Moving away from org-mode for task management

I have used org-mode for a few years now, primarily for task management, document writing and note taking. It has been very good for keeping track of what I need to do in my studies and volunteer work, but despite this I’m moving away from it for my task management.

I find it very hard to think actively, as opposed to reactively, when I’m at a computer. For example writing a new text is harder to do on a computer than with pen and paper, but editing a piece of text works fine. I’m not sure why this is, but I think one reason is that I feel like I constantly have to do something when I’m at the computer, as if the computer demands a response from me.

Short term planning (e.g. “What should I do today?”) is another task that I think is hard to do with computers. What I plan doesn’t stick in my head and when I glance at the todo list I often just filter out tasks my mind deems to be irrelevant. I interact so little with the task items that they almost feel alien to me.

A bullet journal-like system on the other hand requires more involvement on my part. All entries that aren’t completed needs to be copied over to the next day manually, which incentivizes me to remove irrelevant items and makes me more aware of what I work on currently.

Another advantage of the paper notebook is its high availability. It doesn’t need to be powered on, doesn’t require electricity, has an extremely intuitive interface and has a grand total of zero bugs. This makes it easier for me to interact with. I even write down chores I need to do later in the day which I didn’t do with org because of the friction.

However I still use org for long-term planning because I like the structure it provides. TODO dependencies are very useful for writing up a bunch of steps without being overwhelmed in the agenda view, and the general tree structure makes having large amounts of tasks that are relevant during different points in time very manageable. What I have done is that I have reduced Org mode to be just another inbox in my el-secretario system similar to RSS feeds and email. Unblocked tasks are turned into messages to me that I read through daily. If the task is relevant (i.e. I think I should do [or consider doing] it today) I write it down in my notebook, otherwise I snooze it to a later date at increasingly larger intervals. Messages can scheduled to arrive at an arbitrary date, which is very useful for tasks that are relevant only at after a specific date.

In essence what I am trying to do is keeping the best of two worlds, the structure of org-mode and the intuitiveness of paper into one system. One thing I still haven’t figured out is how to sync the states of tasks between org-mode and my notebook in a systematic way. So far there haven’t been any problems, but I will keep on using this hybrid system and evaluate as I go. Maybe I’ll post a follow up when I have learned more how this system works.