The Emacs Planning Habits of a Questionably Effective Person: My 40-year journey of planning with Emacs, Org Mode, paper journals, etc.
George Jones - gmj@pobox.com
Format: 20-min talk ; Q&A: BigBlueButton conference room Etherpad: https://pad.emacsconf.org/2026-planning
Etherpad: https://pad.emacsconf.org/2026-planning
Status: Waiting for video from speaker
Description
This is the story of my 40+ year journey using planning tools, many of them inside Emacs since the advent of Org Mode. This is not a "now I know how to plan things perfectly" talk. I will demo Emacs planning workflows and tools I use, that I have used, and that I'm experimenting with now. You are probably a better planner than I am. You probably get more things done than I do. Sometimes getting things done is the point. Sometimes shiny objects are the point. Sometimes avoiding shiny objects is the point. I'll touch on all that.
Here are some of the "Try this at home, kids" things I will touch on:
- Org and Denote capture templates
- My custom
org-todo-keywords - The Org Agenda: Per-project files vs. a single
diary.org - Habits, schedules, and weekly "DONE" and "Worked On" summaries
- Migrating to Denote
- "Strange new worlds" with AI/gptel creeping into my workflows
Sometimes life happens outside Emacs. I admit it. I will touch on how my daily paper journaling and other inputs interact with my Emacs workflows.
About the speaker:
George Jones has been noodling around Emacsen since the TECO days (pre GNU) and had a bit to do with MicroEmacs finding its way onto the Amiga and USENET. Since the advent of Org mode much of his planning happens there. In this talk George will run through demos of current workflows with capture templates, custom TODO keywords, Org Agenda, habits, schedules and the use of newcomers including denote and gptel.
Questions or comments? Please e-mail gmj@pobox.com
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