Organize Step

Thoughts are Captured [[20200825201619]] into an Inbox, [[TODO]] but the unsorted Inbox is no place to reflect on old thoughts. The next step is to Organize thoughts into piles based on the function of the thought. If a thought is just a note, it can be recorded in a zettelkasten, filed away as a reference, archived, or deleted.

If the thought is a task, and the task is quick and easy, (less than five minutes) is should be done immediately. Otherwise it can be added to a task list for tracking. At this point, Context, Deadlines, Delay, Urgency, Allotment, and any necessary description should be added. The Context for the task is often the location where the text must be perform: work, school, home, etc. It can sometimes be a more mechanical division of tasks, however, as in the case where a user works from home but still wants to divide work tasks form personal tasks. Deadlines are obvious—when must it be finished by—and a Delay is almost the opposite—when should I even start to worry about doing it. To keep task tracking simple, Urgency should be split into urgent and not urgent. Urgent tasks show up above non-urgent tasks, and possibly trigger notifications when deadlines call for them. Allotment is a very rough estimate for the time to complete the task. Allotment should have stratified precision in the form of minutes, hours, days, weeks, and so on. This way an urgent task which takes weeks can be treated urgently if the deadline is less than a month away, as apposed to waiting until the day before a deadline to remind the user. This estimate might only be important for urgent tasks.

Tasks may also be related as subtasks, supertasks, leading tasks, and trailing tasks. Urgency is inherited by subtasks and leading tasks.

As an alternative to archival or deletion, a thought may also be deferred to later with a Not Right Now option. A delay will remove the note for some time period before returning. Once a note has been delayed several times, it is safe to assume it should be disposed of. [[20200825204850]] A much longer term Someday option should also exist for those items that you don't even want to think about for the time being. These would be available for search, like an archive, but would only be reviewed after upward of years has passed.

#productivity #notes