[emacs-wiki-discuss] How to categorise plans and generate lists from the categorisations

[Geraldine]

I need some information to help me work out how best to organise my
stuff.  I don't work well with long lists and I do better when I
categorise/mark things, whether tasks or projects or notes.

For example, I like to mark projects/plans with a kind of priority
system and also a status. Tasks I like to mark with priority and
status too, but also context.

(Notes are more complicated so I am leaving them out of it for now.)

So like to be able to call up lists of, for example, plans marked with
"quadrant 2" (ala Covey) and also "waiting for", or all "urgent" tasks
marked with "phone" (ala GTD).  And I like to be able to quickly
change these categories.  This helps me review and choose tasks, keep
track of things and not get overwhelmed.  It's a system that has
worked well for me in the recent past.

(By the way, I can imagine adapting the pre-supplied status and
priority markers for tasks, although I don't like them.  More about
that in another post probably...)

My question is how best to apply these categories/markers.  I have
three ideas so far:

1. planner-multi

I would create plans that act as these categories and then link the
tasks and plans to them.  But how would I:

 -  change these links on the fly without breaking links etc? (I
haven't yet grasped how updating works)

 -  generate the lists of tasks and/or projects for my reviews? If I
am only using links to categorise plan pages then I can only call up
one category at a time (by going to the page of the plan that is
acting as a category) but I actually need to find, for example, a list
of plans or tasks which are category1 AND category2 for it to be any
use.

2. A special marker-task for each plan

I would create one task per plan that acts only as a place to mark
status and priority of the plan.  In this way I could use the
pre-supplied status and priority markers, which sorts out the
"changing on the fly" problem, and I could also generate the lists I
need, since there seem to be so many ways of generating and sorting
task lists (planner-trunk etc)
Disadvantages would be:

 - I would have to differentiate between the fake tasks (plan marker
tasks) and real tasks in some way, perhaps by using a prefix

 - After the list of "tasks-that-represent plans" is generated, in
order to get to the real plan there will always be an extra link to
click.   That could drive me mad.

 - I would still need to add "context" categories to tasks in another way

3. Text-tags and search

I would use search-able text-based "tags" (as in the social
bookmarking model) to mark the categories, and then I would find the
results by regexp searches.  But how would I:

  - generate the search results within emacs (as oppose to the
published html version)

 - save the searches?  I don't want to be doing a new search every
time (unless I can work out a way to make it very fast, with key
bindings and prompts)

 - not have the whole thing be too slow

So there you are.  Three ideas (so far).  I would very much appreciate
any suggestions about all this.   I am sure someone has been through
this before but I've not found the answers yet in the archives.

With thanks,
Geraldine