My avatar logoInom Turdikulov

4 min read

Taskwarrior

Generally Taskwarrior is CLI To-Do list manager. I’m using small subset of its task managing features, mainly to not lose some tasks and able to track what I need and will do. If I’ll not do it, someone or something will do it for me (this is usually bad).

Some good introductin into Taskwarrior available in Babej taskwarrior tutorial.

Features:

  • plain text format (avoid proprietary formats)
  • cross-platform
  • open-source
  • CLI
  • many extensions and integrations, like Taskwarrior Server and Taskwarrior TUI
  • integrations, most popular Timewarrior and Taskserver, TODO: add note/use it.

Quickstart

Algorithm of daily review and daily plan generator:

  • Check your mood and energy level, think about 3 MIT’s (most important tasks).
  • Check generated task list (t), ask yourself what you can do today and re-schedule items if needed, I use tm <numbers> wait:+days custom Taskwarrior command.
  • Set priorities if needed (tm <numbers> priority:H|M|L).
  • Pick task, work on it and complete it (fin <numbers>).

You can execute ==task diagnostics== command to check if everything is set up correctly.

Add task, need to finish tomorrow, which recurs each 10 days:
task add test_description due:tomorrow recur:10d.

Update a task’s priority:
task task_id modify priority:H|M|L.

Complete or delete a task:
task task_id done, task task_id delete.

List open tasks due before the end of the week with tag inbox:
task list due.before:eow +inbox.

List all reports: task reports.

List all projects: task projects.

Create blocked task (depends on)
... depends:id. To list task which blocking everything use this command: ... +BLOCKING -BLOCKED.

NixOS task service provide good command to generate script, which can be used to import required credentials 1:

nixos-taskserver user export organization user > user_config.sh
# import this somewhere
sh user_config.sh

# adjust server settings
taskd.server=your-server.com:53589

# initialize sync and sync
task init sync
task sync

How do I use and make sense of recurrence

Great information about managing recurring tasks in taskwarrior from Stack Exchange 2.

TODO: test.

task add recur:<duration> due:<first task due date> until:<delete first task by date> wait:<date when task will appear> "my task"
 
task add recur:daily \  # Create a new occurrence everyday
         due:9:00    \  # Required attribute for recurring task, eat breakfast at 9:00 AM
         until:12:00 \  # Automatically remove task by lunch time 12:00 PM
         wait:5:00   \  # Wait until 5:00 AM to show the task
         eat breakfast

Examples (we automatcally remove the tasks if they no more relevant, e.g. until):

task add recur:daily due:... until:... wait:... +next \
"Process INBOX tasks lists"

task add recur:daily due:... until:... wait:... +next \
"Complete today\'s workout routine."

task add recur:daily due:... until:... wait:... +next \
"Review and practice new English vocabulary words."

task add recur:daily due:... until:... wait:... +next \
"Engage in focused learning session for personal development."

Recurrence can also use until and wait attributes, if they exist. Recurrence does not use scheduled. And there is a mask attribute, that tracks which instance of the reoccurence the task is.

When a new recurring instance is created:

  • new task due = parent due + recur * mask
  • identical math for both until and wait
  • scheduled is copied wholesale from the parent task. In practice, this unexpected behaviour won’t break your workflow, just affects filters and skews urgency. I call this out because it took me a very long time to discover this was not working as expected.

Every time taskwarrior runs, it checks to see if it’s time to create the next occurrence. The psuedo-equation is:

now >= due + recur * (mask + 1)`

Note, there is a config value, rc.recurrence.limit, that can be used to tell taskwarrior to create even more occurrences further out.

You can expect the next occurrence to be created at the due date of the previous.

Footnotes

  1. Taskwarrior - Kunzelma Wiki ↩

  2. How to manage recurring tasks in taskwarrior? - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange ↩

Backlinks

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