Re: [emacs-wiki-discuss] planner: why "move" tasks instead of copy?

[johnsu01]

Guy Berliner <address@hidden> writes:

> I'm
> very new to planner mode, so I probably don't understand it all that well. But
> I'm trying to figure out some basic things. One thing that kind of mystifies
> me: Why "move" tasks instead of copying them? I noticed that, when I type "M-x
> plan" at the beginning of the day, all the tasks I was working on the day
> before that are unfinished get MOVED (not copied) to today. But why? If I was
> working on them, and logged time on them yesterday, would it not make more
> sense to COPY those tasks? Why have a file on the disk with yesterday's date
> that doesn't show all the tasks I worked on that day, but only the ones I
> finished?
>
> The "argumentum ad absurdum" I would make is: suppose I worked on a bunch of
> stuff that day, got a lot done, but didn't actually bring any of those tasks 
> to
> a state of perfection. Nonetheless, I feel good about the day, and yet, the
> file for that day is EMPTY! That certainly seems to suggest I didn't do much, 
> a
> very counterintuitive result I would argue. And an empty file is not a very
> useful file, any way you look at it.
>
> So, is there a way to change this default behavior so that the unfinished 
> tasks
> always get copied instead of moved?)
>

I can think of a lot of reasons --- not to say that I don't also hear what
you're saying. But, for starters, if you have 10 copies of a task that has been
in progress for 10 days, what happens when you finally mark it complete? Or
when you decide to change the task description a bit, or link it to some
different documents?

Planner has a lot of reporting tools to explore. If you use timeclock, you can
get a report of what you worked on yesterday, even if all the undone tasks you
worked on have been forwarded to today.

My core opinion is that it sounds like you should be working with smaller, more
bite-sized tasks. If it goes on for several days, you could probably divide it
up into smaller chunks. That way you would both feel good at the end of the
day, and have a more accurate and specific record of what you actually did that
day. You could also make fuller use of Planner's ability to link tasks to
relevant documents and such.

I have had a project on my list for many moons now to modify the
task-forwarding functionality so that you can set some more specific standards
about what gets forwarded and what doesn't. My motivation is that there are
things that I do every day, and if I miss a day, I want to make it up --- but I
don't want to forward those tasks, because then they really can pile up. But, I
still want to forward the more unique tasks, like "buy dad's birthday present"
, so that I don't forget about them.

By the way, you can totally turn off forwarding if you want. See the section in
the info manual called Carrying Over Unfinished Tasks. 

-- 
-johnsu01
-http://www.wjsullivan.net