now "Working on Project A"
now pause
now continue
now done
You won't get a nice report and you'll have to calculate hours yourself, but it supports every edge case you can think of. Need to back-date an entry? Just open the file and change the timestamp. Want to nest tasks? Just do `now $ working on sub task` and you can easily see the indentation.
I wrote something like that that also writes the cwd because that made it easier to go back and recall what project I was on if the comment didn't make it explicit.
Aliased it to '@'.
This is something people should write for themselves because the best usage comes from tailoring it to your own particular needs. Also, you have to maintain it then it may not get all featured-up and bloated. Maybe. :)
I was basically doing the same thing but I recorded what I just finished instead of what I was working on. I got that idea from gtimelog. I haven't been using it lately but I might go back to it.
dun started
dun Implemented feature xxx
dun reddit and hn **
dun Fixed bug xxx
dun lunch **
Without an argument it just opened the log file in vim.
I like this style of recording things but I would like to be able to log back to a server from anywhere and have things like git commits added as well for additional context. And then there is report generation.
If you are doing some consulting and tracking your time and running Linux, I heavily recommend you Hamster:
http://projecthamster.wordpress.com/
It is both simple to use and efficient, everything is stored in a SQLite database (easy to backup and extract data out of it) but anyway, the reports are really well made and can be used to do your work reports for your customers. I managed more than €100k for of work with it without a single loss of data, failure or any kind of issue.
Here's a stupid one. I keep getting lost what I was doing in each of 20 screen windows. So I keep a "goal" per shell that appears in the $PS1 for each.
goal ()
{
if [ $# -gt 0 ]; then
MYGOAL="$@";
else
echo Your current goal is: $MYGOAL;
fi
}
That's it. Put ($MYGOAL) in your PS1 and type "goal fix this bug" or "goal working on that thing". No args just echos back (redundant).
Cool: Really interesting command line utility to record what I'm currently doing. I'd love that. task warrior is nice to track my tasks, but to track what I'm doing/what I've done? So far it's not a good match.
Not for me: Uses a format of some application that I've never heard of, on OS X which I don't own.
Since this is the first time I heard about TaskPaper: Are there alternatives for the other two big operating systems (or at least one of them)?
indeed. +1 for plainTasks. i've been using it for a month now. it's like freeform task tracking with syntax highlighting, magic dates, and automatic formatting. it's exactly what i've been looking for for years now.
'task all' will display all of your tasks with the status (e.g. pending/active/completed).
'task reports' lists a number of all the premade reports that will give you some of the information you are looking for. You can also list reports based on status by doing 'task status:pending'. Please see the docs page (http://taskwarrior.org/docs/tutorials/filter.html) on using filters.
The burndown reports are pretty useful too (they are graphical and can help you visualize that status of a project very easily).
I made doing because I get manic and don't even realize I'm switching to a new task until I've already forgotten what I was doing before. It's probably not an issue for most people. So, for me, I have Day One pop up every hour and ask me what I'm doing, which then gets converted to a "WWID" file in nvALT via the library in doing (and Hazel). If I do remember to track between tasks, I just jot it off on the command line.
I love the idea of a timer, though. I do use Timing to do something similar. http://timingapp.com/
And the organization by nested CSVs has some great potential for longer-term data collection.
I've been tracking my work for over a year now with a tool similar to this and now I would not live without (I should finally package it up and ship it...)
Some ideas, you can do very nice things through bash autocompletion, for example:
- immediate jumping between timelines (I have hundreds, by topic-project-task and so on)
$ tau jump proj tau<TAB><TAB>
/projects/taulog
/projects/taulog/android
/projects/taulog/appengine
..and so on..
- autosuggest for todo lists:
$ tau done<TAB><TAB>
[ 1] setup JTAG probes
[ 2] write script to control probe
..and so on..
And after you use this for a while you realize it can do more than manage log messages and todo lists, the same interaction can be used to quickly access bookmarks, reference material and local paths you often have to `cd` into :)
Nice; I'd like something like that, but with the addition of allowing me to track the estimated vs. the real time of a job. I.e., when I start a task, I estimate the time needed, when I finish it, it tells me the real time it took. Ideally, I could take breaks in between, but even just having a linear task would be great. E.g.:
Turns out, atea does all I need and integrates nicely into the OSX UI with an icon in the menu bar. It does:
- project-based task management
- proiority ordering of tasks
- Dropbox-based syncing of one or more task files
- time tracking
- comparison of real times to estimates
So, in the end, maybe it is actually the perfect solution, and it is free, too.
Really recommend Trello for a day to day work to do list.
You can drag cards between lists (To Do, Doing, Done) (feels nice to drag items to the "Done" pile and build a long column), has check-lists in cards for sub tasks, and works everywhere.
Have you heard the good word about taskwarrior? I did not see any mention of this cli utility in this post. I have not tried doing, but use taskwarrior on a daily basis. It is fairly simple and allows for prioritizing tasks as well.
Did they ever finish the Android client? I looked into them very briefly 2+ years ago, and I wanted something to finally get me to use a smart phone for something other than procrastination.
I found Mirakel[0] but I do not think that was the app promised by the original dev. Still googling after I hit submit out of curiosity.
I don't think the main Taskwarrior group is focusing on a specific mobile app. With the task server now available hopefully other developers will create mobile apps for Taskwarrior. I'd like an iOS app, while Todo.txt works ok with dropbox and the iOS app I'd prefer Taskwarrior since i wouldn't have to use a cron job to set up recurring tasks.
A quick google led me to this (https://github.com/svijee/taskwarrior-androidapp). I did not develop it and, unfortunately have an iphone 4 for the next few months. It looks fairly promising though (looks like it is still being developed).
This is an absolutely brilliant idea. I applaud you for this. I often find it very hard to recall everything I've been doing today, and even more often I will be bombarded with things to do 'soon' and will either open a text file to write it down or just try to remember. This way I don't have to leave the terminal. Class.
And by the way, I have no idea what TaskPaper is nor do I care. All I care about is that I can jot down some memos while I'm in my little linux terminal.
Hello.
Thanks for sharing! I also found the BBedit plugin, so that I can edit it from the TaskPaper link above. Here is a simple AppleScript to install it, when you don't have administrative rights on your user account:
do shell script "cd ~/Downloads/doing-master; gem install doing" with administrator privileges
