How to Use Taskwarrior

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My Workflow

Throughout the early stages of human development, the emergence of government and commerce greatly improved the efficiency of human society. Although merchants and public officials don’t directly create value, they are indispensable to human society. Similarly, task management is essential for individuals dealing with complex tasks.

In this post I try to design a workflow to manage tasks, which is strong universal and focused on efficiency. I When writing this article, I assume readers are familiar with taskwarrior.

I. Collect

Collect as many essential tasks as possible. Tasks can be classified in several ways:

• Deadline-driven

task add DFT homework due:2024-11-20T23:35

• Recurring

task add learn vocabulary due:eot+1h recurr:daily
``
- High-priority
High-priority tasks are important tasks without specific deadlines. You can add high-priority tasks as shown below.
```bash
task add preview quantum mechanics chapter 4 priority:M
task add review statistical physics chapter 11 priority:H

However, it’s generally recommended to add a due date (and recur parameter) to these tasks, turning them into either deadline-driven or recurring tasks.

• Event

task add have launch with my classmate until:sun+12h

• Optional

task add learn manim priority:L

List tasks:

task
task list
task long
task next

List upcoming tasks (detailed):

task long until.before:now+7d or scheduled.before:now+7d or due.before:now+7d

II. Scheduling

Everyone knows to prioritize tasks with higher urgency, but working on a single task until completion isn’t always the most efficient approach. On the contrary, it can be very inefficient due to the complexity of daily tasks. So in addition to the “higher urgency first” principle, we should add another: “timely task interruption.”

I roughly divide task progress into 4 stages, as shown below:

1. Active: : You’ve taken initial steps to get this task started.

task 11 start

2. Progressing (Optional): You’ve completed many steps, but there’s still much left to do.

task 11 +p

3. Achieved (Optional): If this were an exam, you’d have scored a 70.

task 11 -p +a

4. Done: There’s nothing more you can do on this task.

task 11 done

ChatGPT

Different transitions between stages require varying levels of focus and timing. For example, you can activate a task (Stage 1) almost anytime and anywhere, but reaching Stage 4 (Done) requires a longer period of focused attention for complex tasks. So, arrange appropriate tasks for the appropriate times.

III. Just-Do-It

Some small tips:

# Add annotation (with time-stamp)
task 15 annotate "Room 201"

# Modified tasks tody (active and done are treated as modification)
task modified:today

# Daily burndown graph for tasks created in the past month.
task created.after:now-1month created.before:now burndown.daily

# summary today
task modified:today active; task modified:today completed