advice re organizing todo agenda items

advice re organizing todo agenda items

[Filippo A. Salustri]

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Hi,
I'm hoping someone can offer some advice.
In my agenda is a todo list.  Let's say there's 10 things in the list.  What
I'd like to do is rotate the items, i.e.
1. I work on the first item for a while.
2. When I'm done for now, I'd like to push it down to the bottom of the
list.
3. Work on the next item (which is now at the top).
4. Wash, rinse, repeat.

If the items were all in 1 file, I could just refile an item to push it to
the bottom of the file or section.
The problem is that they're not in just 1 file.

At the moment, I'm subverting effort to fill that role.  By changing the
effort, I can move things around in the list.  But it's (a) a subversion of
effort and (b) just generally kludgy.

Anyone got any ideas?

Cheers.
Fil

-- 
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON
M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: salustri@ryerson.ca
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/

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Re: advice re organizing todo agenda items

[Samuel Wales]

Yes, use tags, then use a custom sort.  Or, if you do not use
priorities for local sorting, use priorities.

Re: advice re organizing todo agenda items

[Nick Dokos]

Filippo A. Salustri <salustri@ryerson.ca> wrote:


> Hi,
> I'm hoping someone can offer some advice.
> In my agenda is a todo list.  Let's say there's 10 things in the list.  What
> I'd like to do is rotate the items, i.e.
> 1. I work on the first item for a while.
> 2. When I'm done for now, I'd like to push it down to the bottom of the
> list.
> 3. Work on the next item (which is now at the top).
> 4. Wash, rinse, repeat.
> 
> If the items were all in 1 file, I could just refile an item to push it to
> the bottom of the file or section.
> The problem is that they're not in just 1 file.
> 
> At the moment, I'm subverting effort to fill that role.  By changing the
> effort, I can move things around in the list.  But it's (a) a subversion of
> effort and (b) just generally kludgy.
> 
> Anyone got any ideas?
> 

Priorities perhaps - you can change the priority of an item in the
agenda with + or - and refresh the agenda with `g'. When you are done
with the item for the time being, change its priority back to default or
lower and press `r'. When you are done, you can change the priorities
back to default with a bulk action using the function
org-agenda-priority [fn:1].

You'll probably need to adjust the value of org-agenda-sorting-strategy
so that priorities take precedence.

This won't push the tasks down the stack but it will keep the A task at
the top and the C tasks at the bottom. The ones at default will not
be marked, so they are easy to spot. Is that good enough?

Nick

Footnotes:

[fn:1] Resetting the priorities to default involves marking all the tasks
with priority cookies, pressing `B' to invoke the bulk action, then `f'
for a function, then typing `org-agenda-priority' for the function and
then pressing SPC for each marked task. All of this is much easier to do
than to describe, except for the typing of the function. I don't know if
this is possible already, but if not, consider it a feature request:
instead of typing the name of the function, press the key that is bound
to the function in the agenda (`,' for the case of org-agenda-priority).
It should be possible to find the function bound to the key and invoke it
as if its name was typed. How does that sound?

Re: advice re organizing todo agenda items

[Filippo A. Salustri]

Samuel & Nick,

I'm using priorities now, but there's only 3 of 'em.  I would prefer
finer control over them if I were to continue using priorities in this
way.

Q: My reading of the doc is that there's no way to change the number
of priorities org supports: we're "stuck" with A/B/C.  Right?

Tags may work, but will require more updating than I would prefer.
I come from the world of iPhone apps, and it's quite popular to have
apps that let you cycle through a list of items - essentially a
circular list.
It's also a foundation of Forster's Autofocus task management methods.

I'll take all this under advisement and see what I can think of.

Thanks!
Cheers.
Fil

On 30 March 2011 23:34, Samuel Wales <samologist@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, use tags, then use a custom sort.  Or, if you do not use
> priorities for local sorting, use priorities.
>



-- 
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON
M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: salustri@ryerson.ca
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/

Re: advice re organizing todo agenda items

[Steven Haryanto]

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On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 5:11 PM, Filippo A. Salustri <salustri@ryerson.ca>wrote:

> Samuel & Nick,
>
> I'm using priorities now, but there's only 3 of 'em.  I would prefer
> finer control over them if I were to continue using priorities in this
> way.
>
> Q: My reading of the doc is that there's no way to change the number
> of priorities org supports: we're "stuck" with A/B/C.  Right?
>
>
I believe you can change the list of priorities with this setting (which you
put in your Org file):

#+PRIORITIES: Low M High Whatever ...

PS: Sorry for the double reply. I usually subscribe to mailing lists which
set its Reply-To to list.

HTH,
Steven

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Re: advice re organizing todo agenda items

[T Helms]

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On 03/31/2011 06:41 AM, Steven Haryanto wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 5:11 PM, Filippo A. Salustri 
> <salustri@ryerson.ca <mailto:salustri@ryerson.ca>> wrote:
>
>     Samuel & Nick,
>
>     I'm using priorities now, but there's only 3 of 'em.  I would prefer
>     finer control over them if I were to continue using priorities in this
>     way.
>
>     Q: My reading of the doc is that there's no way to change the number
>     of priorities org supports: we're "stuck" with A/B/C.  Right?
>
> I believe you can change the list of priorities with this setting 
> (which you put in your Org file):
>
> #+PRIORITIES: Low M High Whatever ...
>
> PS: Sorry for the double reply. I usually subscribe to mailing lists 
> which set its Reply-To to list.
>
> HTH,
> Steven

You can change it globally through M-x customize-group RET org-priorities

I use 1-9 for finer control, it looks like you could go crazy with it if 
you really wanted!

Tracy

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Re: advice re organizing todo agenda items

[Filippo A. Salustri]

I just found org-{lowest,highest,default}-priority before coming to
work; didn't have time to post about them.  These do in fact let one
change the number of priorities.

I think, for now at least, I fall into the "go crazy" category.  I
range my priorities from A to Z. Hopefully I'll find a less expansive
way of doing it.

Cheers.
Fil

On 31 March 2011 08:18, T Helms <maxco.tr@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 03/31/2011 06:41 AM, Steven Haryanto wrote:
>
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 5:11 PM, Filippo A. Salustri <salustri@ryerson.ca>
> wrote:
>>
>> Samuel & Nick,
>>
>> I'm using priorities now, but there's only 3 of 'em.  I would prefer
>> finer control over them if I were to continue using priorities in this
>> way.
>>
>> Q: My reading of the doc is that there's no way to change the number
>> of priorities org supports: we're "stuck" with A/B/C.  Right?
>>
>
> I believe you can change the list of priorities with this setting (which you
> put in your Org file):
> #+PRIORITIES: Low M High Whatever ...
> PS: Sorry for the double reply. I usually subscribe to mailing lists which
> set its Reply-To to list.
> HTH,
> Steven
>
> You can change it globally through M-x customize-group RET org-priorities
>
> I use 1-9 for finer control, it looks like you could go crazy with it if you
> really wanted!
>
> Tracy
>



-- 
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON
M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: salustri@ryerson.ca
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/