I’d like to get better at using Logseq for task management and have it function as my single inbox for ToDos.
Today my ToDo list is made up of a broad variety of tasks. Some have very specific “deadlines”. Other’s are “someday”. Many are associated with specific projects. Some are even not my tasks at all but something that I’m waiting on someone else so that I can get unblocked.
Since I put everything on the journal page, most built-in queries and journal tools “schedule” these tasks for the day I enter them, not the day that I need them done by. Many of my tasks don’t have a specific due date so I’d like to assign them a deadline of “#someday”. I’ve tried creating my own task template and writing my own queries, but so far task management isn’t working for me.
As a secondary goal, I’d like to develop a best practice for taking notes when I DO get around to working on or completing a task. Often I’ll give myself a task to to read or watch something on a given day’s journal page. When I get around to watching/reading the thing, I tend to take my notes in a sub-block under the task. Anecdotally I’ve found that I never come back and look at this stuff (or struggle to find it when I want it). Curious if other people have better workflows.
Finally, I’ve spent TONS of time trying to write advanced queries and find them really difficult to troubleshoot when they don’t work as expected. I’d like to understand if would be possible to create some kind of a datalog/datomic query “debugger” that would allow a user to inspect the result at each step in an advanced query. I think this would really open up the power of Advanced Queries for logseq users!
I’m happy to see we have very similar goals. I also want to build better task management workflows with Logseq, and I want to nest my notes underneath the task itself. I already have some possible solutions in mind, which I’ll share soon in my learn log.
Are you able to share some screenshots? Maybe blur out some of the text itself (but please show any links or tags). That’ll help me and others to give better suggestions on how to structure your notes and queries.
What tags/links do you add to these notes? And do you have a use for your notes in the future, for example, to get something done? Screenshots would help here as well.
This is really good product feedback, thank you. I’ll send our developers a link to your post.
Seeing where things go wrong in your query would definitely help the learning process. Short feedback loops = faster learning.
input daily in journal as inbox, example:
/WAITING [[ImportantProject]] ask #BobFromMarketing for the TPS report.
Browse by project as one dimension
or context (e.g. a person or a place) as another dimension on the same task.
The context simplifies getting things completed because e.g. before a meeting with Bob the tag #BobFromMarketing shows me all tasks for which I need his input over all projects he is involved in.
So I’ve come up with a workflow that I am starting to like for larger project. I use pages to denote specific projects and within those projects I’ll create a to-do list with tasks. This way I have my tasks associated with a specific project all in one place. Then if I am working on a particular task for that project I will include a “block ref” within the current day’s journal and making children points to that reference block containing my thoughts, research, and experiments. This will link those bullet points, that I make on that day, back to the task that I am working on and I can view them from the main project page’s task. This is usually for noting my flow of thought when working on something or the progress I am making towards a task.
If I find something more concrete / less transient then I can go ahead and make a note of it in the main project page itself rather than the journal page. It also has the benefit of making it easy to see which days I have worked on a task and what I did on those days without the need for complex queries because all of the referencing and linking is all implemented explicitly.
As far as future tasks. I have a subpage that I call Focus which has all of the things I’m focused on working on right now, the stuff that needs to get done sooner rather than “someday”. For all of the someday stuff I have a page called Background. I haven’t quite figured out this workflow yet but it could likely work in a similar way where I make a task and use block references to associate to it when I do get around to it or codify it into it’s own page.
