As I mentioned in a previous post, I am now retired. As I approached my first week of retirement, I had been making a list of things I wanted to do. As my list grew to 25 items, I felt a little uneasy. I needed some more structure…and that is when I turned to org-mode in Emacs.

I created an outline with the first level heading of “Retirement” so I could find it easily within my main org file. I then added two second level headings (Tasks and Weekly Planner). The Tasks heading is the “inbox” for when I think of something new that I want/need to get done. Under the Weekly Planner heading, I added sub-headings for each day of the week. Within each day, I had a standard set of tasks (exercise, dog-walking, practicing musical instruments). I then chose a few items from the Tasks list and copied them to the days in the Weekly Planner. As I complete the tasks (TODO items in Org Mode), I change them to DONE, and moving items up and down in the list depending on my priorities. Finally, I have a “Log” heading where I record significant things for each day (PS – I already that this in my org file).

Here is a screenshot with example tasks:

On Monday, I started using this system. Today (Thursday), I would say it is working well for me. Yay! I have created a sample file if anyone want to try this. Enjoy!