From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tim X Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Considering Using Org Mode, But Question First: Recurring To-Do's and Custom Agenda Views Date: Sun, 06 Dec 2009 11:15:34 +1100 Organization: Rapt Technologies Message-ID: <87y6lh9cux.fsf@lion.rapttech.com.au> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1260060057 4350 80.91.229.12 (6 Dec 2009 00:40:57 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 6 Dec 2009 00:40:57 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Dec 06 01:40:50 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1NH5BA-0002eP-4N for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 06 Dec 2009 01:40:48 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:55464 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NH5B9-0002aA-RK for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:40:47 -0500 Original-Path: news.stanford.edu!usenet.stanford.edu!newsfeed.news2me.com!news.astraweb.com!border2.newsrouter.astraweb.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.1.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:OrxnoUlGFEPlDXwAF5fF91ZvRBM= Original-Lines: 64 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 069547dc.news.astraweb.com Original-X-Trace: DXC=f@ZkWo=FLB7J0Z]=gbPP29L?0kYOcDh@:^gYlR9D^Ya6c:EB@R\UFd?3jG8S6WC]D; Fb; mR@FmRG: Original-Xref: news.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:175375 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:70451 Archived-At: Nocebic Meme writes: > I'm thinking of moving my organizational system needs over into org > mode, but I have a question first. > > Let say I have a recurring to-do, such as 'daily exercise' > > In org mode right now it would look like this: > > * TODO daily exercise :offline: > DEADLINE: <2009-12-03 Thu .+1d> > > But here's the problem: if I pull up an agenda view with my deadlines > for this week, daily exercise shows up every day. Ideally, I'd like > to only see TODO items that I can actually do something about right > now. While I can start work on a presentation that's due tomorrow, I > can't start tomorrow's exercise today, so I don't want to see it. > > Is this something org mode can overcome? Org mode has a lot of power and is very customizable, so my answer would be yes. What your saying is very similar to some of the principals underlying the popular GTD approach (Getting Things Done) and there are a number of pages out there which discuss/outline how people have configured Org mode to support things like GTD. One of the basic ideas (at least as I understand it!) underlying GTD is having your todo items grouped in souch a way that you can pull up an agenda which only lists the items which are of current relevance based on where you are or what you are doing. One way of doing this is to use tags. For example, you might tag each todo item (or branch, file etc - very flexible) with tags such as HOME, OFFICE', 'PHONE', etc. Youc an then very easily define a custom agenda view which only shows items that are not completed and which also match a specific tag, one of which may be GYM or EXERCISE or HEALTH etc. . So, if your at home/work and find you have some spare time to deal with some of those phone calls you need to do, you pull up the agenda view that shows todo items tagged with phone. If your at work, you pull up the one tagged with work todo items etc. My only advice would be to start off simple. Don't design something complex and comprehensive to start with. Start simple and add things once you see a need for them. I've seen a few fail with org mode because they started with something that was over engineered and became a burden rather than an asset. Start using it in as vanilla way as possible and then tweak it as your needs and familiarity of the system increase. Note also that tags are not the only solution. Org mode is very powerful and has lots of possible options. As you get to know it and experiment with it, you will see which option suits you best. This may make it seem harder at first, but in the end, you get a system that works the way you like rather than a system that forces you to change how you naturally like to work to suit how it was designed. HTH Tim -- tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au