Use the
start
,stop
, andactive
Taskwarrior commands to manage what you’re doing right now.
I use Taskwarrior’s priority system to show what I want to be working on now. What if there are several things I want to be working on right now? Even with my priority rules, I still find myself drawn to the lower priority tasks that are more interesting. Realistically, I can only do one thing at a time. How do I remind myself which task should have my active attention?
task start
Easy! Use the start
command.
This assigns the virtual tag +ACTIVE
to the task. The regular task report highlights active tasks, as well as showing a new “Active” column indicating how long the task has been active.
Being active increases the urgency of a task, bubbling it up to the top in this report. I can also request to see only the active tasks.
task active
The active
report shows me only those tasks that have been assigned the +ACTIVE
virtual tag. Very handy in my blog context, when many curious ideas are tugging at my easily distracted brain and I need to see just what I’m doing.
You can start as many tasks as you like. I find that distracting. Taskwarrior helps me focus, and starting a dozen different tasks feels like the opposite of focusing. I’ll limit +ACTIVE
for one task that I intend to be working on at this moment.
task stop
I’m still writing this post, but I need to do something else real quick. I could just start
that other task, but that blows a hole in my “one active task at a time” personal rule. Instead I’ll show that my attention is elsewhere with stop
.
Okay excuse me for a few minutes.
You have more urgent tasks. — Yeah, tell that to the dog.
Now where was I? Oh yeah. I wanted to mention time tracking.
Taskwarrior is not for time tracking
Those start
and stop
commands show up in the task’s modification history, including timestamps and information about duration of active status.
Even though there are timestamps in the task info, this is clumsy for time tracking. The Taskwarrior team also wrote Timewarrior, a command line tool dedicated to tracking and reporting time. It even hooks into Taskwarrior’s start
and stop
commands, giving you time management with your task management.
I may explore Timewarrior eventually, but for now I am content using Taskwarrior alone to show what I’ve done with completed
, what I’m doing right now with today’s new commands, and what I want to do (with everything else).
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Added to vault 2024-01-15. Updated on 2024-03-11