[emacs-wiki-discuss] Re: How I started using Planner

[Sacha Chua]

Andreas Stemmer <address@hidden> writes:

> thank you very much for your help. After browsing your web page and 
> reading how active you are on this list, I'm very sure that you know a 
> lot about planning and effective working ;-)

I only look like I'm productive. Seriously, I procrastinate like
everyone else (and probably a little more). I just happen to keep a
lot of little tasks lying around so that I can work on something fun
while procrastinating. Structured procrastination. Right. That's what
it's called. ;)

> The biggest problem is that you have to read the overwhelming number
> of messages again and again before you actually work on them.

Here's my current e-mail/task handling method:

I make one sweep through my e-mail creating new task items before
doing my tasks. I think that stops me from getting too distracted and
allows me to do better scheduling, as I know my new tasks up-front. I
schedule urgent tasks onto today's day page (and possibly a plan
page); everything else gets swept into a plan page. (Oops. Most
planner.el hacks end up there.)

Then I go over today's page looking for the first thing I can do.
I do it. Then I do the next thing, then the next thing.

When I find myself with free time or I hit a rut and I don't want to
work on any of the other tasks on my page, I open the project I feel
like working on and pick a task from there. I schedule it onto my day
page as well so that I can keep track of progress.

This is, of course, not the only way to do things. I doubt it's even
the best way to do things. <grin> It currently works for me, though. I
love hearing about what works for other people so that I can steal
good ideas. ;)

> Mail-linking depends on using emacs as mail client, right? So for
> now I'll keep switching applications and create appropriate tasks in
> planner by hand until I'm ready for the next step.

I wonder if there's a way we can make your life easier... <muses>
Something that uses emacsclient to call planner-create-task, perhaps?

> Yes planner is running already and I started taking some notes and
> setting up some tasks last week.

Yay!

> A little bit OT, but is there an easy way to find out which keys are 
> already bound to a certain function? Of course I can press them and see 
> what happens or use M-? C-k, but it would be easier to have some kind of 
> overview.

M-x where-is   ?
Also, you can use C-h m    to find out most of the key assigments for the
current mode.

> No problem for me at the moment since I use planner on my work pc only 
> at the moment and it doesn't matter it there are work and private tasks 
> mixed. But it could become a tricky problem someday...
> Once again, thank you for your help Sacha.

No prob. I think Planner's user community is its coolest feature.
(look! all these wonderful people sharing nifty hacks!) I love it when
people give Planner a try. I hope we can get Planner to fit you really
well. =)

-- 
Sacha Chua <address@hidden> - open source geekette
http://sacha.free.net.ph/ - PGP Key ID: 0xE7FDF77C
interests: emacs, gnu/linux, personal information management, CS ed
applying as a Debian new maintainer | looking for a grad school