Org Mode. How do you keep your daily agenda to a manageable size, and not have an ever increasing number of tasks?

**YOU DON'T NEED TO READ THIS TO ANSWER THE QUESTION!** I wrote the following journal entry today. You don't have to read it to answer the above question, but this was the inspiration for the question. ___ [2022-04-11 Mon] Fiercely protect your daily agenda From my experience with to-do apps and ORG-MODE, I've come to learn that I need to protect my daily agenda, or it will simply grow and grow and grow. What I mean here by "daily agenda" is the list of things that I look at each day, or throughout the day, to determine those few things that I'm going to actually accomplish. As a microcosmic view, I might have the following on that list: - Status Meeting at 9 am - Pick up clothes from cleaners - Send happy birthday email to my second cousin's daughter. - Clean car to prep it for sale - Yard needs weed and feed, purchase some - Return amazon products in car - Read new article on Sacha Chua's blog - Install org super agenda - etc. I *might* accomplish one or two personal things. But often, I don't, and I end up adding other important things to the list, and all the existing ones just carry over to the next day. So many things I think are important, but the space on my daily agenda is a limited resource, and if I think everything is important to be seen every day, then I'm just going to weigh down my agenda to it's breaking point because then the effort of looking through all the possible to do items becomes such a burden that I feel overwhelmed and stressed. Constant stress like this just make me want to avoid my agenda. So I'm going to adopt a different strategy now. Sure, I can add things into my org system, but I need to use more care in where or how I add things. I need to attempt to HIDE new items instead of SHOW new items. What do I mean by that? Hiding complexity means tucking it away under a project or list. I might have a regular task to look at that list, but all the items on that list are hidden from my daily view. I might have ONE thing from such a list on my immediate radar. Every system is going to have a breaking point. Knowing your system's breaking point is good information. And of course, if you start hitting that breaking point, you need to refactor your system or processes if you want to grow more. It's a lot like growing a company from a one man shop to having an employee to having a few employees to having 10, 20, 50, 100, 1000 employees. The structure has to change to accomodate growth, and hopefully you have a structure in place that will ALWAYS accomodate your estimated future growth. Refactoring your system is part of the process. So what I need to do is not only fiercely protect my daily agenda, but I also need to constantly attempt to remove things from my agenda. Demote priorities. Tuck TO DO items away into projects or lists, and then identify only one next thing from the list. And fyi, I've determined that my breaking point for number-of-items on my todo list is about 150. I can manage looking at 100 things every day and then choosing the top most 5 things. But even that is too many. My point is that somewhere between 100 and 150 items, I start getting overwhelmed at the task of hunting through the tasks for what I should do next. And that's with my current very light work-load. When my workload becomes heavy, I'll only want to see maybe 10 things on my agenda every day, and select the top 3 to get done. Then if someting stays on my list for a number of days, even if it's "important", I may need to decide which one to get rid of it, hide it away from my sight. That's such a difficult thing to do, but it's important to do this because certainly something ELSE is going to want to take that position, and I don't want to have 11 things on my agenda because then I'll have 12 and 13 and 14... that's the problem. I need to actively eliminate things from my daily agenda or I'll just keep loading it until it breaks.

I know what you are talking about. Same problems on my side. This results in this Workflow: 1. Note an Idea, this contains what ist to solve, which project ( as Tag to sort them), deathline! If it doesn't has a deathline it will never done, everything with a deathline is more important. 2. Then have a daily routine to plan your day, stay realistic, what ist really done today, set the scheduled to the date, maybe with a specific time slot. Keep the deathline in mind 3. Check tomorrow, if a task was not done, ask yourself why, and keep the cause into consideration next time you plan your day. This way you learn to not plan to much into a day. 4. Once a week review the last week and be proud of the tasks you solved, check the deathline which should be done this week. I used a, still changing, Mix of Zettelkasten, GTD and Build a second Brain to sort my digital Mess. Not perfect, but way more efficient than without.

Couple of ideas: - make regular reviews and delete obsolete tasks - don’t micromanage tasks: there is no need to write out every single step for most tasks - follow the Two-Minute rule: if you can do it in two minutes, do it and don’t write it down - get an overview about what you want to achieve in near future: your time and energy are finite, tasks are not - select tasks for the day on the morning, set a priority on them and do not care about the rest - you should not see them or care about them These are not unique problems - e.g. every beginner in GTD faces them. I would also recommend to read a book about task management, because software is not important, principles are. Over the years I had systems in omnifocus, org-mode and omnifocus again. The difference in how I manage things was pretty small.

This is exactly why I created [https://github.com/ChanderG/toodoo.el](https://github.com/ChanderG/toodoo.el) I found that pending items was bogging me down and ever-growing. I could never get the workflow I wanted out of Agenda. With toodoo, there is a loose workflow at the core and the tool helps you follow this workflow as fast as possible. The workflow is this: you manage tasks in 3 buckets - today, this week and later. Depending on how your day/week is turning out, you move tasks between the buckets. It is expected that the buckets are pyramidal in shape in terms of number of entries. I have been using this for a couple of months (the workflow is older than the tool) and it seems to be working out for me so far.

I'm not sure org-mode is the right tool for you. Try using a paper journal and only write down top-priority tasks. Discard everything else.

I don't use org mode (I found it too flexible, so I was constantly tinkering with it rather than just getting things done), but when I first found myself getting swamped with tasks I split them up into "priority" and "nice to have". But the "priority" tasks kept building up, and if I spent a while focussing on those, the "nice to have" tasks would build up instead. So I introduced a "near future" group, and once a fortnight I populate that with things I want to focus on in... the near future. Tasks may move between "priority" and "nice to have". They might move back from "near future" into another category. Something urgent might come up and be immediately added to "near future". But so long as the "near future" and "priority" lists remain fairly small, it doesn't matter how many old and less important tasks I have in "nice to have": I'll get to them eventually (though I do also ruthlessly delete things I no longer consider worth doing). Maybe a similar approach will help you.

When a task is done I refile it to an org roam file for that specific day that day.

I think that this is the part most quickly and easily neglected: the review. You need triaging to keep your list(s) manageable.

just remember that the map is not the territory. the list exists to help you focus. you can do that with a smaller list by focusing with tags / categories / priorities, by mock schedules, or any number of other means. what's really important is to adapt org to the way your mind works, not the other way round. see https://stormrider.io/org-exoself.html for an example of how I did this.

I don't use org mode but a paper journal, but the idea is the same: you need a _review_ step. Every monday morning in the train I do a weekly review, every first monday of the month I do a monthly review. The monthly review involves copying all the to-do's that are still open to a nice overview page, so I don't have to look at old months for them. In the review I try to decide how effective I have been (have I worked on the right things?) so that I can hopefully do better this week, _and whether all to-do's are still relevant_.

I try to always _order_ things by priority, rather than using explicit labels. So it's obvious that when one thing moves to the top, the rest moves down. Works with managers too, give them a scale of five steps from "critical" to "nice to have", then the bottom two will be unused and the middle one will never get done. Let them order tickets in a column instead of choosing labels and they actually have to _choose_.

Thanks! I really appreciate you taking the time to create a polished workflow package! How many tasks do you currently have at the top level of your "Later" bucket? If I were to use your package, I think that's where I would eventually run into the same problem. My "this week" or even my "Later" bucket is just going to grow and grow and grow, and then get overwhelming, even though you only look at it occasionally. So eventually, for me, I think the package will need to generalize the review. In other words, you are currently enforcing a pyramid at the top three levels. It's like I said in my journal entry above, every workflow has a breaking point. So if it makes sense to enforce a few items at the top, today, perhaps more in this week, and even more in later, then it also makes sense to build into the workflow a generalization of this form at any level. There can only be a certain number of items at the monthly level let's say. And even then, the concept of time breaks down because then you have a lot in the yearly level. Like you said, it needs to be a pyramidal form to avoid this. I think there needs to be an enforcement or at least some package functionality to help manage the number of items at each level in the pyramid. And even then, I think the metaphor of today/ this week / this month / this year, I think that metaphor will also tend to break down. I do like your package very much, but I think I would also need to have multiple metaphors so I could slice and dice it in various ways, and switch between them as needed.

I don't think so, that would be a major step backwards for me, not forwards. I'm a total mess when I'm operating at that level, and I'll just be scattered and aimless. Due to my ADHD and memory issues, I need an *extreme* structure that a digital TODO system can provide me. Org Mode is one of the important missing links in my life. It's absolutely wonderful, and it helps me in so many ways. See https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/tzb096/emacs_with_org_mode_be_like/. I'm really fairly new at org mode and I'm only tapping into a tiny percentage of its power. I just need to improve my workflow.

>Let them order tickets in a column instead of choosing labels and they actually have to choose. Yes this. So for example, I'd like org mode to be able to have a way to say, make this task the highest priority of them all. Then it would set it at A, and move all others down a letter. Something like that. Of course, I could program that after I learn a bit of lisp. Or even probably, somebody has already coded that since it seems like an obvious tweak.

Yes, I'm very new at org mode, and my current workflow is very hacky and messy. I need to eventually get to the point where I install some of these more sophisticated packages.

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Yes, I have it on my to-do list to set up a process like this! My daily review should also include a glance at my weekly goals (not necessarily on my weekly tasks), my weekly review should look at my monthly goal to make sure that my weak kind of moves me towards a monthly goal. And my monthly review should look at maybe a quarterly goal or a yearly goal. In this way I can always just have a general sense of what my life goal is, and just make sure I'm on track at each level.

What's a deathline? I'm assuming it's like a deadline, but more strict? Is that something you made up, or does it come from GTD or something? I couldn't find any references to it.

This would be nice if it appears in org agenda. Thanks for sharing!

> I don't use org mode (I found it too flexible, so I was constantly tinkering with it rather than just getting things done), As /u/deltille [said in another post](https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/tzb096/emacs_with_org_mode_be_like/i3yst8l/?context=10000), this "tinkering" appeals to a certain type of person, and it's what keeps them coming back and *using* their org system. Yes, it *can be* a time waster, but it's also part of continual process improvement. So the key there is to balance the time spent tinkering with other priorities. Ultimately, there should be a clock-in and clock-out on the tinkering project, and a limit set for that, just like any other project or hobby. Or in other words, it's fun to have a hobby, but one needs to have balance in life as well.

I'll check it out, thanks! What's a mock schedule?

It sounds to me (from my skimming of your question), that your problem isn't org-specific. You will have a ballooning agenda no matter what: it's a fact of life that new things to do will keep cropping up all the time. Your problem is how to organize them. Others mentioned reviewing and categorizing your tasks, and I agree. I think you should take a look at the GTD system because it was made to deal with the exact situation you have right now: an overwhelming number of tasks and not knowing where to start. I personally think that Org is very well-suited to implement GTD but you may end up liking the system and finding that another tool feels better; as others have said, focus on the end goal not the tool you use. That said, I implement GTD with Org and to keep my file size manageable, I only put tasks for this year in my agenda file and when a new year rolls around, I archive my agenda file and start a new one.

https://youtu.be/AyhPmypHDEw A lot of what I know is lifted from system crafters videos. It's a great channel in general for learning emacs stuff.

for me, it's a schedule that i may or may not keep. for example, a lot of evenings have these things in them: `18:05...... 30m TODO dad:eve weekly 1:1 :#family:` `20:00...... 01h NEXT listen 2 shortwave :#shortwave:` `20:00...... ----------------` `22:25...... 05m NEXT check wowear email :#admin:` `22:47...... 05m NEXT neighbours in need :#family:` `23:28...... 10m NEXT balance the ledger :#money:` `23:42...... 02m NEXT change out needles :#hygiene:` `23:44...... 01m NEXT swap out my lancet :#hygiene:` `23:45...... 03m NEXT add wipes + strips :#hygiene:` `23:50...... 02m NEXT more truvia @ desk :#hygiene:` i might do these things as listed; i might completely ignore them; i might only do some of them. i probably will not do them at the listed time, and they probably will take more or less time than the attached estimates. that's not the point: what matters is that i can see, every day, that there are things i would like to do in the evenings, and the list serves as a reminder -- but not a hard requirement. i have a similar list for getting up in the morning, when i'm spectacularly stupid and useless for about an hour: `7:30...... 10m NEXT ***wakeup playlist :#hygiene:` `7:43...... 01m NEXT ***sit upright**** :#hygiene:` `7:44...... 01m NEXT *turn sidelamp on* :#hygiene:` `7:45...... 01m NEXT *head >>> bathroom :#hygiene:` `7:47...... 02m NEXT ***morning brb**** :#hygiene:` `7:48...... 01m NEXT *back >>> homeroom :#hygiene:` `7:50...... 02m NEXT set baby's blanket :#baby:` `7:51...... 01m NEXT *head >>> bathroom :#hygiene:` `7:52...... 01m NEXT *use flonase spray :#hygiene:` `7:53...... 02m NEXT *brush/rinse teeth :#hygiene:` `7:55...... 15m NEXT take a good shower :#hygiene:` `8:00...... ----------------` `8:09...... 02m NEXT comb/style my hair :#hygiene:` `8:11...... 05m NEXT shave beard: (prn) :#hygiene:` `8:16...... 01m NEXT apply lip balm prn :#hygiene:` `8:17...... 01m NEXT *put on deodorant* :#hygiene:` `8:18...... 01m NEXT spray on bodyspray :#hygiene:` `8:19...... 01m NEXT head >>> dorm room :#hygiene:` `8:20...... 01m NEXT *put on underwear* :#hygiene:` `8:21...... 01m NEXT put on right socks :#hygiene:...` many mornings i don't even need the list, but when i sit down to my computer and realize that i forgot to shave, i can decide if i really want to go back to the bathroom and attempt it, or just skip it today. *you* are the master and commander of your life. my org-mode just helps me balance out my very emotional side by giving me gravity when my head is in the clouds. a mock schedule creates the average *appearance and effect*, over time, of doing these things on schedule, every day, military style, when in fact, it actually happens more like a hippie in a commune (more truly who i am). important to note that that is *my* mind and *my* approach to life, only shared as an example. you have to know yourself and find your own way. if you can let org-mode fill in the gaps in your personality, so you end the day feeling good about things, that's all we're after.

Hey /u/Status-Detective-783, I started to address this in [a comment from your related post](https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/tkit87/org_workflow_question_in_your_agenda_view_how_do/i1ukwuu/). Please see that comment for context. This particular problem was the motivation for my system. My `agenda.org`file has a similar keybinding to org-agenda, which goes a long way. For me this opens a perspective with a split side-bar on the left with two small org-files. `habits.org`, which contains a very simple workflow for my daily/weekly/monthly review process; and `goals.org`, which ensures I'm always keeping big picture as a context. The main file, `agenda.org`, contains an [Eisenhower Matrix](https://slab.com/blog/eisenhower-matrix/) in list form: One for Personal and one per Client Project. Filtering tasks by context and impact is fundamental. Over time you better direct your energies toward your goals and identify your procrastination tendencies (busy work, time-wasters, false urgency). You learn to better triage your world. In my weekly review I ensure there are **only** 10 items in my Important list. Ideally I've completed them all for the week; otherwise it's a wish-list, not an action list. I brainstorm to ensure that I have a full 10 for the upcoming week. Of neglected items: * Anything longer-term goes into `someday/maybe` * Anything important+urgent gets done immediately * Non-urgent tasks orthogonal to my goals move to `someday/maybe` or `delete` * * Unimportant+Urgent list: do it now, ask for help, or pay someone else to do it. \* The `delete` list is really a triage for enjoyable tasks that I might consciously choose if I have leisure time. When I'm *stuck*, and avoiding my review: I clear the lists completely by refiling items to "neglected". Then I start the week from scratch. Clearing the lists removes resistance and builds psychological momentum. Don't let things you are subconsciously *refusing* to do have power over you. Your agenda is a tool, **not** your boss. *It* works for *you*.

Are you using dailies for this? What is the motivation for splitting completed tasks list? Do you ever revisit them, and in what context?

Well this is SPOT ON for me. The "military style schedule" is part of what I'm trying to achieve. That actually isn't part of my problem related to this post because the daily things like that are in my habits section. I'll definitely consider doing some of it as a mock schedule though. One little addition I have to help me with this is (1) focusmate, since having to "have a meeting where I'm supposed to be working" tends to be motivating. Another thing for focus on motivation on certain things that I tend to slack off on is using beeminder's commitment contracts.

gtd, weekly review, someday maybe category. Seriously though things I want to review later I just put schedule to look at one or two months later and they drop off my agenda. GTD refers to this as a "ticker file". I only use deadlines for things that have deadlines and I use -1d or -2d a lot on deadlines and filter with tags keep my agenda small. But I would check out dave allen's book getting thing done if you have not already. Org mode just makes that cleaner to implement. [http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html](http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html) is an old, but good guide to implementing it in org mode. I also find using the calfw monthly view on a second monitor is better for me to feel like I'm not missing an upcoming deadline.

Yes I'm using the dailies for that. It's actually all I use it for. I needed a way to file it and I thought it was be nice and organized this way. It's pretty convinient to use the dailies to flip through and look for something.

Yes, this makes a LOT of sense, thanks! I'm getting multiple feedback on the importance of the weekly review, and interesting that, in my journal entry above, I figured "10" was a magic number for things I look at. Also, I like the idea of keeping both habits and goals in focus (or standard side focus) while working on important action items. I can see how that dovetails nicely with the Eisenhower Matrix. Thanks for writing this up!

His videos are soooo long though haha. If I spent an hour a day listening to them, it would take me 1/2 year to listen to all of them. And that's assuming I didn't stop them to take notes. Plus he would have many more videos created, so maybe 3/4 year just to get through all videos and catch up to the current schedule. And I'm so interactive with stuff like this, I'd probably take 3 hours per one hour video. So we're talking 2 to 3 years to get through all that material! Maybe faster if I speed them up and skip through them, but still... Many people recommend his videos, but I'd rather have the cliff notes, lol.

He makes pretty detailed notes for his videos. [https://systemcrafters.cc/build-a-second-brain-in-emacs/getting-started-with-org-roam/](https://systemcrafters.cc/build-a-second-brain-in-emacs/getting-started-with-org-roam/) I avoided them for a long time too, but they are truly very informative and, as long as they are, a LOT less work than actually reading through the docs.

> You will have a ballooning agenda no matter what Yes. I talked about a metaphor of a company growing. The E Myth by Michael Gerber describes this well. A growth oriented company needs to constantly refactor to be able to manage taking on about 10x their current workforce. Or at least some factor more. Now supposing that company is successful, but they have too many tasks to do, what's the solution? Other than working smarter, a common solution is to hire more people. More people = more brain power and energy to accomplish "tasks that are on the plate to do". But most discussions about personal productivity are limited to ONE person. That's a limited resource. So there's a limit to what one person can do, but if one thinks a lot and is a prolific writer, it's VERY easy to come up with 10's, 100's or 1000's of things to do. So yes, I do agree that I need to implement a philosophy, strategy, and set of skills in managing my personal system. As far as what tool to use for GTD? Org mode seems to be the best fit for me at this time. Plenty of people use it just fine for gtd and any number of other workflows. Also, I don't have faith that other tools will continue to exist in the long run, and I don't want to have to learn another tool 5, 10, 15 years from now. Or have to constantly learn their market-driven redesigns. I like owning both my data as well as my custom tailored process.

>So there's a limit to what one person can do, but if one thinks a lot and is a prolific writer, it's VERY easy to come up with 10's, 100's or 1000's of things to do. > >So yes, I do agree that I need to implement a philosophy, strategy, and set of skills in managing my personal system. Which is exactly why I recommended GTD. GTD suggests that you *capture* all such thoughts and ideas and things to do that occur to you but you should then *clarify* them (make sure you understand what each one of them means and flesh it out into several items if need be) then, most importantly, *organize* them. Some of them can be nice ideas to work on for the future, so you put them in a separate file that you occasionally review to see if an idea's "time has come". Some of them relate to your short-term goals and projects, so you file them under the appropriate heading in your agenda file. Some of them may belong in a certain context (you can only do "Buy laundry detergent" if you're out shopping) so you make sure you don't look at this as a "to-do" unless you're in a situation where that context applies. If you follow these organizing principles, when you pull up the list of things to-do, you're not pulling up your mega-list of 100+ things to do, you're pulling up some list like: "A list of next actions I can do when sitting at a computer", "The list of to-do items relating to this area of focus (e.g. physical health)", "The list of phone calls I can make", etc... Looking at my current agenda file, I have 200+ to-do items but if I look at any of my custom agenda views (they show me next task grouped by area of focus or context), I get fewer than 10 items in each category. I hope this helps.

> I hope this helps. Oh yes, absolutely. Thanks!

Hehe, yeah your right it is a deadline. The org mode feature, also to filter. Sorry for creating effort with my broken spelling. 2nd Language 🙄 you know the gist.

I split a lot of pursuits into 'tinkering' vs 'intentional' modes. They often end up being different activities entirely, even if they may look the same from the outside (same tools, same environment, ...) Compare/contrast: sketching vs rendering, meal prep vs cooking, taking notes vs writing from same notes.

Lot of self-imposed limitations described in this thread. Any self-imposed limitation is fragile as you can, and judging from the concerns and habits described in your journal likely will, move the goalposts. They are still useful, esp. in smaller, briefer contexts, eg. "am I trying to overplan this project instead of just doing it?" But it only stays useful as long as it's being consciously used. As soon as any any engineered attempt to bypass a character flaw becomes 'terrain' to unconsciously navigate and overcome you will often find yourself navigating it expertly. Of course, the idea is to build good habits, by making conscious decisions into unconscious, automatic ones. But if you don't have a good understanding of why you are doing it and what problem you are truly solving you give yourself a headache later. That said, in org format you can freely panic and use a bunch of those tools at once, and even if you give up it's all still there to search by string later. I give up semi-frequently, in particular my topic-specific notes and to-dos are prone to getting fragmented to the point it makes more sense to try a new structure and collage the old notes into the new as I need them. I say this largely because I see many mentions of the weekly or daily review. The *outcome* is necessary, but the 'capture everything and review' approach requires you to do it *religiously* or one can reach this level of fragmentation very quickly as you've found. And if you already have a problem with avoiding looking at it... I know for a fact that I won't do GTD-style reviews regularly enough for them to be a solution to this problem. If you can, good, it makes it much simpler. If you find you can't, be realistic with yourself sooner than later. Maybe unexpectedly for praising what text and org's ability to slice it up can do, I second /u/KuangPoulp comment that a paper list may be helpful, albeit not as a replacement so much as an add-on or sort of reflective variant of the 'review' approach; eg. re-stating what sticks out as "must get done" and then *possibly* reviewing what you've already listed for yourself *after* that reality check. If nothing else it would be interesting to see what happens, especially once it becomes unconscious 'terrain' as described in limitations above. Some really shitty weeks or months this approach has saved me, where my day-to-day is on paper or in scratch and org becomes the backing store for long-term 'things coming up I need to be aware of' and 'projects I benefit from knowing will still be in order where I left them once I come back'. As an aside and also more direct answer to the topic question, I don't use the 'todo list' view of org-agenda! At least not without heavy filtering on it. I just use the calendar agenda, and for that, only things that incur serious consequences for ignoring them go on the default view. Everything else with associated date is filtered or tagged out to see if I'm looking for it. I found a 'checkbox format' to do list doesn't really work for me, and in practice what happens more often is: a given thing I'm working on will end up with a heading where I'm taking notes, and splitting sub-tasks either into other subheadings with notes or bullet lists as I go. Stuff that has significant time/date context but has no serious consequence to missing it usually gets its own file to include or leave out of org-agenda. As long as each subtask gets summarized at some point it makes picking up context again fairly easy. If that 'context pause/resume' is less important in what you do, then it may make less sense to do that.

I also use org-mode for managing tasks. What I do is the following: I have an org-mode spreadsheet (table), where I ad tasks and keep track of how much time I spend on the tasks in minutes. The spreadsheet is written in a way, that it automatically calculates sums and working hours, lunch break and overtime hours. This might be a bit too much micromanagement of my tasks and not useful for everyone. However, once set up, I estimate, that I spend maybe 10 minutes a day on task management, which I think is very OK. I recently made an example repository for spreadsheet usage. *searches* … * https://notabug.org/ZelphirKaltstahl/emacs-org-spreadsheet-examples/src/master/table.org -- shows how to use various features of org-mode spreadsheets * https://notabug.org/ZelphirKaltstahl/emacs-org-spreadsheet-examples/src/master/time-tracking.org -- task time tracking, not fully minimalistic, but you can adapt in whatever ways you want (use the "raw" links to view actual spreadsheets) Hope this might help anyone.

Simple: deadlines and priorities (and `org-super-agenda`). Oh, that doesn't mean that you won't eventually have hundreds of tasks in an agenda or org-ql-search view. It just means that the most important ones are grouped together at the top, so you can ignore the rest. Then when you have a little time, go through some of the ones without assigned priorities or deadlines, and assign them where appropriate. Also see the Org manual explanation of the difference between "deadlines" and "scheduled" in Org jargon. And you may find the Org Agenda scatter command helpful.

I use GTD basically and these things help the stacking up problem: - do regular weekly reviews that include pruning someday.org and figuring out root causes for things like this - process my inbox more often (2-3x per day) - use tags instead of scheduling to keep myself moving on tasks, only give schedules or deadlines to things that really have one. - refile lots of stuff to someday.org If you have a "today" tag for things you want to do today, be very realistic and add very few things until you have the "stacking up" under control. When under control, move up slowly and say "I won't add more workload until I've comfortably sustained this one for X days".

Very good tips, thanks! Very much like what others have said, which further confirms what I need to do. And also also some great specific suggestions as well.

This is great advice.

I definitely have org-agenda on my short-list to install. But I have mixed feelings about doing that right now. I'm sure it could help by grouping important stuff at the top. But I think that's also just delays the problem. I think what I really need to do at this point is improve my workflow, and I think that org agenda can suit my needs now if I make some obvious changes to my process. That's my philosophy, that I want to search for solutions from the ground up, rather than installing a package that will solve it. That tends to push me to learn more features of org. > Org manual explanation of the difference between "deadlines" and "scheduled" Yup, Schedule is when you start working on a task, deadline is when it needs to be finished. I do use that paradigm sometimes. But I generally select SCHEDULED or DEADLINE for how I want it to appear in my agenda. If I want some advanced notice, I use a deadline like this to give me a 3 day head's up: * [#A] Amazon Returns LAST DAY TO RETURN NEED TO PRINT LABEL TAKE TO AUTO PLACE DEADLINE: <2022-04-15 Fri -3d> I might additionally add a SCHEDULED item 1 week before, to see if I can get that done early. But not always.

Cool! I've put this on my someday list to look at, haha. (And I don't mean that negatively at all! It's just that there are soooo many things for me to look at. But I really am intrigued to dig into what you're doing. ... someday!)

> Very much like what others have said, which further confirms what I need to do. It was blind too. I purposefully didn't read other comments until after replying. Happy to help, I also have ADHD btw.

Awesome advice, brought a lot of thoughts to mind for me. > - make regular reviews The most important and most difficult to keep up. I've had luck rewarding myself with cake or something after a review. These are especially hard in the beginning when you aren't where you want to be and... you already *know* you aren't moving fast enough... so what's the point of review? The point is: - you might be wrong - you probably aren't recognizing your accomplishments enough and expressing self-gratitude - if you are right, well here's your time to debug why and plan fixing it > don’t micromanage tasks: there is no need to write out every single step for most tasks For someone with ADHD this is a double edged sword very sharp on both sides. Just answer truthfully when you find yourself doing this: Is breaking things down reducing anxiety and getting you closer to doing the thing or is it helping you forget about the guilt of not doing it? Are you sure? Okay, go do the first thing on your already super detailed list to prove it and then come back to finish the other steps. Observe if you still want the same granularity or not, but don't feel guilty either way if you can help it. > - get an overview about what you want to achieve in near future: your time and energy are finite, tasks are not Getting a sight of the forest can be very energizing and inspiring too, while the endless trees can feel overwhelming or pointless. > These are not unique problems - e.g. every beginner in GTD faces them. I would also recommend to read a book about task management, because software is not important, principles are. Yep, which is why gtd forums are where I find the most useful discussions on workflow, chunking, sticking to reviews, improving on reviews, etc.

> When I'm *stuck*, and avoiding my review: I clear the lists completely by refiling items to "neglected". Then I start the week from scratch. Clearing the lists removes resistance and builds psychological momentum. Don't let things you are subconsciously *refusing* to do have power over you. Your agenda is a tool, **not** your boss. *It* works for *you*. Giving yourself permission to do this is huge, and really makes things feel more stable. I also have a "highAnxiety" list for these tasks, so that on high energy days I can tackle them.

Wow, I can relate to just about everything you post it's weird. > Any self-imposed limitation is fragile as you can, and judging from the concerns and habits described in your journal likely will, move the goalposts. Yup. It's hard to change, and one needs to realistically understand this. That also, by the way, a core foundation for the beeminder app (just a customer of it). To write a commitment contract and you have to deal with your own temptation to "weasel" as they call it. This is an article that describes both "weaseling" and the occasional crash-and-burn followed by getting "back on the wagon" of productivity. https://blog.beeminder.com/weasels/ > I know for a fact that I won't do GTD-style reviews regularly enough for them to be a solution to this problem. If you can, good, it makes it much simpler. If you find you can't, be realistic with yourself sooner than later. Very good advice. Yes, I need to find out what works for me. Either by working within my own proclivities or by establishing new habit-skills. Developing new habit-skills is much more difficult than people think. It takes an extremely long period of repetition, like learning to play an instrument or a new language or sport. > As soon as any any engineered attempt to bypass a character flaw becomes 'terrain' to unconsciously navigate and overcome you will often find yourself navigating it expertly. Massive amounts of repetition to establish it as terrain. The reason? Because that kind of new mental mode requires neural growth. Neural growth is coaxed via constant exposure and... time to grow. > Of course, the idea is to build good habits, by making conscious decisions into unconscious, automatic ones. But if you don't have a good understanding of why you are doing it and what problem you are truly solving you give yourself a headache later. Yes. I think one needs to look at a very low level of habit/behavior/personality to get to the root where decisions are made, sometimes based on skills, coping skills/habits, and cognitive deficiencies, and then make adjustments there in order to learn new behavior patterns or adjust mental attitudes and expectations of what one can achieve. > Maybe unexpectedly for praising what text and org's ability to slice it up can do, I second /u/KuangPoulp comment that a paper list may be helpful, albeit not as a replacement so much as an add-on or sort of reflective variant of the 'review' approach; Yes, not as a replacement, but as an adjunct. I've been transferring my daily "most important todo" to a google doc to cope with my information overload in org. Though I might prefer an emacs-based solution, even if hand written, once I get my mobile interface to emacs up and going.

An anxiety list, I like that. You might combine it with something called Fear Setting. Tim Ferris has a video on it, and the exercise helped me with some major life decisions. I think it was an old TED talk.

Agree with your assessment regarding unbounded growth. I did consider enforcing some limits on each bucket, but I will wait for some more time to analyze my own usage. In my current use, I notice that I have relatively few items (10 odd) in Later that tend to get stuck there. As in, the important things go into the first 2 buckets and eventually get done (maybe more than a week, but less than a month). I think this is a statement of my current profile of tasks, so I will wait longer before deciding what works best. That said, one of my key design motivation with this workflow is simplifying things. If I see too many todo items, I don't feel like doing anything. Same for multiple views. I did consider a few options and then tossed them all out in the name of simplicity.

What does your review process and frequency look like? Paging the parent /u/lycopodiopsida as well.

It sounds like you need to differentiate between what you must do later versus what you'd like to do later, what sounds cool to do later, or what you'd like to accomplish later. I keep ideas and stuff like that in a separate file outside of my agenda searches, and I'm not bothered by it's unbounded growth. Generally these tasks relate to fanatical or whimsical things I'll never get around to, like cleaning my garage, and that's OK. However, things that must be done (in other words, if they are not done I'll face significant consequences) go into a 'later' file, and if they have a specific deadline, like taxes, I deadline them as well. Eventually though, a lot of the tasks that accumulate in the maybe/never ideas file are irrelevant or no longer interesting after a year, so it's kind of self pruning. &#x200B; Also, an alternative to the toodoo.el package could be just being strict about file seperation. I use a file for 'active' stuff, a file for 'soon' stuff, a file for 'later' stuff and a file for ideas. Not to advise against using the package at all, just telling you what I do to create these buckets.

Thanks!

With ups and downs 🙃 I have an @backlog and @P (for parking lot) to hide stuff for the shorter and longer term. Typically on a Sunday evening i archive the done stuff and then review plans for the next work week. For the week I tag A (1 outcome) B (3) C (5) priority either on psychological effort or actual need to be done first priority. Periodically (sometimes weekly sometimes each month) i review the backlog and parking lot. I often prefix stuff with "(jul)" as tickler. My main challenge lies in not keeping stuff around. So lately my backlog has been growing and growing so I'm going to need to make a few hard calls and just throw away stuff.

Basically the same, as I did in OmniFocus days: I have a bunch of weekly repeating tasks, where I will clean all inboxes, sort files, do backups, go through all projects, check my calendar for the next 2 weeks and so on, and they are scheduled on Sunday. OmniFocus is a bit better at it, since you can schedule a custom review interval for specific projects, but I have very rarely used this feature. Then I archive all DONE and KILL task, and I am done. There is no magic required in your org setup for reviews :)