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Workflow Reference Sheet

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Why?

A new way to work, a new habit, is difficult to form without reminder. Whence this brief cheat sheet to get me going on this GTD process.

Overview of the day

Start of the day: \hfill ~1 hour

  • Look at mail with M-x gnus and capture tasks indiscriminately unless marked urgent.
  • Quickly review upcoming week in the agenda, ensuring you’re working on the right stuff –shuffle if need be.
  • If there are many C tasks, reschedule without a second thought. Aim for ≤15 tasks.
  • Progress towards A tasks completion by documenting work completed.

A good day is doing at least all of the most important and urgent tasks –the A tasks.

End of the day:

  • Journal about what was completed and what was not.
  • Process, schedule, and archive tasks.
C-c cCapture an idea quickly
C-c aOpen agenda to see tasks
C-c a tCompile global todo list
C-c a uSee unprocessed tasks
C-c C-sSchedule task
C-c a cSee completed tasks
C-c C-x C-sArchive task
(org-search-view)Search todo’s and archive

Throughout the day: When new tasks come up, enter them impulsively and indiscriminately. Do not make any further scheduling or processing considerations.

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Progressing Towards Completion

  • A TODO task may be STARTED but we may have to be WAITING on others to reply to our queries and we may put a task ON_HOLD indefinitely or have a task CANCELLED before it’s actually DONE.
Can’t manage what you don’t know!
Where does the time go?
Log it & document it!

Clock in on a heading with I, or in the subtree with C-c C-x C-i.

  • An org-timer for 25 minutes starts, in case the task is dreadful.

Clock out of a heading with O, or in the subtree with C-c C-x C-o.

  • When we clock-out, a note of what’s accomplished is added to the task.
  • Even if little, the note motivates progress.
  • Continuous journaling is akin to literate programming \hfill —no one wants to do it after the fact.

Other ideas to assist in completing a task:

  • Add an arbitrary remark to a task with C-c C-z.
  • Move the state of a task with C-c C-t.
C-u [digit] C-c C-t
Fast selection; no prefix argument forces cycling.
  • 1 TODO, 2 STARTED, 3 DONE, 4 WAITING, 5 ON_HOLD, 6 CANCELLED.
  • ‘C-u t’ in an agenda buffer.
  • We can also change through states using Shift- left, or right.
  • Focus on a particular region when working to avoid being distracted. C-x n n/e/s/w for narrowing to region, org element or subtree, or widen.
  • From anywhere, C-u C-c C-x C-i yields a pop-up for recently clocked in tasks.

Reflection; Journaling

C-c jDiscuss what’s accomplished in journal
C-c C-jNew entry into journal
C-c C-sSearch the journal
  • What was accomplished today?
    • See clocked times with C-c C-x C-r.
  • What are some notably bad habits? Good habits?
  • What are some future steps?

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Processing Tasks

Within the list of captured items, for each item we do as follows.

  1. Not actionable? Refile to trash, someday/maybe, or reference sections.
  2. Multiple steps to completion? Make it into a project.
  3. Less than 2 minutes? Do it now.
  4. Is someone else supposed to do this? Delegate!
  5. If it has a specific date, schedule it; otherwise tag it with context needed to get it done.

How to ‘Schedule’ a Task

  1. Provide an estimated time effort.
  2. On heading, press ~,~ then one of A, B, C to set its priority.
    AHigh urgency & important; rare.
    BModerate urgency & importance; most tasks.
    CPretty much optional, or very quick or fun to do
  3. Pick a date to get it done with C-c C-s, then +n to have it be started n days from now.
    • Any time ≈ no time.
    • Always schedule then reschedule, if needed.

Working with ‘Projects’

If a task needs less than 2 minutes, do it immediately since the processing overhead is not worth it; otherwise, it’s a ‘project’ and should be split up into multiple tasks.

  1. Append the project’s name with [/] or [%] to get progress statistics.
  2. Produce a list of sub-tasks, in the form - [ ] subtask1, that progress the project to completion.
  3. Test toggle a task into completion with C-c C-c on it, now the statistics are updated. If you manually toggle a task, use C-c # on the statistics to update them.

At the top, for the project, add a single sentence description of a successful outcome, defining ‘done’ and clarifying the desired outcome.

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