Quicker refile? Capture & progress cookies. Using capture to count/tally

Quicker refile? Capture & progress cookies. Using capture to count/tally

[Gez]

I have a list of "niggles" which are not on an active todo list
because they only occur to me from time to time, but I wanted to be
able to quickly note each time one of them bothers me, so that the
most annoying ones, the ones I would want to add to my todo list
first, might start to "rise to the surface".

So I created a capture template which inserts a "todo" under the
already listed niggle (which has a progess cookie).  It's simple and
reasonably fast.  Does anyone have any other ways of counting/tallying
in org-mode?

There are two issues with how I'm doing it.  One (pretty minor) is
that the inserted todo doesn't trigger off the progress cookie.  It's
not a big deal; when I want to know which niggle has the largest
count, I just need to do C-u C-c # in the file.  But I thought I'd
point it out in case it could be fixed.

The second issue is one I have with capture all the time; I want the
refile to be faster.  I have a few capture templates for logging that
send to a particular headline, but most times I use capture the target
can be anywhere in my main outlines.  As it is, I'm almost always
finishing up with C-c C-w, and in effect starting from scratch each
time, narrowing down to the target from all my agenda files.  I'd
really like a template where once I've called it and entered text or
tags or whatever, I use a single key press and the refile selection
would begin with a file or headline pre-selected for quick further
narrowing down. I don't know if that's do-able with IDO but I do
imagine it could work with file+headline, file+olp etc. They would
become file+headline+prompt etc and just as now, the template would
determine which target was first suggested, but then it would still be
"open" for quick further filtering before RET.    To summarise - my 2
ideas are: 1. to add something like "+prompt" to refile selection in
general, and 2. to allow capture templates with a "+prompt" target to
use a single key to start the refile process.  I hope all this makes
sense!

Geraldine

Re: Quicker refile? Capture & progress cookies. Using capture to count/tally

[Bernt Hansen]

Gez <suleika@gmail.com> writes:

> The second issue is one I have with capture all the time; I want the
> refile to be faster.  I have a few capture templates for logging that
> send to a particular headline, but most times I use capture the target
> can be anywhere in my main outlines.  As it is, I'm almost always
> finishing up with C-c C-w, and in effect starting from scratch each
> time, narrowing down to the target from all my agenda files.  I'd
> really like a template where once I've called it and entered text or
> tags or whatever, I use a single key press and the refile selection
> would begin with a file or headline pre-selected for quick further
> narrowing down. I don't know if that's do-able with IDO but I do
> imagine it could work with file+headline, file+olp etc. They would
> become file+headline+prompt etc and just as now, the template would
> determine which target was first suggested, but then it would still be
> "open" for quick further filtering before RET.    To summarise - my 2
> ideas are: 1. to add something like "+prompt" to refile selection in
> general, and 2. to allow capture templates with a "+prompt" target to
> use a single key to start the refile process.  I hope all this makes
> sense!

Hi Geraldine,

I almost exclusively use capture to quickly file away things I don't
want to forget.  This goes to my refile.org as a level 1 heading and
isn't attached to anything yet.

All of my tasks that need to be refiled show up on my block agenda view
in the second section - immediately under today's agenda view.  (see the
screen shot after the elisp at http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html#sec-5-1)

I'm using this block agenda view regularly during the day and the tasks
to be refiled are constantly 'in my face' until I do something with
them.

I refile these items mostly from the agenda - I tend to get 2 or 3 of
them that are going to the same target so I'll mark them with 'm' and
refile with 'B r'.  My refile setup uses IDO completion for refile
targets and I find this works very well.  If I'm refiling to file x.org
under '* Tasks' I'll do something like C-c C-w x.org C-SPC tasks RET The
order of entering x.org/tasks doesn't matter - IDO is limiting the
targets to the entered data so I can match part of what is left in the
list.

This works great for me and makes refiling much faster then when I used
full paths/completion in steps.

I've also set up refiling to remove DONE tasks from the list of
available completion targets.  This helps prevent mistakes where you
refile to an already done tree (or if you have repeating separate tasks
with the same  name only the open ones show up as refile targets.)

My refile setup is described at
http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html#Refiling

The reason this works so well (for me) is I put off refiling the task
until I have a minute or two during the day to deal with it.  Normally
when I'm capturing a task I'm in the middle of something and I just want
to record whatever details I need and return to what I was doing as
quickly as possible.  Refiling the thing to the right place isn't
important right now so I put that off.  Constantly having to move things
to the right place as you capture them will be too slow IMHO.

Hope that helps,

Regards,
Bernt

Re: Quicker refile? Capture & progress cookies. Using capture to count/tally

[Gez]

Bernt, I think your system (and your writing about it) is fantastic
and it has inspired me to develop mine.

On 17 November 2011 23:10, Bernt Hansen <bernt@norang.ca> wrote:
> Gez <suleika@gmail.com> writes:

> I almost exclusively use capture to quickly file away things I don't
> want to forget.  This goes to my refile.org as a level 1 heading and
> isn't attached to anything yet.

I was resisting doing that because I have different todo's for
different files, but - it just occured to me - what's to stop me
listing all of the possible todo's at the top of a refile org file?  I
might just do that.

> All of my tasks that need to be refiled show up on my block agenda view
> in the second section - immediately under today's agenda view.<snip>
> I'm using this block agenda view regularly during the day and the tasks
> to be refiled are constantly 'in my face' until I do something with
> them.

Yes, it would work if I added them to my block agenda.

> I refile these items mostly from the agenda - I tend to get 2 or 3 of
> them that are going to the same target so I'll mark them with 'm' and
> refile with 'B r'.  My refile setup uses IDO completion for refile
> targets and I find this works very well.  If I'm refiling to file x.org
> under '* Tasks' I'll do something like C-c C-w x.org C-SPC tasks RET The
> order of entering x.org/tasks doesn't matter - IDO is limiting the
> targets to the entered data so I can match part of what is left in the
> list.

It's because of reading your set-up that I use IDO now.  I't's
amazing.  Perhaps I need more practise in using it - cleverly
selecting what I enter - since I end up having to type the whole file
name including .org quite often.  As good practise, I should probably
consistently start with the headline, since my filenames are not
unique enough (they match the equivalent archive file and also other
headlines).

> I've also set up refiling to remove DONE tasks from the list of
> available completion targets.  This helps prevent mistakes where you
> refile to an already done tree (or if you have repeating separate tasks
> with the same  name only the open ones show up as refile targets.)

I've had your page open for a while in firefox, gradually re-reading,
working through and modifying my setup.  I was going to tackle some
clock-related stuff next, but now I think removing DONE tasks from the
list of targets might be the next thing I add.

>Refiling the thing to the right place isn't
> important right now so I put that off.  Constantly having to move things
> to the right place as you capture them will be too slow IMHO.

I do know what you mean.  I think I've erroneously feared that if I
insert a reminder out of context, I need to be more verbose than I
would otherwise, or I will forget later what it means, but I can
imagine that if I frequently check the items to refile, I probably
won't forget.

> Hope that helps,

Very much indeed.
Thank you.
Geraldine