Org-Mode

Narrow to focus, widen to review and plan. tldr: “C-x n s” to narrow and “C-x n w” to widen

If someone had told me three and a half years ago, that I would: Use Emacs as my primary editor nearly everywhere. Not just as an editor. In fact, I would stop thinking of it as an editor and come to see it for what it really is. A whole computer with an editor bolted on. Use Emacs not just for writing, but also have it serve as the cornerstone for two other extremely important activities in my life, organising my life (with Org Mode) and tending to my commonplace book (with Org Roam) Come so far as to scrape a web page, set it up as a connected node in my Zettelkasten, strip close to fifty superfluous lines, edit the rest to my liking, change the title to title case, and then file it way within minutes, and learn do all this by osmosis and research over the years, just by using it daily and being curious1 Have a kind community support all my crazy attempts to bend Emacs to my will I would have told you, you were off your rocker....

Every evening, after my shutdown ritual, I move my current day’s branch to the bottom of my Org Mode file, so I begin the next day at the same fixed place, at line 36.1 The day is done; moving it to the bottom of the pile Every time I move though, it goes there and sits, right next to the last branch, instead of under it. So I would grumble a bit, and then go hit the return key as required, to get it all right and proper....

When I wrote about, ticking off checkboxes in Org Mode, I’d linked to line 101 of org-mouse.el. While I’d read the main summary, I somehow missed line 30 … ;; * subtree expansion/collapse (org-cycle) with the left mouse button Which I accidentally triggered today … After an (accidental) click opens up to … Org Mode continues to delight! Hurrah! Feedback on this post? Mail me at feedback@janusworx.com P.S. Subscribe to my mailing list!...

Rest day! Not doing much! Emacs It works! Yesterday’s little hack, to clock in and out when I change state works well! It doesn’t seem to have broken anything. Also I added a WORKING state, and tagged my function to that. The clock in and out happen when I switch in an out of the WORKING state. Because I want my parent task to show IN_PROGRESS and the current subtask to be what I am working on....

Decided to play hooky today, because I got up reallly late and then I got stuff at home to do. Emacs Since I was playing hooky with my time and attention anyway, I decided to see, if I could tackle this little thing, I wanted to happen with my Org Mode. Everytime I move my TODO status for a task to IN_PROGRESS, I want Org to automatically clock in for me....

While I mostly use the keyboard when doing everything Org related, there are a few times in the day, when I cannot. These are mostly mornings and evenings when I bustle about home, doing this thing and that. Things that are part of my routine. Things that are checkboxes in my routine.org file. It helps me get through the day without thinking of whether, I gave the better half her meds or whether I remembered to call my mum or if I drank enough water by the end of the day or whether my stretches for the day are done or if the plan for the next day is made....

I remember, when I first learned it, the Org Manual mentioning I could have code, quotes, poetry and sundry self structured blocks of text, where the text in that block would flow like I wanted it to. I could have indentation or line breaks as I pleased. And then I promptly forgot about it. The only thing I did remember were code blocks. And that I needed to do a #+begin_src and then a #+end_src and put my code in the middle....

More diving into Org Mode and Emacs. I have a stuff-to-do.org file, that serves as an inbox for most long term tasks that I want to tackle. Stuff that needs doing, books that I want to buy, books that I want to read, courses that I want to learn, movies or tv shows that I want to watch, stuff on the web that I want to catchup on, etc. etc. etc....

Org mode is slowly spreading its tentacles increasingly becoming something, I cannot live without, to manage my day. And I’m getting pretty consistent with it too! Like you see above, I use dates as my headlines, below which I list the various tasks for the day.1 And that’s where I run into my current itch to scratch. I don’t want to keep typing out the date daily. The computer can do that for me....