Tickler files and todo.sh

After fiddling around with the todo.sh script some more I got the idea to create a digital tickler-system.

I have not used a digital or non-digital tickler system before (I tried the mail.app IMAP version, but it just didn’t stick).

First, you need to add the following line to .todo:
TICKLER_DIR="/Users/yourname/GTD/Tickler"

or whichever folder you’d like to use.

Then, create a foldertree like:

Tickler
days
01
02
....
30
31
months
01
02
...
10
11
12
today

You can use a short bash-script for that.

Next, download tickler.sh and place it somewhere you can find it (right next to todo.sh, I’d say)

Next, patch todo.sh with the .diff:
patch todo.sh < todotickler.diff

Setup all done!

So how do you use this?

Pretty simple:
tickler.sh checks the date, and then checks the appropriate days and months folder for the presence of a .txt file with the same name. For todays date, it would check ‘/Users/yourname/GTD/Tickler/days/20/20.txt’ and ‘/Users/yourname/GTD/Tickler/months/07/07.txt’. The script will take the contents of them and appends it to todo.txt .

It doesn’t stop there!

It also checks the entire directory and moves all files to the ‘/Users/yourname/GTD/Tickler/today’ folder and makes a todo stating ‘check /Users/yourname/GTD/Tickler/today/$filename’

So how do you get things into the .txt files?

Easy, the patch adds a ‘tickle’ option to ‘todo.sh’.

Say your todo-list looks like:

04 (A) get rich
05 (A) take over the world p:world domination
03 buy DVD
06 fold laundry
07 wash dog
02 vacuum p:household
01 x 2006-07-14 do dishes p:household

Type the following command:
todo tickle 7

The script will then ask you if you want to put it in a day or a month folder (press ‘d’ or ‘m’) and which number and then proceed with moving the task to the .txt file.
You can skip the questions by typing:
todo tickle 7 d25

This moves task 7 to /Users/yourname/GTD/Tickler/days/25/25.txt

For month-folder use something like:
todo tickle 7 m8

Leading zero’s get added when needed.