This is for all you plain text addicts out there. Mike Mellor has a bundle for the excellent Textmate that turns it into a lean mean GTD machine. In an effort to make a good thing even better, he has implemented a text version of the metadata markup I use and define in my Productivity Whitepaper.
Here is how he describes it:
In a nutshell, this syntax works to provide “state†(my word, not Patrick’s) to a task. I have reversed two of the items, but here they are:
– (Dash): Undone Action Item.
+ (Plus): Done Action Item.
-> (Right Arrow): Delegated (with a note to whom and the date).
<- (Left Arrow): Waiting – (i.e. for another action).
^ (Triangle): Data Point.
The difference between this and what Patrick devised is I reversed “Delegated” and “Waiting.” To me, the right arrow gives me the impression that I have passed the task along, where the left arrow better fits my thinking for a task that I am waiting on. I also added one more item:
* (Asterisk): Project.
So that I don’t have to keep writing “Patrick Rhone’s ‘Metadata Markdown’ Syntax”, I’m going to call it “OrgFu”
Very, very cool. To say I am honored by the response I have received thus far would be an understatement. The word “humbled†might even be a more apt description.