Re: SOMEDAY/MAYBE vs. low priorities

[Adam Spiers <orgmode@adamspiers.org>]

(More Structured Procrastination... ;-)

Adam Spiers (orgmode@adamspiers.org) wrote:
> And on top of that, I need a way of marking a "someday" or "maybe"
> task/project as already STARTED or WAITING etc., which is why I
> wrote:
> 
> > - Priorities become truly orthogonal to workflow, e.g. if your
> >   workflow keywords are PROJECT, PROJDONE, NEXT, STARTED, WAITING,
> >   DONE etc. then you can mark any of these as someday/maybe
> >   priority.  This is quite a big advantage AFAICS.

Here's another case study for treating someday/maybe as priorities
rather than as keywords; best illustrated by example:

    * PROJECT [#A] This is an urgent project
    ** but it's stuck since we don't have any NEXT actions yet.
    ** However we do have:
    *** SOMEDAY some ideas about what might need doing later on
    *** MAYBE here's another idea we're not sure about yet

    * SOMEDAY This is an unimportant project
    ** Our NEXT actions are still SOMEDAY/MAYBE actions
    ** so is it stuck or not?
    ** Technically yes, but do we care?
       since the whole project is only a SOMEDAY.
    *** SOMEDAY when the project comes alive, this becomes a NEXT
    *** MAYBE here's another idea we're not sure about yet

In the "someday" project above, notice how the distinction between the
unimportant project and its as yet unimportant subtasks is blurred.
That makes for inaccurate search results.  How would we configure
`org-agenda-stuck-projects' to get the desired results?

Now compare with:

    * PROJECT [#A] This is an urgent project
    ** but it's stuck since we don't have any NEXT actions yet
    ** of priority #C or higher.
    ** However we do have:
    *** NEXT [#D] some ideas about what might need doing later on
    *** NEXT [#E] here's another idea we're not sure about yet

    * PROJECT [#D] This is an unimportant "someday" project
    *** SOMEDAY when the project comes alive, this "someday" action becomes a NEXT
    *** NEXT [#D] or we could mark it like this
    *** NEXT or even this, which would appear in searches for unprioritised items
    *** NEXT [#E] here's another "maybe" idea we're not sure about yet

I don't really know what's best, but hopefully this is all food for
thought.

Happy New Year to all!

Adam