I clock in the task (ie capture something clocks in the capture task and
returns to this overrun task) my siren sound is played so it's very
obvious.

>
> OK, I see that marking such a task as DONE does not actually leave it
> in the DONE state but takes it back to the first TODO state.

When you mark a TODO task DONE (or CANCELLED or any other done-state
keyword it cycles back to TODO or to a specific state you specify in a
property REPEAT_TO_STATE)

> So far I had the TODO sequence "TODO DELEGATED | DONE CANCELLED" and
> tried to extend it to "TODO DELEGATED STARTED | DONE CANCELLED", but
> that would take my repeating task back to "TODO" instead of "STARTED"
> after marking it DONE.  I think a separate sequence of states would
> make more sense; maybe "STARTED | RESTARTED"?

If you want to force the state to STARTED then add a property like this
:PROPERTY:
:REPEAT_TO_STATE: STARTED
:END:

Regards,
Bernt