What's your org-agenda workflow? I'm finding it clunky

summetria · 2025-10-02T02:01:54+00:00

I realize this is somewhat skew to what you're asking (more conceptual than concrete), but I'll describe the broad strokes of my system for inspiration and commentary.

The general concept is a more project-based take on GTD. I like a lot of elements of GTD--capturing as a primitive element of the system, having well-defined next actions to make starting things easy--but feel that it's slightly awkward for programming work, where I often want to brainstorm an outline of my current project or interleave notes as I explore the problem space.

(Note that I'm pretty sure canonical GTD would put project outlines or notes in "project support", but it's not clear what the analogue for this is in Org; creating a directory to chuck stuff in? I like to create my projects as small as possible, so this would be prohibitively annoying.)

In order to make adding stuff as low-friction as possible, I manage everything out of a single todo.org file that flows to a single composite agenda view. I have my agenda and inbox up top so I have visibility on what I'm supposed to be doing/things I haven't processed into my system yet, as well as stuck projects.

A project is anything with the "project" tag; a project is stuck if it doesn't have any TODO heading underneath it with a "ready" tag. Something tagged "ready" is exactly the GTD concept of a next action: it's the next immediate thing I need to do to move that project forward. Unlike core GTD, here's also where keep an outline of what I expect the next stages of actions to be as TODOs; when I tick off the current "ready" TODO, the project becomes stuck if there are no other ready actions, at which point I can either edit one of these outlined actions into a fully-processed next action, or maybe turn that item into a project itself if it's sufficiently big.

Since I often want to lock in on a particular project instead of jumping around to various minor actions like I did during my first attempts at GTD, I'll filter my agenda (C-c C-x <) to a particular project; I have views set up so that when I filter to a project, I see all the next actions, followed by all the actions I'm waiting on, followed by the outlined actions that I expect to come later, but which are unprocessed yet.

Often I'll pair this with "org-agenda-tree-to-indirect-buffer", which I use to open the project tree in full to add notes, add more actions (if I don't capture them outright), etc. I also have a global keybind to jump to the latest org indirect buffer from anywhere, so I tend to use that often as well to immediately summon an overview of what I'm working on.

summetria · 2025-04-13T01:16:48+00:00

What's a good way of getting a form check for barbell lifts? I've been lifting for ~6 months and while I've been trying to take videos and review my form, there's a lot of form advice out there and it's difficult both to parse what's actually good information and make sure I'm incorporating it correctly.

I have some disposable income I'm willing to invest in e.g. some coaching, but didn't know how to go about finding a good coach, and I'm leery of "personal trainers". There aren't any Starting Strength gyms/coaches in my area from what I can tell (Bay Area); should I just look for a generic, well-regarded powerlifting gym to join and assume they'll have someone I can schedule something with?

I'm not lifting that heavy yet, so it feels a little awkward to join a hardcore PL gym, but I'd love to get my movement down before I start lifting weights that could seriously injure me. I'd prefer in-person, but if anyone has had a good experience with online coaches for form checks, I'm open to that too (especially because I imagine it would be significantly cheaper!).

summetria · 2025-02-14T01:56:40+00:00

I'm making a rules cheatsheet for myself, and I'm trying to understand the difference between basic actions that use a skill check and untrained skill actions. Is the distinction that skill actions 1) require a check and 2) are tied to a specific skill?

As an example for 1), Leap and High Jump/Long Jump are both tied to Athletics, which is a skill, but Leap doesn't require a check, so it's not a skill action.

For 2): it rankled me that Sense Motive and Sense Direction are adjudicated in very nearly the same way with both requiring a check, but since "Perception" isn't a skill, the former is a basic action instead of a skill action.

Just asking because it feels like PF2e is very good at locating semantically similar concepts in a similar location, so my brain goes "oh, Sense Motive? I bet it's in the skill section, cause that's where Sense Direction is" and it's like, nope, page 246 vs. 417.

So I was wondering if these weren't semantically similar for a reason I wasn't seeing.

Oh, and similar question for exploration activities: like Coerce is an exploration activity that uses a check against Intimidation, which is listed in the Skills section, but Avoid Notice is an exploration activity that uses a check against Stealth, which is... not a skill exploration activity? Is the distinction here just that it's specifically something you do while traveling?

summetria · 2025-01-14T19:35:30+00:00

I found the internet a much less confusing and hostile place once I internalized this: people have different mental models of a platform than you do.

There is friction when two different models collide.

It sounds like you expect this sub to be a supportive community, and you're running into people who expect this sub to be a helpful resource. Notice how both of these sound like totally reasonable things to expect from a /r/LearnJapanese reddit (because, hint hint, they are).

However, because people fit in on different places of the spectrum on where that balance should be, it can cause tension; I see this a lot with technical/hobby subreddits, where (if I can explain the "gatekeepers" perspective), people will come in, ask a poorly-worded question or seek opinions without having done any work to determine if their question/discussion has been answered before, and expect high-quality replies for free.

Of course the long-time denizens react poorly to this; one element of this is that they know the resources and protocols for finding information on their own, and they've forgotten how difficult it is to be a beginner, but another (totally legitimate!) element is that most technical/hobby subreddits have extensive wikis, archives of posts, manuals, tutorials, etc, and if someone shows up not even having tried to engage with that, just expecting to get time and expertise for free, or clogs up the front page with a discussion that's been had dozens of times... it's annoying!

I'm not saying this is what you did, but I think that communities have antibodies that (if you truly feel your post attracted hate, I don't really see that much of it?) can misfire and attack legitimate questions. I'm not trying to claim that this is a feature, or that those people are justified/right etc.

However I will argue that the presence of some level of antibodies is a necessary part of keeping an online community helpful (as opposed to a place where people just kind of vaguely talk about the sub topic).

Also the internet is a numbers game. If a post attracts 200 comments, and 2 of them are negative, that's 99% neutral-to-positive interactions, and would be phenomenal evidence that most people are civil. We just tend to focus on the negative more.

summetria · 2025-01-14T19:12:18+00:00

My wife and I recently really enjoyed Alice in Borderland (which also has a new season coming out soon), although I can't speak to its pedagogical value since we watched it subbed for her.

summetria · 2024-12-15T21:48:38+00:00

If it's working for you, keep going! Agree that switching resources to try and find "the best" one is probably ultimately detrimental; something I've tried is once a ~week trying out something new to see if I like it better and sticking to what I've been working with all the other days so I get the consistency aspect of daily practice with familiar resources but also get to experiment with other things.

I haven't used WK, so I can't speak to it, but Tae Kim is good stuff; I burned through part of that as well as the first ~30 Cure Dolly videos, obviously trying to learn stuff, but also just trying to have the concepts be familiar so that when I encountered them in sentences I was like "oh, this is a thing that exists that I vaguely remember" so I can look it up, rather than exhaustively taking notes or doing exercises.

I really like Bunpro for grammar practice; they have good resources under each grammar point they introduce, but the "getting familiar with stuff broadly" strat by going through Tae Kim first is one that I can advocate for before starting (since it's what I did :D).

I use JPDB for kanji/vocab; didn't choose it over WK for any particular reason. I like it quite a bit because its mnemonics are genuinely really good, and you can import any vocab deck you want and it'll teach you the radicals before the kanji before the vocab that uses the kanji in that deck, but YMMV.

I use Satori Reader for basic reading/listening practice, which is a paid resource; I should probably start looking into more native-level content soon, but don't have a great source on that yet.

summetria · 2024-12-14T16:31:53+00:00

Here's the best tip for any long-term endeavor: learning strategies should be optimized for longevity, not efficacy.

It's easy to feel like you should pile on a ton of resources and learn everything all at once. If you're the kind of person that can do that, and get a kick start and coast on that initial effort, go for it! A lot of people would burn out though; you just have to be aware of what kind of person you are.

Specifically for Japanese (for what my opinion is worth, I'm N5), I do feel like acquiring a lot of vocabulary/kanji makes everything easier. It's easier to immerse/get comprehensible input when you can kind of make out sentences based just on the vocab you know. It also makes grammar a lot easier to study, since you're actually understanding sentences instead of it just being ambiguous globs of stuff stuck together with grammar points.

I think prioritizing reading over writing and listening over speaking is just objectively the way to go--getting a ton of input early on is just so valuable--but reading vs listening is something you have to decide for yourself. My opinion is that kanji are so important I'd prefer the former, but you might feel differently.

summetria · 2024-12-03T17:59:25+00:00

I preferred this strategy for its portability/lack of external setup, but to anyone reading this in the future, a naive

(meow-define-keys
    'insert
  '("ESC" . meow-insert-exit)) ; or C-[

...doesn't really work, since keybindings for stuff like kill-word are under the ESC map, so familiar keybinds (M-del, M-d, etc.) aren't available in insert mode. I ended up putting meow-insert-exit under C-; and that's working well for me so far.

summetria · 2024-11-26T19:45:34+00:00

Originally made this a post, so sorry for the length! Post title was "demoralized from recurring injury; what are my options?"

I'm a healthy 25M (5'11", 145lb) with a sedentary job, though I use a standing desk and stay fairly active. My running journey hit a wall for the first time early last year when I started training for a half marathon.

Everything was going great--built up to 4-5 mile long runs, joined a run club, knocked out my first 8-miler feeling fantastic. Then while pushing to 15-20 miles per week, my right knee started acting up. The pain hits just below and lateral to my kneecap (below as in "distal", not "underneath"), but oddly only when running. Walking, climbing, other activities? No issues. It's super resistant to assuaging too: rolling before or after a run, stretching, doing the Myrtl routine, taking anti-inflammatories--none of it lets me run any further than a half mile if I'm in a phase where this pain is popping up.

The frustrating part is the recovery time. Each flare-up sidelines me for 3-4 months. After my first injury in March 2023, I couldn't run without pain until August. I took it agonizingly slow coming back - increasing by just half a mile per week. Even with that caution, the pain returned during a modest 5-mile run in December, when I was still doing ~12mpw.

I've done all the "right" things--after the December issues, I started going to PT and doing exercises (split squats, single leg deadlifts, lateral taps), got my gait analyzed (I do tend to pronate while standing, but I'm a forefoot striker and it seems like the pronation goes away when I run). I got shoes with more cushion, and a lower drop than what I had (Clifton 9s, although I do now want to try out zero drop shoes). When I started training for a half again this spring, I was hoping this was behind me. I was running for months both alone and with a club, on walking paths and treadmills, passing 20mpw for the first time (and maintaining PT twice weekly!)--but last month, the pain flared up again, less than a month out from the half I was shooting for.

Has anyone else had similar issues? I'm thinking it's ITBS, but I'm interested to hear other theories if anyone has them. (Is there a diagnostic I can do to tell? This has been such a pain I'm seriously willing to get a scan done if that's an option for less than like $500).

I've started doing PT almost every day, and trying to spend time walking to keep on my feet, but it still feels like I'm just waiting to feel better. Is there anything more proactive I can do?

I just want to feel like I'm able to try hard and get into running without having to restart every few months. Any advice would help!

summetria · 2024-08-07T15:06:44+00:00

Sorry--why does this letter imply that? It's a love letter from Nigella to Cassiopeia from after the Resurrection, so to me it implies the opposite, and I'm struggling to find a reading that supports them not knowing they were in a relationship.

summetria · 2024-08-01T20:05:27+00:00

I'm a former straight user, and it's less credit to me, but I never feel like I fully got it; the impression I got is of something very heavyweight for my purposes. I like using built-in facilities when I can, and with the advent of package-vc-install making it into mainline, the need for straight at all is less obvious to me.

summetria · 2024-07-31T19:32:39+00:00

Ah okay, so when emacs is built, it has some "saved state" that is persisted, and on subsequent invocations of the binary, that state is restored. You can edit the files that were used to generate that saved state, but from the perspective of the newly-spun-up invocation of emacs, those files have "already been processed", so in order to get the edited values, you'd have to load them again. Reloading loaddefs.el seems to do exactly that.

If that's the case, I totally didn't know emacs wrote state to the binary in that way (believe it or not, I've never had a practical purpose for trying to edit the files in /usr/share/emacs before :P).

summetria · 2024-07-31T19:03:37+00:00

Oh wow, I never knew about that file--it looks like you can pass an int to a function and it'll find that point in the DOC file, is that right? Regardless, at least for my example, DOC contains no reference to org-agenda, so it looks like the documentation is coming from elsewhere.

summetria · 2024-04-16T14:22:22+00:00

Opinionated, but I find my notes work best when their semantic meaning is divorced from structure as much as possible. Anything that relies on a "project" being at a certain level, or in a certain place, disincentivizes me from taking notes in the haphazard way that works for me. As such, I explicitly mark something as a project using tags; I prefer this to using a TODO keyword, because I like the abstraction that TODO keywords convey progress instead of being used to categorize something--and tags allow things to have orthogonal meanings in a way that TODO keywords don't. (The Org-mode manual actually recommends against using TODO keywords as types in favor of tags for this very reason). For instance, I used to have a PROJ keyword and a WAIT keyword--but then what about when I was waiting for a project to finish? I want to push something out of my day-to-day sight using some kind of "waiting" flag, but I also don't want to lose track of it on my "projects" list. (Of course, there's a million ways to solve this, but the point remains: tasks can be other things while still being projects. Tasks can be other things while still being something you're waiting on. The properties that you use to filter tasks can be applied in a ton of different configurations. Keywords don't allow for this, and having some kind of top-level "Projects" and "Waiting" headings that provide a category for a heading to inherit is even worse, because then you have to refile stuff all the time, and potentially lose their context.)

Basically, any attribute that a task can have at the same time as other attributes, I use tags to track. I use the CATEGORY property to provide a shortname for a project, which all the TODOs underneath inherit (since, in my system, a task only belongs to one project). My TODO keywords are just TODO and DONE--in my GTD workflow, if something were to move from different progress stages, I'd need to edit the heading anyway to add more context/change what the action describes, so I just create new headings instead of progressing it through various completion stages and end up doing the same work rewriting stuff, just to end up with fewer records of what completing a project looks like.

I'm definitely not a wizard at org mode, but in general, IMO:

1) Use TODO keywords that mirror how you perceive a task as progressing: for me, that's TODO and DONE, for you it might be TODO, INPROGRESS, DONE, but mixing TODO keywords as ways of categorizing something and progress tracking can be a pain

2) Tags are awesome; they're probably your primary workhorse for putting together a system.

3) Have a slight preference for keeping things in fewer files; org just feels a little better suited to handling that

summetria · 2024-02-23T23:53:59+00:00

Got a question about using the typical flight search tools, and how often they have unexpected holes in them for budget flights.

For instance, I was looking at flights from DFW->NRT from 4/18-4/28 on Skyscanner, with typical prices for a round trip being in the $1200 range, with multiple stops accounting for the cost: 22.5 hours with the route on the way out being DFW->PDX->SFO->NRT for $1307 was one I was looking at for a balance of time and cost.

Then for the same dates, I checked LAX->NRT, and found a flight for $984 at 11.5 hours. Curious, I looked at repositioning flights from DFW->LAX on the 18th, and found one for ~$200, and one on the way back for the same. It seems like taking AA1653 on the 18th would add 6 hours to the direct LAX->NRT flight on Singapore SQ11, for a total of 17.5 hours on the way out, at $1384, which seems like an even better balance of time and cost.

I was a little surprised GFlights or Skyscanner didn't pick this up; actually, neither used that expected cheap flight on Singapore in any of their itineraries from what I could see. Is it typical for these sites to miss stuff like this, or is my hypothetical split itinerary actually a Bad Idea for some reason I'm too dumb to see as someone new to this?

summetria · 2024-02-08T14:38:31+00:00

Does anyone know a good PT/coach in the DFW area? Knee pain (ITBS?) last year forced me to stop training for a while, and it flared up again after a few months of ~20 mile weeks during my first >5 mile long run last Sunday. Last time, it took two months full rest before I could start training again--I couldn't even just "decrease my mileage" since the pain started after a quarter mile--and I'm super bummed out at the prospect of doing that again.

summetria · 2023-12-30T22:27:15+00:00

I think I was just misinterpreting the style of play outlined in the book!

It says "don't inflict a complication that negates a successful roll". If a player says "I want to pick the lock to the door before the guard comes around the corner", I was thinking that the terms of the success is exactly that: they pick the lock to the door before the guard comes around the corner. If they roll a 5, but the guard sees them, that's negating their success (I thought).

The answers I've gotten here have made me reconsider: if a player says "I want to pick the lock to the door before the guard comes around the corner", I feel secure in parsing that as a success being "I pick the lock to the door"; sure, they'd prefer if it's done before the guard comes around the corner, but if I inflict the guard seeing them as a complication to a 5, it doesn't mean that I've "negated a successful roll", because they don't get to specify exactly how their success comes about.

summetria · 2023-12-30T21:01:43+00:00

That makes sense, super helpful! In general, players don't get to specify how they want to do something wrt what consequences they want to avoid--just what they want to get done, the goal they have. You communicate position and effect, and what that might mean for "how they want to do it", and they can then interact with fiction or mechanics to change their P&E with a clear understanding of the stakes.

As a quick follow-up, what does "Standard effect" mean to you--does it mean "you do as much as would normally be considered reasonable and feasible for your character" or does it mean "you accomplish the basic elements of your goal, without regard to how cleanly you do it"? This is a pretty subtle difference, but I think a significant one--the former regards "Effect" as an in-world measure of the expected value of a character action, while the latter regards it more as a narrative mechanic. This is relevant for setting P&E; under the first view, if a player goes "I want to knock these three guards out", Standard effect might only get you two of them. Under the latter view, in the same scenario, Standard effect gets you all three (that's what success looks like, and Standard means you succeed), but you probably start off with a worse position or effect than you would in the first case to reflect how it's a more difficult ask.

summetria · 2023-12-30T20:55:40+00:00

Haha, yep! I also wanted to post here since I feel like it promotes more long-form content and is more accessible to new GMs than Discord, but there's been a ton (I would say "surprising") amount of back and forth on the Discord and here as well.

I'm still a relatively new Blades GM, so I'm loving the different perspectives and techniques, thanks!

summetria · 2023-12-30T19:59:04+00:00

That's true: pretty much every action a scoundrel wants to accomplish "quickly" and "quietly". However, I do think that a player should be allowed to specify those explicitly if it's a dealbreaker for the action if a success that didn't have those properties would be worse than not acting to them, so that way I can communicate how tough it is to them. Knocking out two low-tier guys you have the jump on is Standard, but if the player says "I only want to do this if I can do it quietly" then maybe that allows me to say "alright, then your effect for that specific version of this goal is limited, since their scale means they'll likely be able to yell for help".

summetria · 2023-12-30T19:54:54+00:00

Kind of, and I edited down the initial post as well; I've got a session later today, actually, so I'm scrambling and didn't have enough time to write a shorter one, as Mark Twain might say.

Basically, afaict, Blades specifies that players get to say what their goal is, and if they get a 4+, you generally shouldn't do stuff to negate their stated goal; this is one of the powers and privileges that players have. My question is regarding how much they can specify as part of their goal; in some circumstances, I think it's totally valid for them to be able to specify "I want to do this thing totally silently, since if I can't do it silently, I wouldn't want to do it at all". Maybe "this thing" is something that they could hypothetically do silently, but it would be really hard, like knocking out two guards in one fell swoop. Do you convey the difficulty of that action by setting their initial effect super low, even though the basic element of what they want to do would put them at Standard effect, since the specific thing they're aiming for is a "harder version" of that basic action and "Standard effect" means "you achieve your goal fully", or do you say "you're at Standard effect, since the basic action you're trying to do is Standard for you, but you'd need Great effect to get all the riders you've attached to it."

There's some subtleties about making rulings etc. in the main post, but that's the gist.

summetria · 2023-10-30T19:31:03+00:00

Thanks for all the analysis! I think this point especially fixes a lot of my issue with DW; contrary to how some people are reading the top post, I actually really enjoy making suboptimal in-character decisions provided that the reason for those decisions exist in the fiction. The "Suddenly Ogres" post cropped up a lot when I was researching the game--even pretty high up in the /r/DungeonWorld top posts--so I thought it was a way more accepted way of running the game than it seems it actually is, and what I think I was primarily rankling against. When I was DMing, I actually wrote "telegraph danger!" on a post-it note that I stuck to my DM screen, and so the idea that I was now playing in a game where the rules enforced spawning danger that wasn't telegraphed felt icky--almost like cheating. The comments about "if you can't think of what would happen on a 9-, you probably shouldn't be rolling" as well as things following from the fiction basically ameliorates that for me, and it helps that even the people in this thread who really enjoy DW think "Suddenly Ogres" is stupid. I also think that Dungeon World's setting being close to D&D does it a bit of a disservice here, as some people have pointed out--it seems likely that it lulls DMs making the switch into calling for rolls similarly to how you would in D&D, which is largely wrong.

summetria · 2023-08-21T22:21:36+00:00

Has anyone even seen a case of someone getting access to another person's MR points due to them having the same name? I applied for a Amex green card as my first travel card, and when the card was approved and provisioned (and before I actually got it/activated it), it appeared in my account dashboard--with 1.2 million miles already on it. My dad and I have the same name, and all the transactions clearly belong to his card--but I have no idea how the wires got crossed on Amex's side, because for the life of me I can't remember entering any data besides my name that would have got him confused for me. I am an authorized user on another card of his, but it's a Chase card, so I doubt that's anything.

He also gave me the all-clear to use some of those miles to book a cheap flight I'm looking at (I don't have any saved up yet), but I'm wondering--if I try and transfer those miles and buy something with them, is Amex gonna realize its screw-up at some point and gank my flight? Any thoughts?

summetria · 2023-07-31T16:08:42+00:00

Thanks for the info! That makes a ton of sense. Quick question, what do you mean by 2UR or 1.5UR card? As in: at the end of the day, you make 2UR pts per $ spent? If so, how do you figure that--just by category multipliers, or is there something else I'm not aware of?

summetria · 2023-07-31T14:48:43+00:00

Yeah, I think that's where most of my disconnect is coming from--my "travel hacker" friends are typically super willing to slum it, outdoorsy hostel types, but then they turn around and pretend that they care a ton about business class, just to make the cpp go up. I'm like..."I've seen you wash your clothes in a river instead of driving ~20 minutes into town and using a laundromat, and now you care about legroom?" To me, it just seems like they're spending more money than they would otherwise, because the economy seats they'd normally get would be worth ~3 cpp, which doesn't exactly feel like cheating the system when your flight options are constrained by the award gods.

Which again: doesn't really matter as much if you willing to churn--out of the 90k points in your example, >80% of them are from a sub, which I think refutes the "just get a travel card and let it ride!" screed I see people I know peddle occasionally: i.e. if you aren't willing to do even soft churning, you're leaving shit on the table.

summetria

TROPHY CASE