Taskwarrior Priorities
post taskwarrior toolsSeries: Taskwarrior Babysteps
task report with a column showing priority levelsMerry Christmas! Time to organize my Taskwarrior tasks.
My more focused approach to Taskwarrior is working well.
I add a task when I get an idea, and mark it done sometime after I finish.
Annotations let me add noteworthy details.
Tags and projects help both for organizing tasks and describing them.
A task bubbles up to the top of task next as I add more information to it.
$ task -work
[task next ( -work )]
ID Age Project Tag Description Urg
26 9min fitbit health get fitbit data 2.7
2017-12-24 can only grab 31 days at a time
2017-12-24 want all data back to 2016-01
2 3w ruana blog knitting blog about vest 2.02
27 8min fitbit health see activity when closest to weight goal 1.8
28 7min fitbit health make 2018 exercise plan 1.8
24 3d home living room curtains 1.62
2017-12-20 dimensions 94.25 wide 56.5 high
3 3w blog taskwarrior due dates, recurrences 1.02
12 9d crochet home door panel 0.95
15 7d learn music submit to acousticbrainz 0.94
18 6d blog taskwarrior Priorities 0.93
1 3w crochet fingerless gloves 0.92
8 2w home move my stuff upstairs 0.88
10 10d music experiment with setting itunes play stats 0.85
11 10d blog create links section 0.85
16 6d music music server 0.83
17 6d learn try timewarrior 0.83
19 6d home make flylady daily and weekly list 0.83
20 4d music merge rating files 0.82
21 4d music filter duplicate tracks 0.82
22 4d knitting circular hat variant 0.82
25 3d music restore backup 0.82
That bubbling behavior gets in the way sometimes.
I created some tasks for playing with my Fitbit data and added relevant annotations. Taskwarrior follows a rule of “it must be important if you’re talking so much about it,”" and dutifully puts those tasks high on the list.
Thing is, right now I care more about fixing my music library. Long story, but the moral of that tale is be careful with Beets and the Duplicates plugin. I have slightly different versions of the library on each of my machines, and a backup with all of the music but none of the Beets import information. I could make a project out of it, but it’s more of a thing I poke at when I can.
Anyways — I want my next report to more closely resemble my current priorities.
I can do that by manually setting Priority for each of my tasks.
Task priority
Priority can be added to any task as an attribute, using priority: followed by the Priority you wish to assign.
Priority also works as a filter for your reports.
The default choices are H, M, L, and none at all — to remove a Priority.
$ task add return library books priority:M
Created task 29.
$ task modify 18 priority:H
Modifying task 18 'Priorities'.
Modified 1 task.
Looking at the first few entries of next shows me the effect of setting Priority.
$ task -work
[task next ( -work )]
ID Age P Project Tag Description Urg
18 6d H blog taskwarrior Priorities 6.93
29 3min M return library books 3.9
26 1h fitbit health get fitbit data 2.7
2017-12-24 can only grab 31 days at a time
2017-12-24 want all data back to 2016-01
I see a new column reflecting that I now describe some tasks with Priority.
Over on the end, Urgency jumps for tasks with any Priority at all.
H Priority tasks get a large boost.
But what do these Priority values mean?
Priority means something different for everyone. The basic idea is the higher a task’s Priority is, the more important it is to me.
Here’s how I use Priority values for now.
| Priority | Represents | Description |
|---|---|---|
H |
High | I am — or want to be — working on it right now. |
M |
Medium | I want to work on this soon. |
L |
Low | I want to work on this eventually. |
| empty | None | I haven’t thought about it. |
My usage will change as I learn more about Taskwarrior but this works.
I don’t need to think too much about priority when I’m just adding to the idea bucket. Probably a good idea to periodically review unprioritized tasks and assign a Priority or delete them if they won’t ever be worth my time.
$ task -work priority:
[task next ( -work priority: )]
ID Age Project Tag Description Urg
26 1h fitbit health get fitbit data 2.7
2017-12-24 can only grab 31 days at a time
2017-12-24 want all data back to 2016-01
2 3w ruana blog knitting blog about vest 2.02
27 1h fitbit health see activity when closest to weight goal 1.8
28 1h fitbit health make 2018 exercise plan 1.8
24 3d home living room curtains 1.62
2017-12-20 dimensions 94.25 wide 56.5 high
3 3w blog taskwarrior due dates, recurrences 1.02
12 9d crochet home door panel 0.95
15 7d learn music submit to acousticbrainz 0.94
1 3w crochet fingerless gloves 0.92
8 2w home move my stuff upstairs 0.88
10 10d music experiment with setting itunes play stats 0.85
11 10d blog create links section 0.85
16 6d music music server 0.83
17 6d learn try timewarrior 0.83
19 6d home make flylady daily and weekly list 0.83
20 5d music merge rating files 0.83
21 5d music filter duplicate tracks 0.83
22 5d knitting circular hat variant 0.83
25 3d music restore backup 0.82
19 tasks
Give me a minute while I assign priorities.
$ task -work
[task next ( -work )]
ID Age P Project Tag Description Urg
18 7d H blog taskwarrior Priorities 6.94
25 4d H music restore backup 6.82
26 1d M fitbit health get fitbit data 6.61
2017-12-24 can only grab 31 days at a time
2017-12-24 want all data back to 2016-01
2 3w M ruana blog knitting blog about vest 5.92
1 3w M crochet fingerless gloves 4.83
8 2w M home move my stuff upstairs 4.79
19 7d M home make flylady daily and weekly list 4.74
29 23h M return library books 4.7
2017-12-25 due 2017-12-30
28 1d L fitbit health make 2018 exercise plan 4.41
2017-12-24 keep on what I do now is an option
27 1d L fitbit health see activity when closest to weight goal 3.61
24 4d L home living room curtains 3.42
2017-12-20 dimensions 94.25 wide 56.5 high
3 3w L blog taskwarrior due dates, recurrences 2.82
12 10d L crochet home door panel 2.75
15 8d L learn music submit to acousticbrainz 2.74
10 11d L music experiment with setting itunes play stats 2.66
11 11d L blog create links section 2.66
16 7d L music music server 2.64
17 7d L learn try timewarrior 2.64
20 5d L music merge rating files 2.63
21 5d L music filter duplicate tracks 2.63
22 5d L knitting circular hat variant 2.63
21 tasks
I could have added due date information to the library task rather than an annotation, but I’m sticking with this approach of a few features at a time. Otherwise I’ll try to learn everything at one sitting, get overwhelmed and distracted, then abandon the whole thing.
That said, it looks like next I should learn dates in Taskwarrior.