128 lines
5.2 KiB
Markdown
128 lines
5.2 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: My Org Mode Flow
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date: 2020-09-08
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tags:
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- emacs
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---
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At almost every job I've worked at, at least one of my coworkers has noticed
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that I use Emacs as my main text editor. People have pointed me at IntelliJ, VS
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Code, Atom and more, but I keep sticking to Emacs because it has one huge ace up
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its sleeve that other editors simply cannot match. Emacs has a package that
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helps me organize my workflow, focus my note-taking and even keep a timeclock
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for how long I spend working on tasks. This package is called Org mode, and this
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is my flow for using it.
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[Org mode](https://orgmode.org/) is a TODO list manager, document authoring
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platform and more for [GNU Emacs](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/). It uses
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specially formatted plain text that can be managed using version control
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systems. I have used it daily for about five years for keeping track of what I
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need to do for work. Please note that my usage of it _barely scratches the
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surface_ of what Org mode can do, because this is all I have needed.
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## `~/org`
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My org flow starts with a single folder: `~/org`. The main file I use is
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`todo.org` and it looks something like this:
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```org
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#+TITLE: TODO
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* Doing
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** TODO WAT-42069 Unfrobnicate the rilkef for flopnax-ropjar push...
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* In Review
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** TODO WAT-42042 New Relic Dashboards...
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* Reviews
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** DONE HAX-1337 Security architecture of wasmcloud
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* Interrupt
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* Generic todo
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* Overhead
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** 09/08/2020
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*** DONE workday start...
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*** DONE standup...
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```
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Each level of stars creates a new heading level, and these headings can be
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treated like a tree. You can use the tab key to open and close the heading
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levels and hide those parts of the tree if they are not relevant. Let's open up
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the standup subtree with tab:
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```org
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*** DONE standup
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CLOSED: [2020-09-08 Tue 10:12]
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:LOGBOOK:
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CLOCK: [2020-09-08 Tue 10:00]--[2020-09-08 Tue 10:12] => 0:12
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:END:
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```
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Org mode automatically entered in nearly all of the information in this subtree
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for me. I clocked in (alt-x org-clock-in with that TODO item highighted) when
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the standup started and I clocked out by marking the task as done (alt-x
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org-todo with that TODO item highlighted). If I am working on a task that takes
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longer than one session, I can clock out of it (alt-x org-clock-out) and then
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the time I spent (about 20 minutes) will be recorded in the file for me. Then I
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can manually enter the time spent into tools like Jira.
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When I am ready to move a task from In Progress to In Review, I close the
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subtree with tab and then highlight the collapsed subtree, cut it and paste it
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under the In Review header. This will keep the time tracking information
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associated with that header entry.
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I will tend to let tasks build up over the week and then on Monday morning I
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will move all of the done tasks to `done.org`, which is where I store things
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that are done. As I move things over, I double check with Jira to make sure the
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time tracking has been accurately updated. This can take a while, but doing this
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has caught cases where I have misreported time and then had the opportunity to
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correct it.
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## Clocktables
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Org mode is also able to generate tables based on information in org files. One
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of the most useful ones is the [clock
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table](https://orgmode.org/manual/The-clock-table.html#). You can use these
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clock tables to make reports about how much time was spent in each task. I use
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these to help me know what I have done in the day so I can report about it in
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the next day's standup meeting. To add a clock table, add an empty block for it
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and press control-c c on the `BEGIN` line. Here's an example:
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```org
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#+BEGIN: clocktable :block today
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#+END:
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```
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This will show you all of the things you have recorded for that day. This may
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end up being a bit much if you nest things deep enough. My preferred clock table
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is a daily view only showing the second level and lower for the current file:
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```org
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#+BEGIN: clocktable :maxlevel 2 :block today :scope file
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#+CAPTION: Clock summary at [2020-09-08 Tue 15:47], for Tuesday, September 08, 2020.
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| Headline | Time | |
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|-----------------------------|--------|------|
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| *Total time* | *6:14* | |
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|-----------------------------|--------|------|
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| In Progress | 2:09 | |
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| \_ WAT-42069 Unfrobnica... | | 2:09 |
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| Overhead | 4:05 | |
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| \_ 09/08/2020 | | 4:05 |
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#+END:
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```
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This allows me to see that I've been working today for about 6.25 hours for the
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day, so I can use that information when deciding what to do next.
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## Other Things You Can Do
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In the past I used to use org mode for a lot of things. In one of my older files
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I have a comprehensive list of all of the times I smoked weed down to the amount
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smoked and what I felt about it at the time. In another I have a script that I
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used for applying ansible files across a cluster. The sky really is the limit.
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However, I have really decided to keep things simple for the most part. I leave
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org mode for work stuff and mostly use iCloud services for personal stuff. There
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are mobile apps for using org-mode on the go, but they haven't aged well at all
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and I have been focusing my time into actually doing things instead of
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configuring WEBDAV servers or the like.
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This is how I keep track of things at work.
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