Cyclic timestamps for SCHEDULED and DEADLINE

Cyclic timestamps for SCHEDULED and DEADLINE

[Dieter Grollmann]

Hello,

I have discovered org-mode some days ago. I'm now getting familiar with it and
use it with pleasure.

It seems, that org-mode does not allow timestamps like, for example, <*-*-25>
(to match the 25th of every month) for SCHEDULED resp. DEADLINE? Of course I can
do this with diary, but diary entries are not carried forward...

Did I miss something in the manual?

Dieter

Re: Cyclic timestamps for SCHEDULED and DEADLINE

[Carsten Dominik]

On Apr 26, 2006, at 16:42, Dieter Grollmann wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I have discovered org-mode some days ago. I'm now getting familiar 
> with it and
> use it with pleasure.
>
> It seems, that org-mode does not allow timestamps like, for example, 
> <*-*-25>
> (to match the 25th of every month) for SCHEDULED resp. DEADLINE? Of 
> course I can
> do this with diary, but diary entries are not carried forward...
>
> Did I miss something in the manual?

No, such a feature is currently not available in Org-mode.  For myself, 
I can't think of many applications for this.  Do you have concrete 
examples where you need this, together with scheduling?

Another way to deal with this is just creating a scheduled item and 
reschedule it to one month later when you are done.

- Carsten

Re: Cyclic timestamps for SCHEDULED and DEADLINE

[Dieter Grollmann]

Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik <at> gmail.com> writes:

> On Apr 26, 2006, at 16:42, Dieter Grollmann wrote:
> 
> > It seems, that org-mode does not allow timestamps like, for example, 
> > <*-*-25>
> > (to match the 25th of every month) for SCHEDULED resp. DEADLINE? Of 
> > course I can
> > do this with diary, but diary entries are not carried forward...
> >
> > Did I miss something in the manual?
> 
> No, such a feature is currently not available in Org-mode.  For myself, 
> I can't think of many applications for this.  Do you have concrete 
> examples where you need this, together with scheduling?

It's difficult for me to explain this in english, I hope you will
understand what I mean :-)

My life as musician is split into a couple of different jobs.
There is teaching, which goes quite regular, although every day
is different and the schedule of lessons changes every six
months. This time-table goes NOT in Org, because I have it in my
mind, it's so to say my "daily life".

Besides teaching there are "big" events in irregular intervals,
for example concerts. These are extraordinary events which of
course are to schedule, mostly months or years in advance. Such
events are extremely absorbing and often I have to change my
daily life completely in view of them, some weeks or months in
advance. Then I live in a "state of emergency".

As third part of my life there are some cyclic tasks (meetings of
an association, comitee of the music school etc) which I normally
cannot defer or omit, even in "states of emergency".

Now, beeing in such a "state of emergency" everything is "out of
order" and my way of thinking changes completely. While I can
adapt my daily life (teaching), I cannot do the same with those
cyclic tasks. And it's often not easy for me to remember those
"profane" things while I'm doing such "big and important" things
like preparing a concert ;-)

So automatic scheduling or deadlining for cyclic tasks which
would insist on being displayed as TODO until I mark them as DONE
could be helpful for me in such times.

But of course ...

> Another way to deal with this is just creating a scheduled item and 
> reschedule it to one month later when you are done.

... I can do so.

Perhaps one day, when you feel bored ... ;-)

Thank you for your great modes!

Dieter

Re: Re: Cyclic timestamps for SCHEDULED and DEADLINE

[Carsten Dominik]

On Apr 28, 2006, at 2:33, Dieter Grollmann wrote:
>
> It's difficult for me to explain this in english, I hope you will
> understand what I mean :-)

Try my German if you want. :-)
>
> As third part of my life there are some cyclic tasks (meetings of
> an association, comitee of the music school etc) which I normally
> cannot defer or omit, even in "states of emergency".

> So automatic scheduling or deadlining for cyclic tasks which
> would insist on being displayed as TODO until I mark them as DONE
> could be helpful for me in such times.

Yes I understand.  A very basic problem with cyclic scheduling is that 
if you don't mark the entry DONE, then you can get many of those tasks 
in your agenda.

One simple way would be to create a separate file and just put those 
cyclic tasks for the next two years in there.  Emacs Keyboad macros can 
be very handy for this:

For example:

Type

    * Meeting of the Music association
      SCHEDULED: <2006-04-28 Fri>

The goto the beginning of the first line and define a keyboard macro:

    C-x (                ; start kbd macro
    C-k C-k C-k C-k      ; kill two lines
    C-y C-y              ; yank back two copies
    use cursor keys to move to month of second entry time stamp
    S-up                 ; to increase the month by one
    C-a <up>             ; to get back to the star of the entry
    C-x )                ; Finish kbd macro

Then execute the kbd macro 24 times to create this entry for the next 2 
years.

>
> Perhaps one day, when you feel bored ... ;-)

:-)  who knows.

- Carsten

Re: Cyclic timestamps for SCHEDULED and DEADLINE

[Dieter Grollmann]

Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik <at> gmail.com> writes:

> On Apr 28, 2006, at 2:33, Dieter Grollmann wrote:
> >
> > It's difficult for me to explain this in english, I hope you will
> > understand what I mean 
> 
> Try my German if you want. 

Not necessary, it seems that I could tell you clearly enough :-)

> > So automatic scheduling or deadlining for cyclic tasks which
> > would insist on being displayed as TODO until I mark them as DONE
> > could be helpful for me in such times.
> 
> Yes I understand.  A very basic problem with cyclic scheduling is that 
> if you don't mark the entry DONE, then you can get many of those tasks 
> in your agenda.

Yes, of course!

> One simple way would be to create a separate file and just put those 
> cyclic tasks for the next two years in there.  Emacs Keyboad macros can 
> be very handy for this:
> 
> For example:

Thank you for the example. To find a solution will not be a
problem, not with Emacs and Org :-)

Dieter

Re: Re: Cyclic timestamps for SCHEDULED and DEADLINE

[Christian Egli]

Hi

On Fri, 2006-04-28 at 09:07 +0200, Carsten Dominik wrote:
> > So automatic scheduling or deadlining for cyclic tasks which
> > would insist on being displayed as TODO until I mark them as DONE
> > could be helpful for me in such times.
> 
> Yes I understand.  A very basic problem with cyclic scheduling is that 
> if you don't mark the entry DONE, then you can get many of those tasks 
> in your agenda.

But AFAIK this is only a problem because the scheduled tasks show up in
the "all currently open items" section. If scheduled items would no
longer show up there then this problem would not exist, wouldn't it?
 
> One simple way would be to create a separate file and just put those 
> cyclic tasks for the next two years in there.

Couldn't this be done with the calendar integration of org? Ah, now that
I checked the documentation I see that I can only get dates
(anniversaries, etc) from calendar, but not TODO items. I guess a
mechanism for periodic TODO items would have to come from org-mode as
diary only knows about (periodic) events but has no concept of periodic
TODO items.

Christian

Re: Re: Cyclic timestamps for SCHEDULED and DEADLINE

[Carsten Dominik]

On Apr 28, 2006, at 18:23, Christian Egli wrote:
>>
>> Yes I understand.  A very basic problem with cyclic scheduling is that
>> if you don't mark the entry DONE, then you can get many of those tasks
>> in your agenda.
>
> But AFAIK this is only a problem because the scheduled tasks show up in
> the "all currently open items" section. If scheduled items would no
> longer show up there then this problem would not exist, wouldn't it?


No, this is unrelated.  If you schedule an item for the 1st of May, and 
the same item again for the first of June, then from the first of June 
you will have two entries in your agenda for today, reminding you that 
you did not finish two things scheduled previously and not done yet.

Another problem is how to mark things DONE and still reschedule them 
next time.  Imagine we had something like

*** TODO Buy fresh milk
     SCHEDULED: <*-*-01>

Lets say I get this entry in May and I finish it and mark it DONE.  In 
the Org-mode way, this means that I have to change TODO to DONE:

*** DONE Buy fresh milk
     SCHEDULED: <*-*-01>

However, now it look like this thing is DONE and should never be 
scheduled again.   Hmmm, this would really require a new piece of 
syntax.....

- Carsten

--
Carsten Dominik
Sterrenkundig Instituut "Anton Pannekoek"
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Kruislaan 403
NL-1098SJ Amsterdam
phone: +31 20 525 7477

Re: Cyclic timestamps for SCHEDULED and DEADLINE

[Dan Christensen]

Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com> writes:

> On Apr 26, 2006, at 16:42, Dieter Grollmann wrote:
>
>> It seems, that org-mode does not allow timestamps like, for example,
>> <*-*-25>
>> (to match the 25th of every month) for SCHEDULED resp. DEADLINE? Of
>> course I can
>> do this with diary, but diary entries are not carried forward...
>
> No, such a feature is currently not available in Org-mode.  For
> myself, I can't think of many applications for this.  Do you have
> concrete examples where you need this, together with scheduling?

I would use something like this frequently.  A couple of examples:

- annual events, such as anniversaries and birthdays.  I'd like
  a SCHEDULED item a week or two ahead telling me to buy a
  present
- every month there's a banking transaction I do that I'd like
  SCHEDULED

In addition, there are periodic events I have where the current diary
support is fine, but even for this information I would rather keep it
in org format and mixed with relevant org files.

Dan