Re: agenda: personal priority for today

[Daniel Bausch <bausch@dvs.tu-darmstadt.de>]

Hi,

Bastien writes:

>> How do you decide what to do next?
> 
> I bind `=' to a custom agenda command that will find out what to do
> next depending on the Emacs context.
> 
> For example, when reading emails, C-c a = will find next emails to
> process; when in *.el C-c a = will find next Emacs/Org bugs to deal
> with; when in my big garden.org file, C-c a = will find the next
> useless stuff I want to watch/read. 
> 
> (See `org-agenda-custom-commands-contexts' if you don't use it yet.)
> 
> I don't use clocking that much, but I do set efforts nonetheless,
> because I like using `org-agenda-max-effort' in agenda views: this
> way I'm sure the agenda is not cluttered with tasks I didn't care
> enough about to set an effort for them.

That sounds interesting.

> And above all, I try to discipline myself not setting to many
> "NEXT" tasks.  First my notion of "NEXT" was "Yeah, I can do this
> quickly!", now it is more like "This *needs* to be done next",
> obviously a small set.

I currently use the following agenda, which I have always visible on a
second monitor together with my single org file in a split view.

(setq org-agenda-custom-commands '(("g" "My GTD Agenda"
((agenda ""
  ((org-agenda-ndays 1)
   (org-agenda-start-on-weekday nil)
   (org-agenda-entry-types '(:timestamp :sexp))
   (org-agenda-overriding-header "Appointments")))
 (agenda ""
  ((org-agenda-ndays 1)
   (org-agenda-start-on-weekday nil)
   (org-agenda-entry-types '(:deadline))
   (org-agenda-overriding-header "Upcoming Deadlines")
   (org-agenda-sorting-strategy '(priority-down time-down))
   (org-agenda-skip-function '(org-agenda-skip-entry-if 'todo 'done))))
 (agenda ""
  ((org-agenda-ndays 1)
   (org-agenda-start-on-weekday nil)
   (org-agenda-entry-types '(:scheduled))
   (org-agenda-overriding-header "Scheduled")
   (org-agenda-sorting-strategy '(priority-down time-down))
   (org-agenda-skip-function '(org-agenda-skip-entry-if 'todo 'done))))
 (todo "WAIT"
  ((org-agenda-sorting-strategy '(priority-down))
   (org-agenda-overriding-header "Waiting For")))
 (todo "NEXT"
  ((org-agenda-sorting-strategy '(priority-down effort-down))
   (org-agenda-skip-function '(org-agenda-skip-entry-if 'scheduled
                                                        'deadline))
   (org-agenda-overriding-header
    "Next actions not being scheduled nor having a deadline")))
 (todo "TODO"
  ((org-agenda-sorting-strategy '(priority-down effort-down))
   (org-agenda-skip-function '(org-agenda-skip-entry-if 'scheduled
                                                        'deadline))
   (org-agenda-overriding-header
    "Future actions not being scheduled nor having a deadline")))
 (todo "PROJ" ((org-agenda-overriding-header "Active Projects")))))))

Everything that consists of two or more sub-tasks is marked as a project
(PROJ) until it is DONE.  A NEXT action is an action that could be done
immediately, i.e. there are no other actions that need to be done for
being able to do that.  In GTD speech a loose end.  If a task is just
marked with TODO, then there is one or more task that needs to be done,
before I will be able to do it.  So I end up with a lot of open NEXT and
TODO tasks.  To select some to be done on a specific day (e.g. today) I
use scheduling and deadlines.  Sometimes I use efforts, but clocking I
use consequently.  Project review is supported by using
'(org-enforce-todo-dependencies t).  So projects with no defined next
action are colored differently.  Sometimes I go through my big list of
open tasks and close some which I am not going to do anymore by setting
them to a special done state CNCL.

Even if I have only six tasks on my scheduled list for today, knowing
that I will not be able to finish all of them really today, I see me
constantly judging one against the others trying to find the most
important.  This eats mental resources, that would be better used doing
one of them, but doing simply a random task, keeps me reconsidering,
what also eats up mental resources.  Has anyone an idea how to escape
from that mental state of constant reconsidering?

Daniel

-- 
Daniel Bausch
Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter
Technische Universität Darmstadt
Fachbereich Informatik
Fachgebiet Datenbanken und Verteilte Systeme

Hochschulstraße 10
64289 Darmstadt
Germany

Tel.: +49 6151 16 6706
Fax:  +49 6151 16 6229