Sorting agenda items

Sorting agenda items

[Manish]

Hello All,

  I would like to set up a daily agenda view with todos sorted in the
following order:

  1. Timed TODOs
  2. DEADLINES
  3. TODO type - STARTED
  4. TODO type - NEXT
  5. TODO type - TODO

  I could find/figure out how to do #1 and #2 but #3-5 escape me.  I
hope I did not miss it in the manual.

  The whole idea is to spend minimum brain cycles while picking up
next item from the agenda.  One way that makes sense for me is to
reduce the size of region that I would scan while picking up next item
(i.e. set of NEXT todos).  I think it's possible if one uses tags to
mark task state changes.  Not sure how to do it with TODO keywords.  I
wonder if people just pick up whatever is on the top of the agenda or
scan the whole list everytime you want to pick up next task?

Hope it made sense.

Thanks,
-- Manish

Re: Sorting agenda items

[Manish]

  On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 1:59 AM, Manish wrote:
  > Hello All,
  >
  >   I would like to set up a daily agenda view with todos sorted in the
  >  following order:
  >
  >   1. Timed TODOs
  >   2. DEADLINES
  >   3. TODO type - STARTED
  >   4. TODO type - NEXT
  >   5. TODO type - TODO
  >
  >   I could find/figure out how to do #1 and #2 but #3-5 escape me.  I
  >  hope I did not miss it in the manual.
  >
  >   The whole idea is to spend minimum brain cycles while picking up
  >  next item from the agenda.  One way that makes sense for me is to
  >  reduce the size of region that I would scan while picking up next item
  >  (i.e. set of NEXT todos).  I think it's possible if one uses tags to
  >  mark task state changes.  Not sure how to do it with TODO keywords.  I
  >  wonder if people just pick up whatever is on the top of the agenda or
  >  scan the whole list everytime you want to pick up next task?
  >
  >  Hope it made sense.
  >

  While searching for how people deal with this, I found this almost 3
year old wonderful post about strategies to approach your tasks:
http://www.murtworld.com/2005/04/revolving-workflow-strategies.php .

  And with latest sorting options "effort-up" and "effort-down", I
guess I have a sensible way to decide which next actions to pick up.
Thanks Carsten.  I am thinking it's even better than sorting on TODO
keywords.

  Now if only I can sort tasks based on their creation dates as
well. ;-) Just kidding.

-- Manish

Re: Sorting agenda items

[Carsten Dominik]

On Apr 17, 2008, at 10:29 PM, Manish wrote:

> Hello All,
>
>  I would like to set up a daily agenda view with todos sorted in the
> following order:
>
>  1. Timed TODOs
>  2. DEADLINES
>  3. TODO type - STARTED
>  4. TODO type - NEXT
>  5. TODO type - TODO
>
>  I could find/figure out how to do #1 and #2 but #3-5 escape me.  I
> hope I did not miss it in the manual.


You cannot sort tasks in an agenda view according to TODO type,
but you can make a block agenda that extracts the different task
types one by one.

For example

(setq org-agenda-custom-commands
    '(("A" "Task types"
       ((agenda "" nil)
       (todo "STARTED" nil)
       (todo "NEXT" nil)
       (todo "TODO" nil))
       nil nil)))

sets up a view that contains

1. The agenda, which includes scheduled and deadline stuff.
2. All STARTED entries
3. All NEXT entries
4. All TODO entries


The other posiility, if you want to reduce the amount of stuff you  
look at, is to make
separate commands for each of these

(setq org-agenda-custom-commands
    '(("A" . "Tasks")
      ("Aa" "My agenda" agenda "" nil)
      ("As" "STARTED Stuff" todo "STARTED" nil)
      ("An" "NEXT Actions" todo "NEXT" nil)
      ("At" "TODO Items" todo "TODO" nil)))

HTH

- Carsten

Re: Sorting agenda items

[Manish]

On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 9:32 PM, Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl> wrote:
>
>  On Apr 17, 2008, at 10:29 PM, Manish wrote:
>
>
> > Hello All,
> >
> >  I would like to set up a daily agenda view with todos sorted in the
> > following order:
> >
> >  1. Timed TODOs
> >  2. DEADLINES
> >  3. TODO type - STARTED
> >  4. TODO type - NEXT
> >  5. TODO type - TODO
> >
> >  I could find/figure out how to do #1 and #2 but #3-5 escape me.  I
> > hope I did not miss it in the manual.
> >
>
>
>  You cannot sort tasks in an agenda view according to TODO type,
>  but you can make a block agenda that extracts the different task
>  types one by one.
>
>  For example
>
>  (setq org-agenda-custom-commands
>    '(("A" "Task types"
>       ((agenda "" nil)
>       (todo "STARTED" nil)
>       (todo "NEXT" nil)
>       (todo "TODO" nil))
>       nil nil)))
>
>  sets up a view that contains
>
>  1. The agenda, which includes scheduled and deadline stuff.
>  2. All STARTED entries
>  3. All NEXT entries
>  4. All TODO entries
>
>
>  The other posiility, if you want to reduce the amount of stuff you look at,
> is to make
>  separate commands for each of these
>
>  (setq org-agenda-custom-commands
>    '(("A" . "Tasks")
>      ("Aa" "My agenda" agenda "" nil)
>      ("As" "STARTED Stuff" todo "STARTED" nil)
>      ("An" "NEXT Actions" todo "NEXT" nil)
>      ("At" "TODO Items" todo "TODO" nil)))
>
>  HTH
>

Sure does.  Thanks.

How do I build an agenda for items scheduled for today (only for
today, optionally also the ones not scheduled for any day as well)
matching a certain tag?

I have tried various combinations with little success.

I am using tag inheritance, have the tag added to the list of
inherited tags and also have org-tags-match-list-sublevels set to t.
Any help will be gratefully appreciated.

-- Manish

Re: Sorting agenda items

[Carsten Dominik]

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On Apr 19, 2008, at 10:43 AM, Manish wrote:
>
>
> Sure does.  Thanks.
>
> How do I build an agenda for items scheduled for today (only for
> today,
Use a custom command that makes an agenda, and use local options to set
   org-agenda-ndays 1
   org-scheduled-past-days 0
   org-deadline-warning-days 0

that should get you pretty far.


> optionally also the ones not scheduled for any day as well)
> matching a certain tag?


That would be a tag search, and then a local option

(org-agenda-skip-function '(org-agenda-skip-entry-if 'scheduled))

- Carsten

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