[emacs-wiki-discuss] Re: Planner.el: Page Templates

[Sacha Chua]

Tyler Weir <address@hidden> writes:

Hello, Tyler!

By the way, feel free to post questions, comments and suggestions to
our mailing list at address@hidden
(http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-wiki-discuss). =) If
you prefer to use Gmane (a mailing list->NNTP/blog gateway), check out
http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.wiki.general . You're almost certain
to find people who have similar quirks when it comes to planning their
day. =)

> I'd like to change the template that is used to create a new task page
> in planner.
>
> Something like this:
>
> * Task Name:
> <The text I added to describe the task.>
>
> * Links: [[TaskPool]]
>
> * Next Actions:

Ah, a GTD-style person? =D

Quick primer for other people who are new to different kinds of
planning: Among other things, David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD)
methodology gets you to focus just on the next action for each task.

Hmmm... With a little modification, I think we have all the code you
need to make this happen. Put this in your planner configuration:

----------------------------------------------------------------
Basic GTD setup
----------------------------------------------------------------

(setq planner-plan-page-template "* Goal

* Links

* Tasks
")

(Thinking of end results instead of just naming the task is closer to
the GTD way, I think, but you can always change it back to Task Name).
Then:

1. Create the page. You can C-x C-f it, you can create a link and then
   hit RET, and you even create a task that refers to a new page and
   then open that buffer. =)

2. Fill in your task description so that it looks something like this:

* Task Name

Be fit and at my ideal body mass index so that we

* Links

- http://....
- EatWell

* Tasks

3. Write down your next action. You can use C-c C-t to create a task. It will
   default to scheduling it for today and linking it with the current page.
   For example, "Sign up for gym membership" becomes

#A _ Sign up for gym membership (2005.03.30)

4. If you think of other actions, create them as well, but specify nil
   for the date. You can also type them in manually; just omit the
   date link. That way, they show up on the plan page (BetterHealth,
   etc.) but they won't be on the day page until you schedule them
   with C-c C-c.

5. Review your day page. You'll see the next action from your project.

When you finish that, you can create a new task, specifying a
different plan page.
----------------------------------------------------------------
END BASIC GTD SETUP
----------------------------------------------------------------

Here are a few more ideas to play around with once you've gotten the
basics working. =)

We already have code to automatically schedule the next undated task
from the same project whenever you complete a task.
";;_+ Schedule next undated task from same project" from
http://sacha.free.net.ph/notebook/emacs/planner-config.el
makes it easier for you to keep lists of next actions in your plan pages.

Then again, thinking of all these next actions right away might be too
much work. It's also easy to write something that prompts you for the
next action whenever you complete a task. Is that something that might
work for you?

> I didn't look through the planner code closely, but I will later.  My
> quick look found that there might be a dependency on the word "Notes."

Nah, actually, that's easy to fix. =) Latest dev changes that. (And
yes, I wrote that code in a released version of Emacs! I'm
learning...)

-- 
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
sachac on irc.freenode.net#emacs . YM: sachachua83