TODO items in lists (not headings)

TODO items in lists (not headings)

[Gary Oberbrunner]

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Is there any way to have TODO items in bullet lists rather than headings:

* Meeting report
** Meeting 1
  - a thing that happened
  - another thing that happened
  - TODO: email everyone about all the things
  - some more things that happened

org-mode seems to only allow TODO in headings as far as I can tell.

-- 
Gary

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Re: TODO items in lists (not headings)

[Tory S. Anderson]

Does the "- [ ]" form not work for you? They are generally considered the equivalent in my experience. C-c checks them. 

Gary Oberbrunner <garyo@oberbrunner.com> writes:

> Is there any way to have TODO items in bullet lists rather than headings:
>
> * Meeting report
> ** Meeting 1
>   - a thing that happened
>   - another thing that happened
>   - TODO: email everyone about all the things
>   - some more things that happened
>
> org-mode seems to only allow TODO in headings as far as I can tell.

Re: TODO items in lists (not headings)

[Gary Oberbrunner]

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[Sorry, I'm going to mess up the quoting here because I replied to Tory,
not the list. - gco]

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 4:32 PM, Tory S. Anderson <torys.anderson@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Does the "- [ ]" form not work for you? They are generally considered the
> equivalent in my experience. C-c checks them.
>
> Gary Oberbrunner <garyo@oberbrunner.com> writes:
>
> > Is there any way to have TODO items in bullet lists rather than headings:
> >
> > * Meeting report
> > ** Meeting 1
> >   - a thing that happened
> >   - another thing that happened
> >   - TODO: email everyone about all the things
> >   - some more things that happened
> >
> > org-mode seems to only allow TODO in headings as far as I can tell.
>

Gary replied:
  Hi Tory; I don't think checkboxes (- [ ]) are the same as todo items.
 They don't show up with C-c / t or in the global TODO list, you can't use
regular todo workflows.

Tory:
  Ah; Yeah, you're right. You have a different work flow than I do with
TODO items. What's your reason for not using TODO items themselves?

Gary:
  My reason for not using TODO is just that it'd be ugly and confusing to
put a heading in the middle of a list.

  Compare this:
* Meeting report
** Meeting 1
  - a thing that happened
  - another thing that happened
  - TODO: email everyone about all the things
  - some more things that happened

  to this:
* Meeting report
** Meeting 1
  - a thing that happened
  - another thing that happened
***TODO: email everyone about all the things
  - some more things that happened


Tory:
  Perfect sense; yeah, TODO headers have a tendency to clobber later stuff,
and list stuff doesn't make it into the workflow. Makes good sense.

-- 
Gary

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Re: TODO items in lists (not headings)

[Thomas S. Dye]

Aloha Gary,

Gary Oberbrunner <garyo@oberbrunner.com> writes:

> Gary:
>   My reason for not using TODO is just that it'd be ugly and confusing to
> put a heading in the middle of a list.
>
>   Compare this:
> * Meeting report
> ** Meeting 1
>   - a thing that happened
>   - another thing that happened
>   - TODO: email everyone about all the things
>   - some more things that happened
>
>   to this:
> * Meeting report
> ** Meeting 1
>   - a thing that happened
>   - another thing that happened
> ***TODO: email everyone about all the things
>   - some more things that happened

One solution is to use a capture template for TODO items and then refile
them.  I picked this up from Bernt Hansen and like it a lot:

http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html#Capture

hth,
Tom

-- 
Thomas S. Dye
http://www.tsdye.com

Re: TODO items in lists (not headings)

[Gary Oberbrunner]

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On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 11:48 PM, Thomas S. Dye <tsd@tsdye.com> wrote:

> Aloha Gary,
>
> Gary Oberbrunner <garyo@oberbrunner.com> writes:
>
> > Gary:
> >   My reason for not using TODO is just that it'd be ugly and confusing to
> > put a heading in the middle of a list.
> >
> >   Compare this:
> > * Meeting report
> > ** Meeting 1
> >   - a thing that happened
> >   - another thing that happened
> >   - TODO: email everyone about all the things
> >   - some more things that happened
> >
> >   to this:
> > * Meeting report
> > ** Meeting 1
> >   - a thing that happened
> >   - another thing that happened
> > ***TODO: email everyone about all the things
> >   - some more things that happened
>
> One solution is to use a capture template for TODO items and then refile
> them.  I picked this up from Bernt Hansen and like it a lot:
>
> http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html#Capture


Wow, that guy is serious!  I don't think his setup solves what I'm looking
for, but there is so much great stuff in there it'll take me weeks to check
it all out.

-- 
Gary

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Re: TODO items in lists (not headings)

[Nick Dokos]

Gary Oberbrunner <garyo@oberbrunner.com> writes:

> On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 11:48 PM, Thomas S. Dye <tsd@tsdye.com> wrote:
>
>     Aloha Gary,
>    
>     Gary Oberbrunner <garyo@oberbrunner.com> writes:
>    
>     > Gary:
>     >   My reason for not using TODO is just that it'd be ugly and confusing to
>     > put a heading in the middle of a list.
>     >
>     >   Compare this:
>     > * Meeting report
>     > ** Meeting 1
>     >   - a thing that happened
>     >   - another thing that happened
>     >   - TODO: email everyone about all the things
>     >   - some more things that happened
>     >
>     >   to this:
>     > * Meeting report
>     > ** Meeting 1
>     >   - a thing that happened
>     >   - another thing that happened
>     > ***TODO: email everyone about all the things
>     >   - some more things that happened
>    
>     One solution is to use a capture template for TODO items and then refile
>     them.  I picked this up from Bernt Hansen and like it a lot:
>    
>     http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html#Capture
>
> Wow, that guy is serious!  I don't think his setup solves what I'm looking for, but there is so much great stuff in there it'll take me weeks to check it all out.

Indeed - Bernt's writeup has been the source of inspiration for lots of
people on this list.

On your question:

I don't think you can have list items carrying TODO keywords. Why can't
you make the list items third-level headlines instead?

-- 
Nick

Bernt Hansen's

[rene]

Nick Dokos <ndokos <at> gmail.com> writes:
> 
> Gary Oberbrunner <garyo <at> oberbrunner.com> writes:
> 
> > Thomas S. Dye <tsd <at> tsdye.com> wrote:
> >      
> > > One solution is to use a capture template for TODO items and then
> > > refile them.  I picked this up from Bernt Hansen and like it a lot:
> > > http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html#Capture
> >
> > Wow, that guy is serious!  I don't think his setup solves what I'm
> > looking for, but there is so much great stuff in there it'll take me
> > weeks to check it all out.
> 
> Indeed - Bernt's writeup has been the source of inspiration for lots of
> people on this list.


I wonder whether Bernt would agree to turn his config file into an actual
lisp package that could be available via Elpa?

I find his code pretty close to what GTD should look like.  There are a few
things though that could be twicked a bit in order to comply with David
Allen's new book on Getting Things Done.

I will try to contact Bernt and ask him to deliver such an org-gtd.el
package.  That would be great for the orgmode community.

--

Re: Bernt Hansen's

[Sebastien Vauban]

Hello Rene,

rene wrote:
>> Indeed - Bernt's writeup has been the source of inspiration for lots of
>> people on this list.

For sure.

> I find his code pretty close to what GTD should look like.  There are a few
> things though that could be twicked a bit in order to comply with David
> Allen's new book on Getting Things Done.

Can you detail them, for our own information, please?

Best regards,
  Seb

-- 
Sebastien Vauban

Re: Bernt Hansen's

[J. David Boyd]

Sebastien Vauban <sva-news@mygooglest.com> writes:

> Hello Rene,
>
> rene wrote:
>>> Indeed - Bernt's writeup has been the source of inspiration for lots of
>>> people on this list.
>
> For sure.
>
>> I find his code pretty close to what GTD should look like.  There are a few
>> things though that could be twicked a bit in order to comply with David
>> Allen's new book on Getting Things Done.
>
> Can you detail them, for our own information, please?
>
> Best regards,
>   Seb

I'd like to see these as well, please!

Dave

Re: Bernt Hansen's

[rene]

Sebastien Vauban <sva-news@...> writes:

> rene wrote:
> 
> > I find his code pretty close to what GTD should look like.  There are a few
> > things though that could be twicked a bit in order to comply with David
> > Allen's new book on Getting Things Done.
> 
> Can you detail them, for our own information, please?

Here are a few thoughts.  Feel free to provide feedback and enhancements.

Associating what GTD calls "Areas of Responsibility" to orgmode
categories is great.  But launching a search for these categories (areas of
responsibility) has to be hardcoded in everyone's config file.  It
would be great if this could work like for Tags (C-a a M) or Todo keywords
(C-a a T).

Why not have a "C-a a R" which would prompt us for our own various
Areas of Responsibility.

Of course there is an org-agenda-filter-by-category function but this
function should then work more as org-agenda-filter-by-tag where the
category would either be selected with a fast selection letter or when
you hit the TAB key you're being prompted for a list of possible
categories.

Within GTD, the way you are to choose which task to perform never
relies on a preset priority level but on three limiting criteria,
namely

 - your context: What can I do where I am?
 - your time available: How much time do I have?
 - your energy: How much energy do I have

It's easy to implement your context as Tags: @home, @computer,
@office, @internet, @errands, etc.  It's therefore easy to
extract/filter tasks pertaining to a particular context using "C-a a M".

I find the org-effort-property misleading.  It looks like you're
talking about the energy criteria but in fact this deals with the
estimated time duration of a task.  Could one straighten this up?

The estimated "task-duration" could then replace the misleading
"org-effort" property.

The "energy" level should work as the org-priority.  "A" could mean
the task will require from me a high level of priority, whereas "C"
could mean a low level of priority.

In David Allen's new book, which should be available early 2015, the
three basic steps for the GTD method are: Capture, Clarify and
Organize.  In terms of vocabulary, he's not talking about a "task to
refile" but rather an "action to clarify and organize", which in orgmode
would consist in assigning the right: context (tag), duration, energy,
project, where a project would pertain to a area of responsibility
(category).

For me this notion of projects (and sub-projects, sub-sub-projects, etc.) in
org-mode is not that easy to deal with.  Maybe I need to investigate
things a bit more.  Any idea would be welcome.

Since the Weekly Review is such a key part in the GTD methodology,
I don't think there's any real need to differentiate between active vs stuck
projects.  Every 7 to 10 days, you will go over your projects and thus
identify the ones that need a next action to be defined.  The ones
that are considered as DONE, if all their sub-actions and sub projects
are themselves done or canceled.

--
rene

Re: Bernt Hansen's

[Bernt Hansen]

rene <jlr_0@yahoo.com> writes:

> I wonder whether Bernt would agree to turn his config file into an actual
> lisp package that could be available via Elpa?
>
> I find his code pretty close to what GTD should look like.  There are a few
> things though that could be twicked a bit in order to comply with David
> Allen's new book on Getting Things Done.
>
> I will try to contact Bernt and ask him to deliver such an org-gtd.el
> package.  That would be great for the orgmode community.

Hi Rene,

I don't have time to maintain an Elpa package of this stuff currently.
This past Friday I just did a 'catch up' in gnus on this mailing list
and skipped 8600+ unread articles (including this one) due to lack of
available time.  Thanks for the email in private that brought this
thread to my attention.

It should be possible to extract the lisp from my document
(http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.org) and generate a lisp file with C-c
C-v C-t. This is described at the end of
http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode#HowToUseThisDocument

From there you can edit whatever you need to for your settings.

I personally don't want to conform strictly to David Allen's idea of how
GTD should work.  I like to roll-my-own way of doing things and if an
Elpa packaging of this code would require learning and modifying the
workflows to match David Allen's latest book I simply don't have time
for that undertaking.  Someone else is welcome to take that on if they
are interested.

I just discovered late last week that one of my settings relies on a
feature of the org-mode master branch (and has for over a year) and this
change has not been included in any maintenance release of org-mode.
Lots of people have contacted me about the breaking signature change in
org-remove-drawer-at which is posted in my config since I use the master
branch of org-mode.  I think most people will be using official released
versions of org-mode so I'm not sure how best to handle this issue until
Org 8.3 is released which is supposed to include this signature change.
I will probably just document the signature change and provide
alternative code to use in the extracted version for maintenance
releases until 8.3 is created.

Best Regards,
Bernt

Re: TODO items in lists (not headings)

[Subhan Michael Tindall]

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Lists are very explicitly not intended to contain TODO items.
Checkboxes provide a bit of this functionality, sort of a ‘TODO lite’
I use something like this quite a lot:
** TODO notes from meeting        :meeting:steve:susan:jane:bob:action:
   DEADLINE: <2014-09-19 Fri>
   :PROPERTIES:
   :LastWorked: [2014-09-18 Thu 09:14]
  :END:
- Item 1
- Item 2
- [ ] action item 1
  - [X] sub action item
  - [ ] sub action item 2
- Item 3
extended meeting notes here

I’ve not used them at all, but there may be a way to set a statistics cookie for the headline, or if not a simple function to update a statistics-type cookie or property when an action item changes state

I do sometimes wish that I could include a TODO headline or tag a list item, but that is simply not possible under current implementations.
IE something like this:
** meeting
- TODO Item 1 tags: “tag1:tag2” LastWorked: [2014-09-18 Thu 09:14]
- item 2

With properties etc. handled in a way similar to BEGIN_SRC block headers

The problem is that list items/checkbox items are NOT headlines, and all the TODO code etc. is tied to headlines.

I haven’t looked at the code but I suspect an extensive rewrite to integrate it with the rest of the headline code.  Not as much if it’s kept as an isolated extension.



From: emacs-orgmode-bounces+subhant=familycareinc.org@gnu.org [mailto:emacs-orgmode-bounces+subhant=familycareinc.org@gnu.org] On Behalf Of Gary Oberbrunner
Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2014 5:45 AM
To: Orgmode Mailing List
Subject: Re: [O] TODO items in lists (not headings)



On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 11:48 PM, Thomas S. Dye <tsd@tsdye.com<mailto:tsd@tsdye.com>> wrote:
Aloha Gary,

Gary Oberbrunner <garyo@oberbrunner.com<mailto:garyo@oberbrunner.com>> writes:

> Gary:
>   My reason for not using TODO is just that it'd be ugly and confusing to
> put a heading in the middle of a list.
>
>   Compare this:
> * Meeting report
> ** Meeting 1
>   - a thing that happened
>   - another thing that happened
>   - TODO: email everyone about all the things
>   - some more things that happened
>
>   to this:
> * Meeting report
> ** Meeting 1
>   - a thing that happened
>   - another thing that happened
> ***TODO: email everyone about all the things
>   - some more things that happened

One solution is to use a capture template for TODO items and then refile
them.  I picked this up from Bernt Hansen and like it a lot:

http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html#Capture

Wow, that guy is serious!  I don't think his setup solves what I'm looking for, but there is so much great stuff in there it'll take me weeks to check it all out.

--
Gary

This message is intended for the sole use of the individual and entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended addressee, nor authorized to receive for the intended addressee, you are hereby notified that you may not use, copy, disclose or distribute to anyone the message or any information contained in the message. If you have received this message in error, please immediately advise the sender by reply email and delete the message.  Thank you.

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Re: TODO items in lists (not headings)

[Gary Oberbrunner]

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On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 12:23 PM, Subhan Michael Tindall <
SubhanT@familycareinc.org> wrote:

>  Lists are very explicitly not intended to contain TODO items.
>
> Checkboxes provide a bit of this functionality, sort of a ‘TODO lite’
>
> ...
>
> The problem is that list items/checkbox items are NOT headlines, and all
> the TODO code etc. is tied to headlines.
>
>
>
> I haven’t looked at the code but I suspect an extensive rewrite to
> integrate it with the rest of the headline code.  Not as much if it’s kept
> as an isolated extension.
>
>
>

I suspected as much.  Although having TODOs in lists would be awesome,
checkboxes will do for me now.

Thanks all!

-- 
Gary

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Re: TODO items in lists (not headings)

[Gary Oberbrunner]

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On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 2:49 PM, Gary Oberbrunner <garyo@oberbrunner.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 12:23 PM, Subhan Michael Tindall <
> SubhanT@familycareinc.org> wrote:
>
>>  Lists are very explicitly not intended to contain TODO items.
>>
>> Checkboxes provide a bit of this functionality, sort of a ‘TODO lite’
>>
>> ...
>>
>> The problem is that list items/checkbox items are NOT headlines, and all
>> the TODO code etc. is tied to headlines.
>>
>>
>>
>> I haven’t looked at the code but I suspect an extensive rewrite to
>> integrate it with the rest of the headline code.  Not as much if it’s kept
>> as an isolated extension.
>>
>>
>>
>
> I suspected as much.  Although having TODOs in lists would be awesome,
> checkboxes will do for me now.
>

One more followup on this: it turns out I don't need to use plain lists
nearly as often as I had thought!  I didn't understand that org-mode export
automatically makes headers greater than N into lists (at least with the
H:N option).   So in many cases I can actually use headers (including
TODOs) and get all the benefits there (including not just TODOs but
attributes and so on) while still having my exported document look like
bulleted lists.  Org-mode ftw!

-- 
Gary

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