2010.10_Plan on It-Ultimate Gtd System with Org-Mode.pdf

Ultimate GTD System with Org-Mode

Plan On It

Emacs wins a battle in the editor war with the addition of Org-Mode, an extension for your organizational

needs.

By Aditya Shevade

The Emacs and Vim war is well known among Linux veterans. Numerous websites brag about one editor over

the other and the debate keeps growing. Emacs however, has nudged a bit forward with the addition of

Org-Mode. It remains the only reason I have Emacs on my computer along with Vim.

Org-Mode started as an extension for Emacs that takes care of your organizational needs. You can manage

your daily agenda, meetings, to-do lists, and all those other Getting Things Done (GTD) elements with

Org-Mode [1]. I began using Org-Mode to manage my final year project - tracking things that needed to be

completed by a certain deadline and all the finer details of a larger module. Turns out that Org-Mode made

life much easier than it would have been otherwise.

The greatest advantage with Org-Mode is the file format. It's plain text [2], you don't have to worry about

having particular software, and tracking changes is extremely easy (with SVN/Git). Even if you don't have

Emacs, you can use a simple text editor to edit the files. The processing needs are also minimized greatly.

Getting Started With Org-Mode

I am not going to go into the details of Emacs installation and usage. If you are a new user, this might actually

turn out to be a motivation to use Emacs. As I said, Org-Mode started as an extension for Emacs; however, it's

now included with the Emacs vanilla package [3]. If you have Emacs version 22 or higher, you probably

already have Org-Mode installed. To make sure, issue the command M- x org-mode while in Emacs (see the

"Emacs Notations" box). If you do not have Org-Mode, Emacs displays No Match .

At this point, you can do one of two things: either install a newer version of Emacs or install Org-Mode

manually. If you decide to install Org-Mode manually, head over to the website [1] and read the installation

instructions. Once you have installed Org-Mode, rerun the previous command. If your installation was

successful, you will see (org) in the mode line area. If you are running Emacs in graphical mode, you will

see a drop-down menu. As a long-time Vim user, I never used the graphical menu. The keyboard shortcuts are

much more productive once you are familiar with them.

Now it's time to write an Org-Mode file. To do this, add the following lines to your ~/.emacs file and

restart Emacs:

;; Org-mode settings

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(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.org$" . org-mode))

(global-set-key "\C-cl" 'org-store-link)

(global-set-key "\C-ca" 'org-agenda)

(global-set-key "\C-cb" 'org-iswitchb)

(global-font-lock-mode 1)

The first line of this code makes sure that all files with an extension of .org will open with Org-Mode in

Emacs. The next three lines are preferences for key bindings and fonts. Although you can use any

configuration that works for you, this is the default configuration from the official manual. The final line

activates the font lock mode. Many Org-Mode features only work with this feature turned on.

To begin, I'll create a file with a .org extension, call it orgTut.org , and open the file in Emacs.

Emacs notation

Emacs notation was established in Emacs' early days and differs from the usual "Ctrl+C" notation used for

window systems. In Emacs, a simultaneous key combination uses the hyphen instead of the plus sign. The

Ctrl key and the meta key (Alt, Option, or Esc, as defined for your system) are shortened to a single letter and

capitalized - C for the Ctrl key and M for the system-specific meta key. Any accompanying key pressed

simultaneously is shown here in italic and is case sensitive. Any key pressed after a key combination is italic,

case sensitive, and preceded by a space. Therefore, C- c . and C- c ! mean you press and release the Ctrl and c

keys together, then press the period or exclamation mark key. In the first example, M- x org-mode , press the

meta key and x , release, and type org-mode . Action keys (i.e., Return, Shift, Arrow keys) appear in normal

font, as usual.

Notes

The most sought after and basic feature in any organizer is note taking. Org-Mode is based on the Outline

Mode of Emacs. You can format an entire document in a hierarchical form with this mode. This multilevel

support lets you add sub-notes and contextual descriptions along with them. To create a headline or level-one

note, put an asterisk ( * ) at the start of the line. To add a second-level note, add two asterisks, and so on. Any

text added without the asterisks and after a headline acts as the description of the note (Figure 1).

Figure 1: An outline of headlines.

In the figure, the headline would represent the primary task. The sub-tasks would then outline the work flow,

with appropriate notes to simplify the process. You can add as many sub-levels as you want. If you want to

hide all sub-notes, highlight the main task and press Tab. The entire tree will be folded with an ellipsis after

the head. Additionally, you can add various properties to the level-one headlines. Some people get really

annoyed with the number of asterisks and the lack of indentation in the format described above, but you can

add indentation and have only one asterisk at the beginning of the line, as shown in Figure 2.

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Figure 2: Outline in org-indent-mode.

To achieve this type of formatting in Emacs v23.1.50.3 and above, just activate org-indent-mode and the

document will be indented dynamically. To achieve this effect in earlier versions of Emacs, you can refer to a

full-fledged tutorial in the official Org-Mode manual [4].

For example, you might need ordered, unordered, or both styles of lists in your documents. To create

unordered lists, add a + or - as the bullet point for the list. To make an ordered list, add the number followed

by a dot ( . ) or a right parenthesis. To add intermediate lines in the document, use M-Return - it automatically

adjusts the numbers. Starting a line with a square bracket pair, [ ] , adds a checkbox that can be

checked/unchecked with C- c C- c . (Remember, to put a space between the pair of brackets.)

The best feature of these notes is the ability to reorder them on the fly using the M-Arrow key sequence. The

Up and Down arrow keys will move the items around, and Left and Right arrows can be used to

promote/demote the items. The use of M-Shift-Arrow changes the level of an entire sub-tree. Org-Mode also

automatically recognizes URLs, and Emacs can open them on clicking if you have configured the default

browser.

Tags and To-Do

Any headline in the document can be assigned tags. A tag is enclosed between two colons (:). To tag a

headline, just press C- c C- c , and Emacs will prompt you for tags. You can also add multiple tags to a single

headline. Once you have created a tag, pressing C- c C- c will provide a list of all tags in the document. To tag

the headline, select the tag you want and press the return key.

Simple notes can be turned into a powerful to-do management system (or, Next Actions) by tagging them.

Any entry from the outline can be configured as a to-do item by pressing C- c C- t when the cursor is on the

headline (Figure 3). It adds the label TODO at the start of that headline. Pressing C- c C- t again changes the

status to DONE , and pressing it again removes the label. TODO items have two default stages. However, you

can, add your own stages as needed: for example, TODO/Testing/Prototyping/Fabrication/Done. To do that,

add the line

#+SEQ_TODO: TODO Testing Prototyping Fabrication Done

to the start of the document. Now the TODO items will cycle through this sequence instead of the default.

Because the TODO management system is so exhaustive, it's only fair that there should be a prioritizing

system, and Org-Mode has that feature as well: You can prioritize tasks in three different levels. The A level

is the highest level, and C is the lowest level. You can add priorities to a task with C- c , X. That is, press C- c

then press the comma and the priority letter A , B , or C (Figure 4). Pressing Shift-Arrow Up/Down while the

cursor is on an item changes the priority of that TODO item.

Figure 3: To-do management using Org-Mode.

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Figure 4: Priorities of tasks.

Tables

Another very popular feature of an organizer is the ability to represent data in table format (Figure 5). With

Org-Mode, you can create simple tables very easily. The tables, like everything else in Org-Mode, are

represented in ASCII format. If the first non-whitespace character of a line is | , then table mode is initiated.

Figure 5: A simple table.

Pressing Tab inside any cell advances the cursor to the next cell in an adjacent column; pressing Return moves

it to the next row, same column. Column spacing depends on the heading line. Pressing a Tab on a new line

with | will automatically add column separators, and a Tab with |- will add a horizontal separator. All the

movement keys work in this mode also. Pressing M-Arrow, as in the case of simple notes, lets you move

columns and rows around in a table. Also, you can use simple formulas in the tables, like summation, and you

can plot graphs from the data in the tables. The details of these features can be found in the official

documentation [5].

Date and Time

With the use of the built-in calendar, you can add date and time information to any task or note in the outline

(Figure 6), such as deadlines, a scheduled time, a range to track the number of hours spent, or a range of dates

for an event that spans over multiple days. You can add it all.

Figure 6: Built-in calendar of Org-Mode.

Dates can be active or passive. Passive dates do not show up in agenda views, whereas actives dates do show

up. The commands for active and passive dates are C- c . and C- c ! , respectively. This will open up a graphical

calendar in a separate buffer, and you can select the date there with your mouse.

Adding a clock entry is done with C- c C- x C- i . The clock can be stopped with C- c C- x C- o . Pressing C- c C- c

updates the time taken by the task. Alternatively, you can manually insert the CLOCK label at the start of a

date range, and it will be converted automatically to a clock entry. The labels SCHEDULED and DEADLINE

can also be used to specify timings for a task. The shortcuts for these are C- c C- s and C- c C- d , respectively.

In the agenda view, any task having today as the deadline will be shown, along with any missed and

approaching deadlines (Figure 7). The approaching deadlines are listed starting with

org-deadline-warning-days before the due date and continuing until the entry is marked DONE . The

same goes for SCHEDULED , except there is no warning. The items will show up in agenda views from the

SCHEDULED date until they are marked DONE .

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Figure 7: Time-stamped tasks.

The Agenda View

You might have noticed that, with the flexibility provided by Org-Mode, you can keep your content in a

single file or multiple files (e.g., all your TODO items in one file, meetings in another, and so on). However,

you don't have to go through all the files every day just to get information about tasks and projects currently

open and due for completion. With the agenda view, all your information can be displayed in an organized

manner. Org-Mode will collect it with any one of seven views:

An agenda view that looks like a calendar and shows information about specific dates

A to-do view that lists all TODO items that are not marked DONE .

A matched state view that displays content on the basis of the tags, properties, and TODO states.

A timeline mode that shows all events in a single Org-Mode file in chronological order.

A text search mode that shows all entries from multiple files with specific keywords.

A stuck project view that displays all tasks that are lagging or not moving forward.

Custom views that are based on user criteria.

All the information gathered from the files is displayed in a separate buffer by Emacs. Useful commands edit

the original entries in the original Org-Mode files directly. To use this mode, you need to add your Org-Mode

files to the Org-Mode agenda by pressing C- c [ . Next, press C- c a to be presented with a list of agenda modes

you can use (see Figure 8).

Figure 8: Various agenda modes in Org-Mode.

When you select any of the views listed, a separate buffer will be shown with the view you chose. Figure 9

shows a weekly agenda view with all open tasks.

Figure 9: Sample weekly agenda view.

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