Tips and Tricks

Synchronizing

I use a third party to handle synchronizing the file. See configuration.

Effective Grouping With Tags - Examples

Tags, groups, and filters make it possible to organize items in very powerful ways, and get different views on that data. By using multiple tags something can belong in different sets of lists, or have projects and sub-projects, or view items relevant to just this period of time.

Areas Of Work - Multiple Tags

For example, I might notice I need to replace a light bulb in my house. I could add an item "buy lightbulb #home #diystore" and know it would be tagged that way. I could then later see if I had any work to do at home by searching for items tagged "#home". I might see this one and wonder what else I could get while at the store, and search for "#diystore" - there I might see that I also need a plant pot for the #garden.

Time-based Views - Weekly Goals

Another example might be that I want to track weekly goals at work each week. For that, on Monday I create items tagged with #goal, and as the week progresses I can check on them and mark them off. Because I create new ones each week, and they're weekly goals, I want to filter just ones from this week that I've not done yet. To do that I can create a group with filterset: "tag=#goal,status=waiting,time=this week". This will show this week's goals!

Sub-groups - Projects and Work to be done

I might have a project ongoing at work, let's call it Project B. Within that project, I might have sub-projects and goals. I can model this with a top-level group (projectb) that selects everything with the tag "#projectb" that is still in state "waiting"; then sub groups for things that are due this week and not done "group=projectb,time=this week".

Exclusion Filters - Notes

Sometimes I want to take detailed notes on something like a meeting. I can create an item with a tag #note, and #project (create it with $EDITOR for long form data entry). Then I can use filters and groups to exclude it from lists of items to work on in #project.