Emacs org-mode
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Rethinking and organizing my life with org-mode (part 3?)
I spent some time reading through the manual for part 3 of organizing my life in org-mode. org-mode has an archiving function I haven’t bothered with in the past because dumping old files into a folder was easier to do.
There was this interesting example under org-archive-subtree help text:
“
/org/datetree.org::datetree/* Finished Tasks” The “datetree/” string is special, signifying to archive items to the datetree. Items are placed in either the CLOSED date of the item, or the current date if there is no CLOSED date. The heading will be a subentry to the current date. There doesn’t need to be a heading, but there always needs to be a slash after datetree. For example, to store archived items directly in the datetree, use “/org/datetree.org::datetree/”.
Ah ha! So you refile a task and put it away in a different file (this is what archiving does by default in Emacs) and store it in its appropriate month. Not only that, the function will look for when you finished working on a project and automatically store it on that date in a header of your choosing. Good stuff.
For example, let’s say I started to write a technical document at work about pink rabbits (I’m in a good mood, OK? Bare with me, I’ll get grumpy soon enough) and this project includes a couple of subheaders: a meeting we had about the project, a task to backup the existing version of the document, and a couple of more TODOs regarding images and sending it for approval by subject matter experts. So far so good, this starts in Now.org where I keep working on the project and add to my notes.
Let’s continue with the example. Two months later, I’m done with the pink rabbits projects. I go to the parent header in my Now.org file, “update Pink Rabbits document,” and change its keyword from ACTIVE (my keyword for projects) to DONE. Since I have the keyword “ACTIVE” defined with ! in the file’s options (this is defined by the line #+TODO: TODO(t) ACTIVE(a!) MEETING(m!) | DONE(d!) CANCELED(c) at the top of the file - you can see ACTIVE is triggered by a! while its neighbor, TODO, is only t which means a timestamp will not be added), org-mode adds a timestamp for when I marked it DONE.
There are three basic scopes of defining where to put the archived headers. I can define one file in my init file for org-archive-subtree, which will create a global definition and thus a file for everything (not very useful), or I can define the destination for the archive at the top of the org file (so Now.org will have a line: #+ARCHIVE: my/path/is/here), or, I can go into the individual headers and define it there as a property with Archive: my/path/here. This last one is best for me, as I can quickly define headers for, say, article updates, announcements, and misc, each one of these parent headers pointing to a different file, if I want to do that. Nice indeed.
With the datetree option above, these archived tasks will be filed in these files and under the date and time I finished the project. The archive function will include properties in each telling me exactly where these projects came from.
I was about to start using this, but there’s only one problem… I haven’t found out how to restore something back from the archive.
Back to the example. Say I thought we were done with our pink rabbits document so I archived it away. Then, next month, someone says “Hey, JTR, we need to mention the catapults we’re implementing with the pink rabbits. Can you add it?” I say “Sure, no problem!” After all, I have the power of Emacs and it takes me less than a minute to find this project in my archive (consult-grep is amazing for this sort of thing).
So go to the archive file, I find it, and… I want to pull it out of the archive and put it back into my Now.org as one of my active projects… but… how do I do that?
I can be barbaric and go around killing and yanking, but there must be a better way, right? I think? Grrrr… (see, back to my grumpy self).
Rethinking and organizing my life with org-mode (part 2)
The other day, I mentioned how my projects file in org-mode is basically a huge mess that makes it difficult to be on top of things, and then an idea occurred to me during a shower, as all good ideas do: organizing is important when I save and store things, not when I’m working on them.
When I work on something, I deal with a dynamic environment with tasks, reminders, attachments, comments, and a bunch of other things. This is the information-gathering phase. The main point is to collect everything quickly so I have it available later. It’s when I’m done with a project that I need to clean it up and store it in its place so I can find it later.
I was considering (still in the shower) the “now page” phenomenon. What if I change my project.org file to now.org? Technically it will look the same but conceptually it will be different. A place for things I’m actively working on in the present moment.
The real change should take place in the org files I save my projects into. Work projects will go into dedicated files, depending on the kind of task. Personal things will fit into their own files. As a matter of fact, the work-personal separation is not as important as it used to be, as each activity (work or personal) gets a separate file anyway.
For example, if I’m working on a vacation in now.org, I have a project with the location, the hotel, a map of the area, a couple of places to see, and a packing list. When the vacation is over, it will go into an events.org file under a “vacations” header. When I place it there, I will also include a link to the photos I took, tag it with “journal” if I wrote about it in my journal, and add a couple of annotations to the map, depending on where I’ve been.
In the future, when I want to reflect on the vacation, I will know exactly where to look. Keeping these files small is important so they don’t become overwhelming. An indicator for that could be casual reading: Can I just open the file, read through it, and enjoy it? Maybe even make it into a PDF and print it? The answer to these questions should be yes.
The trick is to know when a certain “thing” happens often enough to have its own file. For example, would I need a vacations.org file, or is events.org (which also includes going out to restaurants and movies) good enough?
For this, I think the size of the file itself could be a good indicator. In org-mode, the files contain only text. So if a file contains more than, say, 50KB, it means it has 50,000 characters. This roughly translates to 7,000 - 10,000 words. Since the characters in org-mode are also symbols for syntax for meta information, I think this is a roughly good number for now; I can always adjust it later.
This concept also works when I’m happy with the category the file captures, but as it grows, I can split it by months or years. For example, if events.org is good enough to capture vacations, restaurants, movies, and other social gatherings, and I want to keep it this way, I should have event_2024.org, and then make events_2025.org, etc. It’s possible some things, like certain work activities, will need to be broken down every couple of months while other personal tasks only every year or even only a couple of years.
I started storing some of my completed tasks yesterday, and I slowly chipping away at my big projects.org mess. As I go through it, I will get a better idea of how it’s working and if I feel like I am back in control again. Since I need to wipe my Mac and start fresh (this is a story for a different time), I will have a nice clean start this weekend. That’s the goal, anyway.
Rethinking and reorganizing my life - with org-mode
I used to be more organized. At least, that’s what I think.
When I was working as a desktop technician, I added all my tasks into a file called “Oh Snap,” which I cleared every week. Every Monday morning, I would go over my Oh Snap file and archive done tasks, remind myself of and write notes of existing tasks, and make sure a weekly backup was created.
In my current role, my tasks mostly grow into projects. Besides some quick things, like creating an announcement or an alert for our website, these projects usually take weeks; some even take months. Going over my Oh Snap file every week stopped making sense.
But when I stopped my weekly routine, I also stopped organizing tasks. Now I have one big file mixed with personal and work tasks, some active and some complete. It’s an intimidating blob of “stuff,” and just looking at it makes me want to run away to a video game instead.
I also write less about what I do in my personal life unless it’s complicated enough with several todos and a packing list or if I have the itch to write, which is when I pull out my journal. This means that a lot of useful information never gets saved. Things like map snippets with locations (easy in Emacs), links to pictures I took with descriptions, and the people I got to know - all of that is not written and gets lost.
This made me realize that the weekly routine around my Oh Snap file was one thing; organizing different tasks and events into categories is also important. I don’t mean just “work” and “personal,” which are too vague and big to work with. Categories should be a rough outline of familiarity, a way to frame and save things for better retrieval later. For example, “vacations” might be a better category than “events” (too general), and both are better than just “personal” (way too general).
A good category is like an apartment building where I know certain past events happen. If I want to see pictures of my niece from last Thanksgiving, a “family” or “holidays” category would make sense; at work, if I want to recall when I created certain announcements for the website, then “website” or “announcements” is a good category for that.
So now I’m trying to figure out a couple of things. First, when should I visit my projects file, which is a dump of everything I do, and move things out into their categories. Second, what are these categories? We shall see what I come up with.
I’ve updated my Microsoft Edge notes, after working with it for a couple of weeks. If you use Office 365 for work like I do, here’s a tip: Maximize (but don’t go full screen!) when working with Edge. Read more in the full article linked above.
For Emacs org-mode users, two tips in two new notes: linking to other org-mode headers and plain lists to checklists in org-mode.
As always, you can access my welcome note and read all my notes there.
I'm retiring my Android from my org-mode workflow
I feel a bit weird disconnecting my Android from my work tasks and projects in Syncthing and thus cutting it off from my Emacs workflow, but it’s about time.
I haven’t used my Android for work notes in months - probably a year. I keep having syncing conflicts with Syncthing between the Android and my Raspberry Pie, which still serves as my file server after four years (I love this thing!), and there’s no reason for those anymore. I use my Mac for Emacs 80% of the time nowadays, and I want to include my iPhone in my workflow now so I can use it to record org-mode notes, and the iPhone doesn’t play with Syncthing.
Since my iPhone is my work phone, it makes sense to me that work-related notes are synced to my iCloud, as these are not personal or private, and I want to be able to create org-mode notes on the go again. Apple’s Notes is nice and all, but it’s no org-mode, and it’s not private.
The issue I had yesterday with Elfeed-org is fixed. As it turns out, the parent headers for the feed have to be tagged with “elfeed” for the feeds to load correctly. It looks like this:
* Blogs :elfeed:
** Blog 1 feed here
** Blog 2 feed here
** Blog 3 feed here
* News :elfeed:
** News site 1 feed here
** News site 2 feed here
** News site 3 feed here
That’s all that was needed! Thanks again, takeonrules!
And here is what my RSS list looks like in action. It’s nice to sit back with a cup of tea (coffee is a morning thing!) during lunch break and see what’s up:
Scratching my head at an Emacs issue: Elfeed-org doesn’t seem to load my feeds. I’m not sure why, everything looks OK. I have my feeds.org and I have the path defined in rmh-elfeed-org-files and it does show the value it’s supposed to have.
Does anyone have a working config I can look at?
Another little gem I’ve been using for a while: org-toggle-narrow-to-subtree. I added an explanation to my emacs config:
Macro I created to focus on projects (headers in org-mode) that gets everything else out of the way. The idea is simple: when standing on a sub-header (in my case, this is usually level three. For example, I’m standing on “pay electric bill” in: * Personal > ** ACTIVE pay bills > ***TODO pay electric bill), jump to its parent (in this example, “pay bills”) and narrow. When running again, expand it back. This is working by using org-toggle-narrow-to-subtree. Very useful when working in a buffer with several projects.
(fset 'jr-project-focus
(kmacro-lambda-form [?\C-c ?\C-u ?\C-c ?n] 0 "%d"))
I wanted to fix company-mode for Emacs, and on the way I remembered that was something Emacs already comes with. Yep, and it has a name you’d not guess in 100 years: hippie-expand. Added to my config. See Mickey’s post about it if you don’t believe me.
Emacs org-mode category
I’ve been following 404 media for a while, and after they recently offered a discount, I decided to become a paying subscriber for a year. This is a unique publication with a small, dedicated team of journalists behind it.
With the subscription, they also offered a private RSS feed for full articles. Since I can’t share that private feed with the world, I decided it’s time to migrate my feeds out of my main emacs settings and into its own dedicated org-mode file, using elfeed-org.
As this is yet another Emacs org-mode update, and several people comments on those, I created Emacs org-mode category on my blog with its own dedicated RSS feed: taonaw.com/categorie… This post should be on it as a test.