Task management with org-roam Vol. 7: Capture
Capturing is one of the most important activities in the task management process. Previously we talked about storing and querying tasks and now it’s time to cover capturing of tasks, meeting notes and inbox.
Please note that the goal is not to discuss GTD or any other methodology, but rather to discover how org-roam combined with everything we talked previously may help you to improve your capturing process regardless of methodology you are using.
Task management with org-roam Vol. 6: Select a person and view related tasks
In one of the previous articles (Vol 3 to be precise) we talked about automatic setup of filetags, so each of the task in note related to a person is automatically tagged thanks to tag inheritance. Then, in Vol 4 we talked about automatic tagging of tasks whenever a person is mentioned either in the title or the body of some task. This all makes org-agenda matching capabilities really useful for when we want to see the list of all tasks related to specific person.
In this article, we are going to write a small utility function that asks user to select a person and then presents and org-agenda buffer with tasks related to selected person.
Believe me, intro is longer than the content!
Change Log:
[2021-03-02 Tue]: Update naming convention to match personal configurations.[2021-05-10 Mon]: Update post to reflect changes in org-roam v2. Previous version of this article is available on GitHub.
Task management with org-roam Vol. 5: Dynamic and fast agenda
In previous articles (Vol 1 and Vol 2) we talked about moving tasks from regular org-mode files to org-roam notes. This relied upon adding all org-roam files to org-agenda-files, which doesn’t scale well, as when you build an agenda buffer, it needs to traverse each file. Once you have more than 1k notes, things become sluggish.
In my experience, once I reached 1200 note files, org-agenda constantly took more than 50 seconds to build, rendering this tool completely useless. But then I realised that only 3% of those files actually contain any TODO entries, so there is no need to traverse whole org-roam-directory!
In this article we are going to optimise org-agenda back to less than 1 second by dynamically building org-agenda-files list to include only files with TODO entries. All thanks to the power of org-roam and some hooks I am going to describe.
Change Log:
[2021-03-02 Tue]: Update naming convention to match personal configurations.[2021-03-08 Mon]: Gustav shared thatorg-element-maphas an optional parameterfirst-matchthat works likeseq-find, meaning thatvulpea-project-pcan be optimised.[2021-05-10 Mon]: Update post to reflect changes in org-roam v2. Previous version of this article is available on GitHub.[2021-08-19 Thu]: Gustav proposed to modify buffer only when tags have changed. Code was updated accordingly (both in the post and on GitHub Gist).[2021-09-07 Tue]: rngesus-wept proposed an interesting solution on how to make sure that any extra stuff inorg-agenda-filesare not wiped out.
Task management with org-roam Vol. 4: Automatic tagging
In the previous article we covered automatic tagging of notes related to a specific person, and today we are going to cover automatic tagging of an org-mode heading upon insertion of link related to a person. To put it simple, when I mention someone in the task, I would love this task to be automatically tagged with that persons name. As they say, it’s better to see once, than imagine multiple times, so here is a screencast.
Change Log:
[2021-01-24 Sun]: Since some of the functionality mentioned in the original article was merged toorg-roam, all code is updated to reflect the current state of affairs.[2021-03-02 Tue]: Update naming convention to match personal configurations.[2021-05-10 Mon]: Update post to reflect changes in org-roam v2. Previous version of this article is available on GitHub.[2021-11-19 Fri]: Update post to reflect inclusion ofvulpea-insertfunction tovulpealibrary. You can find previous version of this article in git history.
Task management with org-roam Vol. 3: FILETAGS
In the previous articles (vol1 and vol2) we walked the path to org-roam and solved the issue with garbage in the category column of agenda. Today we are going to explore meta projects dedicated to specific person, tag inheritance and moving such projects to separate org-roam files. As result, we will have code for automatic tagging based on the title.
Aside from regular meta projects (like personal blog) I also create meta projects for people and locations. This is helpful, because some of the tasks are really related to someone specifically. For example, when I need to return a borrowed book, I just create a task for this.
* Frodo Baggins :@FrodoBaggins:
** TODO Return 'The Lord of the Rings' book
** TODO Farewell party :PROJECT:
It feels like Mr. Frodo is about to live Shire. So we are going to setup a
farewell party for him.
*** TODO Talk to Samwise Gamgee :@SamwiseGamgee:
*** TODO Talk to Meriadoc Brandybuck :@MeriadocBrandybuck:
*** TODO Talk to Peregrin Took :@PeregrinTook:
*** TODO Tie a pair of wool socks
I am not sure where he is going, so a pair of warm wool socks should be good.
At least they can be used to protect bottles of wine during journey. That is in
case Frodo doesn't wear socks. But how could it be? Everyone does!
Change Log:
[2021-01-24 Sun]: Since some of the functionality mentioned in the original article was merged toorg-roam, all code is updated to reflect the current state of affairs.[2021-03-02 Tue]: Update naming convention to match personal configurations.[2021-05-10 Mon]: Update post to reflect changes in org-roam v2. Previous version of this article is available on GitHub.
Task management with org-roam Vol. 2: Categories
In the previous article we set a ground for moving tasks to org-roam, and encountered an issue with visual garbage in the agenda buffer. Namely, org-roam file id as part of the category. In this article, we are going to explore the means to overcome this issue.
Change Log:
[2021-03-02 Tue]: Update category extraction function to useTITLEof the note and enforce length limit. Kudos to Tim Ruffing for the idea.[2021-03-02 Tue]: Update naming convention to match personal configurations.[2021-05-10 Mon]: Update post to reflect changes in org-roam v2. Previous version of this article is available on GitHub.
Task management with org-roam Vol. 1: Path to Roam
org-mode is a simple outliner for note taking and list management. It doesn’t impose any complex features on users. This is something users excel at by themselves. My suggestion is to continue this tradition and discover task management capabilities in org-roam, an org-mode extension for non-hierarchical notes management.
Change Log:
[2021-05-10 Mon]: Update post to reflect changes in org-roam v2. Previous version of this article is available on GitHub.
Structure templates in Org mode
Anyone would agree that typing #+BEGIN_SRC ... #+END_SRC blocks manually feels strange.
In order to make life easier, some people implement helpers to insert these blocks. For example, Chris Done has org-begin-template function in his configs. Other people use yatemplate to create generic or specific templates for blocks.
But what is most fascinating, is that org-mode bundles with templates for some structural elements like these blocks. And instead of copy-pasting solutions into your .emacs file, take a look at Structure Templates.
Being an org-mode addict
It is funny how I vainly try to escape devilish org-mode. I have several major concerns regarding it as a GTD system and a note taking system, but after all, whatever I try to replace it with, I always return to org-mode. Mostly because it’s simple (at least at the top level) and makes me feel more confident about my thoughts, tasks and the future. But on the other hand, it makes me really angry because it forces me to make some uncomfortable decisions.