I take at least three different kinds of notes, and I need to manage them differently. Here are some rough thoughts on the different kinds of notes I work with and how I manage them. I’d love to hear about your note-management strategies in comments or e-mail!

Random notes

When I worked on my thesis, I filed hundreds of lines from my literature review. I needed to quickly pull together just the notes matching a certain keyword or belonging to a particular section. I also needed to be able to properly cite each note. Lastly, I structured my notes so that I could get a random note, which turned out to be really helpful for breaking me out of writing ruts and for helping me see creative connections.

Writers and public speakers keep similar databases of story ideas and great quotations. They need to be able to search their databases for matching records, and they might not think of these categories ahead of time.

Random information management isn’t just for word geeks and researchers. If you’ve got scraps of paper or a text file with notes from meetings, clips from interesting articles, and thoughts to yourself, you’re already managing random information. You just might not have a good system for capturing and searching the information.

Important things for a random information manager:

• You should be able to easily capture information.
• You should be able to easily search for information.

(An ideal random information manager might even suggest relevant entries.
Come to think of it, I should find out if I can get the Remembrance Agent running again. That was really cool.)

I started using Howm for this before. It was a great random information manager for Emacs. I haven’t been using it lately, though, as I hadn’t set it up on my work laptop. I might do so soon.

Journal entries

Journal entries tend to be short, chronological notes. They can be private or public, or a mix of both. They can be also be retrospective or forward-looking. Journal entries are more structured than random information snippets because they’re associated with a specific date and are generally about activities, experiences, or goals.

My blog is an example of a journal. It has public and private entries. The private entries are removed from the blog before publishing.

Important things for a journal manager or a blog:

• You shouldn’t have to enter date and time yourself.
• You should be able to flip through your entries or search them for keywords.
• You should be able to get an overview of your notes for a time period.

I use Planner for this because Planner makes it easy to publish day pages and RSS. I also write some entries directly on a WordPress blog, which also imports my Planner blog entries.

Outlines

Some notes belong to a bigger structure. For example, if you’re drafting a document, you might work on different sections that will ultimately be merged. Random information management and journals are not enough because you need structure. An outline helps you see how things fit together.

The draft for this book is an example of an outline. I sometimes work top-down by starting with the headings and defining more detail. I also work bottom-up by writing blocks of content and then fitting them into my outline.

Important things for an outline:

• You should be able to structure your notes into headings and subheadings.
• You should be able to promote, demote, and rearrange those headings quickly.
• You should be able to quickly get an overview or drill down into detail.

I use Org for outlined text because Org makes it really easy to manipulate outlines.

Hyperlinked Text

The structure of hyperlinked text can actually be applied to the other three types of notes. Random notes benefit from freely-defined hyperlinks, where you can specify keywords that will automatically be linked without needing to edit each note where the keyword occurs. Journal entries can link to other journal entries or to topic-oriented pages. Outlines and other documents may allow people to jump to related sections through hyperlinks. Hyperlinks allow you to work with more freedom than a strict hierarchy of topics would permit.

An example of a hyperlinked note system would be the way the posts on my blog are often linked with plan pages that focus on specific topics. (These links are only on my hard disk, so don’t worry if you don’t see them!) Topic pages allow me to review my topic-related notes as well as other freeform notes I’ve added.

Important things for hyperlinks:

• You should be able to link to resources outside the note-taking system.
• You should be able to link to other notes in the note-taking system.
• You may want to be able to link to other sections of the same note.

I tend to use Muse with Planner for hyperlinked pages, but I’ve also tried it with Howm.

Search

A note-taking system good at capturing journal entries may not necessarily be good at capturing and searching random information or managing outlines. It helps to have different note-taking systems, each optimized for different tasks, or a tool that adapts to what you need at that time. A search that spans your different note-taking systems is also a great help.

Currently, I don’t have a unified search system. Well, aside from grep… This is one of the things I plan to work on while writing this chapter. =)

Feedback?

Do you keep other types of notes, and/or do you have tips for managing notes? Please share them here so that I can think about how Emacs can be tweaked to support them!

– [ ] Keeping Notes in Emacs
Structured vs Unstructured (outline, free-form)
Flat vs Hyperlinked
Private vs Public
File structure (one file, daily, snippets)

In this section, you’ll learn about the different kinds of notes you take, and you will be able to choose one or two Emacs modules to start learning.

– [ ] Capture and retrieve – Remember, search

Getting the ideas out of your head and into your note-taking system; searching your notes (basic), searching your notes (specific)

Wicked cool code: Remembering to different note-taking systems, searching different note-taking systems

– [ ] Outline Notes with Org, Blorg

In this section, you’ll learn how to keep outlined notes using Org.  You’ll be able to create headings, sub-headings, and text notes. You’ll also learn how to manage outline items by promoting, demoting, and rearranging them. These basic editing commands are covered in the Emacs Org manual, so I’ll just give a brief summary..

You’ll also get tips on how to capture text quickly (M-x remember, dabbrev), work with large outline files (split windows are useful), and search your notes efficiently (searching headings or text).

Lastly, you’ll learn how to publish your Org file as HTML or LaTeX.

Wicked cool code would be: searching, how to import to and export from Freemind, a graphical mind-mapping program.

– [ ] Daily Notes with Planner

In this section, you’ll learn how to write a day-based journal using Planner. In addition to free-form notes on the page, you’ll also be able to keep semi-structured notes typed in manually or captured using Remember. You’ll also learn how to publish the resulting pages as HTML and RSS, and how to customize the output.

Wicked cool code would be: searching notes and displaying matching headlines, private notes, publishing note headlines, and publishing a note index.

– [ ] Hyperlinked Notes with Muse

In this section, you’ll learn how to create a personal wiki using Muse.  You’ll learn how to create pages, link to pages, and publish your wiki.

Wicked cool code: Capturing notes to specific pages using Remember and keyword matches, private pages, publishing pages when you save them.

– [ ] Snippets with Howm

In this section, you’ll learn how to manage random snippets of information using Howm.

– [ ] Blogging from Emacs – WordPress, LJ, Blogger,Muse-Blosxom, EmacsAtomAPI

In this section, you’ll learn how to use Emacs as a blogging client for many popular platforms. This is mainly for keeping other blogs in sync, although I’ll also talk about the possibility of using planner-rss + something like Feedwordpress.

– [ ] Encrypted Notes (full file, segments) – MOSTLY WRITTEN

In this section, you’ll learn how to encrypt your notes. Actually, this will probably be split up into the different tools…

Introduction

Organizing your tasks into projects can help you plan ahead, track
your progress, and stay motivated. Working from a project list allows
you to plan your day or week instead of just reacting to other
people’s requests. Keeping your projects and tasks in Org makes it
easier for you to review your completed tasks and plan the next step.
If you include some text describing why you want to do the project and
what your intended outcome is, this can help you stay motivated
throughout a long project.

Projects can take a single day or several years. They can be large
projects involving lots of other people and resources, or small
projects that you do on your own. Projects may involve a handful of
separate steps or a hundred things you need to do in order to achieve
your goal. The important thing is that there is more than one step.
If you organize your task list so that related tasks are together,
then you’ll find it easier to get a sense of where you are, where
you’re going, and what you need to do next.

In this section, you will learn how to:

• Create projects,
• Organize your tasks into projects,
• Review your ongoing projects, and
• Mark projects as finished.

I’ll assume that you’re using Emacs 22, and that you’ve set up Org
using an ~/organizer.org agenda file and the basic configuration
suggested in either “Org and GTD” or “Org as a Day Planner.” I’ll also
assume that you’re familiar with switching between the Org agenda view
and the Org organizer file, and that you’re comfortable navigating
around Emacs.

The examples I’ll use focus on yearly goals. You might also have
short-term projects or long-term plans. Feel free to adapt the
examples as needed.

Open your ~/organizer.org file. If you’ve collected your tasks as
suggested in the previous sections on Using Org as a Day Planner or
Using Org for GTD, your ~/organizer.org file might look something like
this:

 * Inbox
 ** TODO Read Emacs Lisp intro
 ** TODO Write yearly review
 ** TODO Exercise
 ** TODO Browse the Emacs Wiki

Create new top-level headings for this year’s goals or the projects
that you’re working on. You can create a top-level heading by
typing * and the heading, like this:

 * Learn more about Emacs
 * Go on vacation
 ...
 * Inbox
 ** TODO Read Emacs manual
 ...

It’s a good idea to add the projects to the beginning of the file
(before your Inbox) because M-x remember adds new tasks or notes to
the end of the file. If the last major heading as * Inbox, then the
tasks and notes are automatically added to it. If the last major
heading is a project, the tasks and notes may get misfiled.

What are your projects?

Yearly goals? I’ve got twenty-year plans!

If you’re a top-down planner, you’ll find it easy to list your
projects. In fact, you might have a ten- or even twenty-year plan
already written down. You’ll find this section straightforward,
because you’re already used to planning in terms of projects.
Go ahead and adapt the examples to your long-term plans.

Yearly goals? I live day by day!

If you’re a bottom-up planner, you might be giving me a weird look
right now. “Yearly goals? I’m lucky if I can figure out how to get
through the next day!” This section will also show you how to find the
recurring themes in your task list and organize them into projects.
Give project-based planning a try for a month. If this way of thinking
doesn’t work for you, Org will work just fine without projects.

You probably have projects, even if you can’t think of any right
now. Review your ~/organizer.org file. If you haven’t written down
everything you needed to do yet, go through the section on basic
configuration for your planning style (GTD or day planning). Once you
have a list of things to do, you can then review it for big tasks,
related tasks, and other project clues.

Read your tasks and ask yourself the following questions:

• *Can I do this in one sitting?* Big tasks such as “Write a book” are often projects in disguise. Use projects so that you can break them down into smaller, doable tasks.
• *Is this related to other tasks?* Related tasks such as “Book a flight” and “Plan my itinerary” are often clues to a project like “Go on vacation”. Use projects so that you can review related tasks together.
• *Why am I doing this?* When you think about the reason why you’re doing something, you’ll often find a bigger project. For example, if one of your tasks is “Set up an automatic retirement savings plan”, then the question “Why am I doing this?” may lead you to the project “Plan for retirement”. Use projects to help you think of other ways to move towards that goal.

Big tasks need to be broken down into smaller tasks anyway, and
organizing them into projects will help you make them more
manageable. You may not want to organize all of your other tasks into
projects. If you can pick some major themes to focus on, though, then
you’ll be able to see how the different things you do are related to
each other, and you’ll be able to think of other ways to work on those
projects. If you’re starting out with project-based thinking, maybe
you can pick three to five projects and try to do a little work on
each of them every day.

If you still don’t identify any projects, that’s okay. You can use Org
as a straightforward task list. Jump ahead to the section on “Tags”,
as you’ll probably find that useful.

On the other hand, if this step turns up plenty of projects, resist
the temptation to over-correct and end up with hundreds of projects. I
find that more than 7 active projects gets hard to manage. Pick a few
main themes that you’d like to work on, and make everthing else
something you plan to do someday.

Project tasks

Creating tasks

Now that you have project headings, think of the next thing you need
to do in order to move those projects forward. If you’ve already
written down those tasks, move them under the appropriate project
heading. If not, type them in.

In order for a task to belong to a project, it needs to be under the
heading and at a lower level. For example, if your project heading has
one star, like this:

 * Learn Emacs

then your TODO headings should have two stars, like this:

 * Learn Emacs
 ** TODO Read the Emacs manual
 ** TODO Read the Emacs Lisp Intro manual (eintr)
 ** TODO Install the Emacs source code

If your tasks are not at the right level, you can add the star
manually by editing the heading. You can also use M-right and M-left
(org-metaright and org-metaleft) while on a heading in order to
promote or demote it, and you can use M-S-right and M-S-left
(org-shift-metaright and org-shift-metaleft) to promote or demote
entire subtrees.

To move tasks up and down within the project, you can copy and paste
the text. You can use M-Up and M-Down (org-metaup and org-metadown) to
move subtrees.

Think of tasks you can do within the next week in order to move each
of your projects forward. Add next actions to all of your active
projects. Creating next actions for each of your projects makes it
easier to remember to keep moving forward.

Organizing tasks

If you have many tasks in a project, you may want to organize them
into sub-projects. For example, you might divide a software project
into components. If you’re starting from scratch, you can create the
project structure by typing in more stars for sub-project
headings. For example:

 * Learn Emacs
 ** Read mail
 *** TODO Choose a mail client
 *** TODO Install and configure the mail client
 *** TODO Send a message
 ...
 ** Browse the Web
 *** Read through the w3m documentation
 ...

You can also demote an existing project into a subproject.
Use M-S-right (org-shift-metaright) on the
current project headline in order to demote it to a sub-project. This
will also demote the tasks within the project. For example, demoting
this:

 * Learn Emacs
 ** TODO Choose a mail client
 ** TODO Install and configure the mail client
 ** TODO Send a message

will result in this:

 ** Learn Emacs
 *** TODO Choose a mail client
 *** TODO Install and configure the mail client
 *** TODO Send a message

Then you can change the heading and add another heading above it, like this:

 * Learn Emacs
 ** Read mail
 *** TODO Choose a mail client
 *** TODO Install and configure the mail client
 *** TODO Send a message

This kind of organization is optional, but it can help you get an idea
of the overall structure of your project. Using different levels
allows you to hide and show groups of headings by pressing TAB on the
heading.

Now that you’ve created your project tasks and organized them the way
you want, it’s time to actually do the work.

Working on tasks

If you use Org as a day planner, you may also want to schedule the
tasks onto specific days with C-c C-s (org-schedule). You can review
your daily or weekly agenda with C-c a a (org-agenda,
org-agenda-list), switching between daily and weekly views with d and
w (org-agenda-day-view and org-agenda-week-view).

You can work with the next actions in the same way you work with other
tasks, rescheduling them or marking them as STARTED, WAITING or DONE
with the keyboar shortcuts introduced in the previous section on Org
and GTD or Org as a Day Planner.

When you finish a project task, think of the next action you can do in
order to move that project forward. If you use Org as a day planner,
schedule the next action onto your calendar as well.

Reviewing projects

You can review your projects by opening your ~/organizer.org and
browsing through the headings. S-tab (org-shifttab) changes the
visibility of headings, so you can see just the top-level headings or
all the details. You can use TAB (org-cycle) on a headline to show or
hide subtrees.

Reviewing a list of projects

If you have many projects, you’ll want a shorter view of just your
active projects. To make it easier to review projects, add a PROJECT
tag to all your active project headlines. You can add a tag by
editing your ~/organizer.org and moving your cursor to the headline
and typing C-c C-c (org-ctrl-c-ctrl-c), followed by the name of the
tag (PROJECT). You can also manually type :TAGNAME: at the end of the
headings, like this:

 * Learn more about Emacs        :PROJECT:
 ** TODO Read the Emacs manual
 ** TODO Read the Emacs Lisp Intro manual (eintr)
 ...
 * Go on vacation                :PROJECT:
 ...
 * Inbox
 ...

You might classify some of your projects as someday/maybe – things
that are nice to think about, but which you aren’t acting on right
now. Tag your inactive or someday/maybe projects with PROJECT and
MAYBE. If you’re editing the ~/organizer.org file, just
add :PROJECT:MAYBE: to the heading. If you’re tagging it with C-c C-c
(org-ctrl-c-ctrl-c), specify PROJECT:MAYBE as the tag.

 * Learn more about Emacs        :PROJECT:
 * Go on vacation                :PROJECT:MAYBE:
 ...
 * Inbox
 ** TODO Read Emacs manual
 ...

Now that you’ve tagged your projects, you can view just your project
headlines with a custom agenda command. Custom agenda views are a
terrific feature in Org, and you can do a lot with them if you know a
little Emacs Lisp. Here’s what you need to add to your ~/.emacs in
order to get a list of your active projects and your someday/maybe
projects:

(setq org-agenda-custom-commands
      '(("p" tags "PROJECT-MAYBE-DONE" nil)  ;; (1)
        ("m" tags "PROJECT&MAYBE" nil)       ;; (2)
        ;; ... put your other custom commands here
       ))

• (1) This makes C-c a p (org-agenda, p) show your active projects.
• (2) This makes C-c a m (org-agenda, m) show your “maybe” projects.

With these two commands, you can quickly review your active and
inactive projects. To jump to a project from the agenda view, move
your cursor to the heading and press RET (org-agenda-switch-to). If
you want to scan through the projects quickly, use f
(org-agenda-follow-mode) in the agenda view to turn on follow mode,
then move to different headlines. Another window will show the
headline at point.

If you review your projects at least once a week, you’ll find it
easier to make regular progress. If you want to combine your
weekly/daily review with your project list, you can do that with
org-agenda-custom-commands as well. Here’s what you’d put in your
~/.emacs:

(setq org-agenda-custom-commands
      '(("p" tags "PROJECT-MAYBE-DONE" nil)
        ("m" tags "PROJECT&MAYBE" nil)
        ("a" "My agenda"                            ;; (1)
         ((org-agenda-list)                         ;; (2)
          (tags "PROJECT-MAYBE-DONE")))             ;; (3)
        ;; ... put your other custom commands here
       ))

• (1) The first argument is the shortcut key, the second is a name for the agenda view
• (2) Your daily or weekly agenda. The d and w (org-agenda-day-view and org-agenda-week-view) shortcuts work if the point is within this section
• (3) A list of your active projects

This configures C-c a a (org-agenda, “My agenda”) to display your
agenda and a list of your project headings. Again, you can press RET
(org-agenda-switch-to) to jump to a project from its heading in the
agenda view.

Reviewing your stuck projects

You might have forgotten to create next actions for some of your
active projects. Org can help you find projects which don’t have next actions.
You can then decide if the project is complete or if it needs further action.

To list stuck projects, you first need to tell Org what a stuck
project is. The following code defines a stuck project as an active
project (not tagged “maybe” or “done”) that doesn’t have a TODO or
STARTED action, if the body of the project doesn’t contain “*lt;IGNORE>”. Add this to your ~/.emacs and evaluate it:

(setq org-stuck-projects
      '("+PROJECT/-MAYBE-DONE" ("TODO" "STARTED") nil "\\<IGNORE\\>"))

Then you can use M-x org-agenda-list-stuck-projects or C-a a #
(org-agenda, org-agenda-list-stuck-projects) to show only the stuck
projects. Review this list and jump to the headlines.

Want to add that to your custom agenda view? Modify the org-agenda-custom-commands value in your ~/.emacs to be like this:

(setq org-agenda-custom-commands
      '(("p" tags "PROJECT-MAYBE-DONE" nil)
        ("m" tags "PROJECT&MAYBE" nil)
        ("a" "My agenda"
         ((org-agenda-list)
          (org-agenda-list-stuck-projects)          ;; (1)
          (tags "PROJECT-MAYBE-DONE")))
        ;; ... put your other custom commands here
       ))

• (1) It’s a good idea to put it before your regular project list so that you can see what needs your attention.

What about finished projects? You might want to keep them in your Org
file, but they shouldn’t show up in your active and inactive project
lists. Org can keep track of those projects too.

Marking projects as done

If you look at the custom commands above, you’ll notice the “-DONE”
specifier. “DONE” is the tag we’ll use to indicate done projects. To
tag a project as done, move the point to the project heading and type
C-c C-c (org-ctrl-c-ctrl-c). The tag prompt will default to the
current tags. Just add “DONE” and press Enter. With the custom
commands we’ve set up, projects tagged DONE will not show in your
active, inactive, or stuck project lists.

You can also add the tag manually. For example, if the project heading is

 * Learn Emacs    :PROJECT:

and you’re happy with your level of Emacs proficiency, then you can
mark it as done by changing it to

 * Learn Emacs    :PROJECT:DONE:

If you have plenty of completed projects, your Org file might be quite
large. You can mark a subtree for archiving by typing C-c C-x C-a
(org-toggle-archive-tag). This hides it from most Org commands. You
can also archive a tree into a different file with C-c C-x C-s
(org-advertized-archive-subtree).

Wrapping up

Now you can create projects, manage your project tasks, and review
your active, inactive, and stuck projects in Org. You know how to mark
projects as completed and how to archive them. You’ve also started
using tags to dynamically generate reports from your Org file.

Tags can do a lot more. To find out what else you can do with tags,
read the next section on “Tagging in Org”.

2For the chapter on task management, I have 10,715 words or 38 pages of raw text that still need be edited. This probably means I’m going to miss my goal of December 31. I still need to write two more sections on using tags and projects, which will be roughly another 2,000 words. I’ll try to write another 1,000 words today. I’m planning to spend the evenings and all of January 1 working on this. I think I can finish it this week. I’ll e-mail my editor to adjust my goal one week forward.

The next chapter is the one on taking notes. It’s also 35 pages, and I’ve budgeted a month for it. If I push my current deadline forward one week, I might still be able to make it to my next deadline of January 31, 2008. The raw text should take me about six days of writing 2,000 words each. I’m planning to write about the one-file approach, Remember, Org, Planner, Howm, Records, and blogging from Emacs. Budget in maybe one weekend for editing, and that comes out to writing for three hours every other weekday and doing a little more work on it during weekends. This kind of schedule will help me avoid the mistake I did this month, which was focusing on work during weekday evenings and working on the book only during weekends.

I’m also happy to say that I’m getting the hang of dictating to Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I’ve trained it to recognize things like Emacs and C-c, and I’m getting used to working with a combination of typing and speaking. I carry a portable voice recorder with me, and I dictate into it after I’ve taken off my contact lenses and can’t work at the computer. I’ve been using it for blog posts, chapter drafts, and the occasional rant about Emacs versioning. I’m also getting the hang of not freaking out about the ungrammatical things that Dragon NaturallySpeaking thinks I’ve said.

And I like not having to type.

2Many professionals bill clients for their time. Even if you don’t, keeping track of the time you actually spend on tasks can help you improve your time estimates and check if you’re spending enough time on the things that are important to you. For example, keeping track of the time you spend on tasks might show you that you spend two and a half hours each day just responding to e-mail. If you can identify problem areas like that, then you can look for more effective ways to perform the tasks that take up a lot of your time.

I love Org’s timeclocking support, and I think you will too. Because it’s integrated with your task list, you don’t have to switch to separate application or reenter data. You can get more detailed time reports, too. All you have to do is remember to clock in before you start a task and clock out when you finish it.

Starting and stopping the clock

You can clock in by moving your cursor to the task headline in either your organizer.org file or the org agenda view, and then pressing C-c C-x C-i (org-agenda-clock-in or org-clock-in, depending on context). This adds the time stamp to the task. If you are already clocked into another task in that organizer file, you’ll be clocked out of it to prevent you from accidentally double-billing.

To clock out of a task, type C-c C-x C-o from the task headline. Marking a task as done will also automatically stop the clock, if that was the task with the active clock.

Here’s some code to make this even easier. The following code clocks in whenever you market task is started, and clocks out when you market a task as WAITING. It also automatically market task is started if you clock in. This takes advantage of the Org configuration previously suggested in the Setup section. Add this to your ~/.emacs and evaluate it:

(eval-after-load 'org
  '(progn
     (defun wicked/org-clock-in-if-starting ()
       "Clock in when the task is marked STARTED."
       (when (and (string= state "STARTED")
		  (not (string= last-state state)))
	 (org-clock-in)))
     (add-hook 'org-after-todo-state-change-hook
	       'wicked/org-clock-in-if-starting)
     (defadvice org-clock-in (after wicked activate)
      "Set this task's status to 'STARTED'."
      (org-todo "STARTED"))
    (defun wicked/org-clock-out-if-waiting ()
      "Clock out when the task is marked WAITING."
      (when (and (string= state "WAITING")
                 (equal (marker-buffer org-clock-marker) (current-buffer))
                 (< (point) org-clock-marker)
	         (> (save-excursion (outline-next-heading) (point))
		    org-clock-marker)
		 (not (string= last-state state)))
	(org-clock-out)))
    (add-hook 'org-after-todo-state-change-hook
	      'wicked/org-clock-out-if-waiting)))

What if you forgot to clock into a task when you started? No problem. Simply clock in and out of it, then edit the starting timestamp for the task in your ~/organizer.org file. To find a starting timestamp, move your cursor to the task headline. If the task has been collapsed to a single line, press TAB to expand it. Look for a line that starts with CLOCK:, or a collapsed segment that starts with :CLOCK:. If you see a collapsed segment, he expanded by moving a cursor to it and pressing tab. Find the clock entry you want to change, and if the timestamp, and press C-c C-y (org-evaluate-time-range) to update the time total.

Reporting time

By project

To see how much time you’ve spent on a project or task, open your ~/organizer.org file and press C-c C-x C-d (org-clock-display). Total times will be added to each headline, summarizing the times for each subtree.

You can also use one of Org’s dynamic blocks. Open your ~/organizer.org file, move your cursor to where you want the report inserted, and type C-c C-x C-r (org-clock-report). By default, the reports will include all the second-level headings for all the days.

What if you want to limit the report to just the time you clocked last week?

Reporting time for a period

To summarize it for a span of days, change the starting line from:

#+BEGIN: clocktable :maxlevel 2 :emphasize nil

to something like:

#+BEGIN: clocktable :maxlevel 2 :emphasize nil :tstart "<2007-12-25 Sun>" :tend "<2007-12-31 Mon>"

where tstart is the starting time/date and tend is the ending time/date. You can add the timestamps either manually or with C-c C-. (org-time-stamp). After you change the block definition, update the clock table by typing C-c C-x C-u (org-dblock-update).

You can also use a definition like:

#+BEGIN: clocktable :maxlevel 2 :emphasize nil :block today

to see today’s entries. Other block keywords are ‘yesterday’, ‘thisweek’, ‘lastweek’, ‘thismonth’, ‘lastmonth’, ‘thisyear’, or ‘lastyear’.

If you need more levels of headings, change the value of maxlevel. For example, to see a detailed clock table with up to 10 levels of headings, use

#+BEGIN: clocktable :maxlevel 10 :emphasize nil :block today

clocktable summarizes the reported time. What if you want the time broken down by day?

Reporting time by days

The following code creates a custom dynamic block that breaks the reported time by date. Add the following code to your ~/.emacs:

(defun org-dblock-write:rangereport (params)
  "Display day-by-day time reports."
  (let* ((ts (plist-get params :tstart))
         (te (plist-get params :tend))
         (start (time-to-seconds
                 (apply 'encode-time (org-parse-time-string ts))))
         (end (time-to-seconds
               (apply 'encode-time (org-parse-time-string te))))
         day-numbers)
    (setq params (plist-put params :tstart nil))
    (setq params (plist-put params :end nil))
    (while (<= start end)
      (save-excursion
        (insert "\n\n"
                (format-time-string (car org-time-stamp-formats)
                                    (seconds-to-time start))
                "----------------\n")
        (org-dblock-write:clocktable
         (plist-put
          (plist-put
           params
           :tstart
           (format-time-string (car org-time-stamp-formats)
                               (seconds-to-time start)))
          :tend
          (format-time-string (car org-time-stamp-formats)
                              (seconds-to-time end))))
        (setq start (+ 86400 start))))))

After you load that code, you’ll be able to use a dynamic block of the form

#+BEGIN: rangereport :maxlevel 2 :tstart "<2007-12-25 Tue>" :tend "<2007-12-30 Sun>"
...
#+END:

to see your time reported by date. Fill it in by moving your cursor within the block and typing C-c C-x C-u (org-dblock-update).

Org makes it easy to capture timeclock information by integrating the timeclock into your task list so that you don’t even have to think about it, and it can report this time by project or by date. You can use this information to bill clients, improve your time estimates, or reflect on the way you do things. All you have to do is clock in by marking a task as STARTED, and clock out by marking a task as WAITING or DONE. Don’t get discouraged if the time clock shows you do only a few hours of productive work each day. Use that to help you figure out how to do to things better!

Random Emacs symbol: term-previous-matching-input-string – Function: Return the string matching REGEXP ARG places along the input ring.

2I really want to share my code for reviewing Org timeclock entries for each date. However, it depends on functionality that’s only in the development version of Org. Do I tell people to change to that version? Do I try to make it work with the standard version that comes with Emacs? And the development version of Org comes with all sorts of nice goodies, too…

Okay, I figured out what to do. I’m going to include it, but I’ll use a distinctive background to show people that this is only available with a newer version of Org. That way, the bleeding edge geeks can still do all sorts of cool stuff.

So you want to use Org as day planner. I’ll show you the bare minimum that you need in order to use Org to manage your tasks day by day. I assume that you’ve set up Org and Remember according to the basic configuration suggested in “Setup.” If you haven’t done that yet, please review the section on “Setup”, then return here.

Here’s what you’ll learn how to do:

1. Collect your tasks
2. Schedule the tasks for specific days
3. View your daily or weekly agenda
4. Mark tasks as done
5. Reschedule a task
6. Review your accomplishments

Collecting your tasks

If you’re adding many tasks, you may find it easier to edit your Organizer file. Open ~/organizer.org in Emacs and go to the end of the file. Add headlines like this:

 * Inbox
 ** TODO your task description here
 ** TODO another task...

Instead of typing ** TODO again and again, you can use C-M-RET to create another TODO heading at the same level as the previous one. Think of all the things you need to do over the next few days and add them to your Org agenda file.

More tasks will come up as you work on things. Instead of switching to your Org agenda file each time you need to add a task, you can use C-c r t (remember, Tasks template) to remember the task quickly. Try it now by typing C-c r t. Type in the task description and press C-c C-c (org-ctrl-c-ctrl-c) to add the task to the end of the ~/organizer.org file.

Now you have plenty of tasks on your list, but no idea when you need to do that. Here’s where scheduling and deadlines come in.

Scheduling tasks

To schedule a task, move your cursor to the TODO headline and press C-c C-s (org-schedule). Org will prompt you for a date. It understands full, partial, and relative dates. For example, if today is December 29, 2007, then It understands any of the following:

Input	Result	Explanation
(blank)	2007-12-30	Today
10:30	2007-12-30 10:30	Time today
3:30pm	2007-12-30 15:30	Time today
31	2007-12-31	Day in the current month
12-31	2007-12-31	Month and day in the current year
2008-01-01	2008-01-01	Date
2008-01-01 12:30am	2008-01-01 00:30	Date and time (also works with partial dates)
+2	2008-12-31	Two days from now
-3	2007-12-26	Three days ago
Fri	2008-01-04	The nearest Friday (on or after today)
+2w	2008-01-12	Two weeks from today

To set a deadline for a task, type C-c C-d (org-deadline). It accepts the same kinds of date that org-schedule does.

Try this out by scheduling all of your tasks over the next few days, adding deadlines where necessary.

Now that you’ve added date information to your tasks, you probably want to see those tasks organized by date instead of in the random way you entered them. Agenda views are going to become your new best friend.

Viewing your daily or weekly agenda

Type C-c a a (org-agenda, org-agenda-list) to view your agenda. By default, Org shows a weekly view of your scheduled tasks and appointments. This is your Org agenda view.

Here are some useful navigational keys:

• Switch to a daily view with d (org-agenda-day-view)
• Switch to a weekly view with w (org-agenda-week-view)
• View earlier or later days/weeks with your left and right arrow keys (org-agenda-earlier, org-agenda-later)
• Jump to a specific day with j (org-agenda-goto-date)

Get into the habit of typing C-c a a to check your task list. It may also help to add

(org-agenda-list)

to the bottom of your ~/.emacs. This opens your Org agenda view when you start up Emacs. Start your Emacs day with your Org agenda, check it every time you finish a task, and review it before you end the day. This will help you make sure that nothing falls through the cracks.

Marking tasks as done

The easiest way to mark a task as done is to go to its line in your Org agenda view. Type C-c a a (org-agenda, org-agenda-list) to view your tasks for today, move your cursor to the task, and type t (org-agenda-todo) to cycle the task status until it’s marked DONE. You can also type C-u t (org-agenda-todo with a prefix argument) to jump to a specific task status. For example, you could type C-u t DONE to mark a task as done.

You can also mark tasks done from your ~/organizer.org file. Open the file and move your cursor to the item. Type C-c C-t (org-todo) to change the task status. Again, you can type C-u C-c C-t (org-todo) to jump to a specific task status.

I find it helpful to mark tasks as STARTED when I start working on them, WAITING if I need something else in order to continue working on the task, and DONE when I’m finished with it. That way, I can quickly see which task I was supposed to be working on before I got distracted by something bright and shiny, and I can also see what I’m waiting for. Get into the habit of doing that, and you’ll find it easier to get back on track after distractions.

Unfortunately, Org does not come with a M-x org-zap-distractions command. There will be days when you can’t do everything on your task list.

Rescheduling Tasks

You don’t have to reschedule your tasks. Org will remind you of unfinished, scheduled tasks every single day. It will even helpfully tell you how many days you’ve procrastinated on that task. If you use C-c a a (org-agenda, org-agenda-list) when you have unfinished tasks on previous days, you’ll see task reminders like this:

Saturday  29 December 2007
  organizer: Scheduled:  TODO Respond to mail
  organizer: Sched. 6x:  TODO Write notes from mentoring conversation
  organizer: Sched. 2x:  WAITING Report time

You could let your unfinished tasks snowball on you in a big mass of procrastination. If you let your task list grow to an intimidating size, though, you may start stressing out about the things you aren’t doing. Let me show you how to procrastinate—I mean, reschedule your tasks effectively—so that you can work with a more manageable task list.

If tasks are starting to accumulate, it’s a good sign that you need to review those tasks. Do you really need to do them? If not, delete them by moving to the line in your Org agenda view and pressing C-k (org-agenda-kill). You can also edit your ~/organizer.org file and delete them, but org-agenda-kill is more convenient.

If you really need to do the tasks, but there’s no point in seeing it in today’s task list because you can’t do it today anyway, use C-c C-s (org-agenda-schedule) to reschedule the task. If you’re only moving it a couple of days ahead, use S-right (org-agenda-later) to move it forward, and S-left (org-agenda-earlier) if you overshoot.

Some tasks show up again and again on your task list, and you know you need to do them, but you don’t know where to getting started. “TODO Write a book” is not a good task, because it’s just too big to do in one sitting and it doesn’t tell you what to do right now. Big tasks are often projects in disguise. Break it down into smaller tasks, and schedule those instead. If you’re in the Org agenda view, press RET (org-agenda-switch-to) to jump to the task in your ~/organizer.org file. Break it down into smaller tasks by adding sub-headings and more TODOs, like this:

 ** Write a book
 *** TODO Make an outline of what to write
 *** TODO Read sample query letters
 *** TODO Write a query letter

… and so on.

Then you can use C-c C-s (org-schedule) to schedule those tasks.

Use these commands to keep your task list manageable. That way, you get the warm and fuzzy feeling of accomplishment when you finish what’s on your list and you look at everything you’ve done today.

Reviewing your accomplishments

If you’ve been good about keeping your tasks in your ~/organizer.org file, working with your Org agenda view, and marking tasks as DONE when you finish them, you’ll find it easy (and satisfying!) to review your accomplishments. Just open your daily or weekly Org agenda view with C-c a a (org-agenda, org-agenda-list). Type l (org-agenda-log-mode) to show completed tasks. Pat yourself on the back, then plan yourself another wonderful day tomorrow!

Random Emacs symbol: set-fill-column – Command: Set `fill-column’ to specified argument.