This sounds like what TODO keywords are for. For example:

You can easily change the TODO state with shift-left/right on each heading.

#+TODO: TODO CLARIFY | CANCELLED DONE

* top-level task
** TODO something I haven't done yet
*** DONE something I've already done
    CLOSED: [2017-05-14 Sun 15:12]
**** TODO a minor improvement that I haven't done yet
* CANCELLED something I decided isn't worth doing
  CLOSED: [2017-05-14 Sun 15:13]
* CLARIFY something that needs further clarification

John

-----------------------------------
Professor John Kitchin
Doherty Hall A207F
Department of Chemical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-7803
@johnkitchin
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu


On Thu, May 11, 2017 at 6:52 PM, Vladimir Panteleev <
thecybershadow@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello!
>
> A lot of thanks to all org-mode developers for their work.
>
> I've started using Emacs and org-mode last year, and have been steadily
> trying to migrate all of my notes from plain text to org-mode.
>
> I have run into some difficulties with porting over my project notes and
> to-do lists. For example, my to-do lists generally look something like this:
>
> - top-level task
>   - something I haven't done yet
>   + something I've already done
>     - a minor improvement that I haven't done yet
>   x something I decided isn't worth doing
>   ? something that needs further clarification
>
> My software design notes look similar:
>
> - name of the component
>   - one idea of how to implement it
>   x an idea that turned out impractical/impossible/etc.
>     - rationale
>   + the idea I went with
>     - rationale
>
> Real example (notes for a serialization library):
> https://dump.thecybershadow.net/ec9518b75f1001467972fb7deee058e9/notes.txt
>
> Although this mostly corresponds to using org-mode lists with checkboxes,
> the biggest obstacle I encountered is that there is no equivalent for the
> 'x' bullet. I've tried to simply mark off those items as checked checkboxes
> (and indicate the information some other way), however I've invariably
> found this as a regression in legibility.
>
> So, my questions are:
>
> - I've looked through the documentation (and source code, a bit), and
> though it doesn't seem like it, have I missed some org-mode functionality
> that would help this use case?
>
> - Would it make sense to teach org-mode to recognize another checkbox
> state (e.g. [!])?
>
> - Perhaps it's more practical to instead get org-mode to work with the
> syntax I already use. This would mean:
>   1. Being able to customize which characters org-mode considers as list
> bullets
>   2. Preserve each list item's individual bullet when reformatting lists
>   3. Optionally, allow recognizing certain list bullet characters as
> counting towards statistic cookies (as either completed or not).
>
> - Would the above changes be something I could perform myself with a
> reasonable amount of effort? And, would any of them make sense for
> inclusion into org-mode as additional options? (IMHO, a customizable alist
> for recognized list bullets and their effect or statistic cookies would be
> very nice!)
>
> Thanks for reading this far!
>
> --
> Best regards,
>  Vladimir
>
>