[notmuch] Thoughts on not seeing messages I can't deal with (yet, or now, or here...)

[Michal Sojka]

On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:00:06 -0800, Carl Worth <cworth at cworth.org> wrote:
> [This mail started as some off-topic rambling in my reply to the
> notmuch-reply script. So that's why it starts on one topic and ends
> somewhere else entirely.]
> 
> I'm currently avoiding any locking failures with notmuch commands by
> running "notmuch new" manually, (rather than from a cron job). And it
> occurs to me that running "notmuch new" manually has a certain
> benefit---it allows me to bring in a chunk of mail, and then process all
> of that (either by replying, or setting aside to a particular project or
> "todo" tag, etc.) without getting distracted by other mail coming in.

That's what I like on notmuch too. (I also don't use cron.)

> I know that what I really want instead of "todo" is a way to express the
> reason I'm postponing a message. There's probably some resource I'm
> missing that I need before I can deal with it. Perhaps that's:
> 
>   * I can't decide on this until I'm with co-workers and can talk about
>     this.
> 
>   * I can't resolve this until I'm at the office with the right hardware
>     to test.
> 
>   * I need to remember to do something with this when I'm at home.
> 
>   * I need a nice block of "discretionary time" to be able to give this
>     topic the attention I want to.
> 
>   * I need to look at this message again on this Saturday.
> 
> So what I really want to do is to tag things based on those criteria,
> ("office", "magic-hardware", "home", "discretionary", "2010-02-27"),
> which I can at least do now.
> 
> But what I'm currently missing is a way for the folders based on these
> tags to only appear at the right times, (when the resource is
> available).

It seems I have the same needs as you. I use Emacs's org-mode for
managing my TODO list and I find org-remember very useful in this
context.

It works like this: I have a global key binding (C-c r) for org-remember
and whenever I press this key a new buffer appears. I write my TODO item
there and after C-c C-c the buffer is appended to my TODO list. What is
important, is that the remember buffer may be pre-filled with some
information based on major mode of from where it was invoked. This
information might be a so called org-link (a link to another entity
which emacs can work with). David Bremner did some work
(id:8763805hr2.fsf at pivot.cs.unb.ca) to support links to mails in
notmuch, but I haven't tried it yet.

So I'd like to process my mail like this: If I cannot complete the mail
immediately, I'll press "C-c r" to create a new TODO item where I
mention what is needed for completing this mail. The TODO item will
automatically contain a link to the original message. I can also add
some Org Mode properties such as SCHEDULED or DEADLINE. Then I remove
unread and inbox tags from the message. This way I'll process the whole
inbox until it becomes empty.

Then I will use org-mode's Agenda view to show me what to do just now.
Thanks to the properties such as SCHEDULED, I won't see items which I do
not want to see today.

If I complete some TODO item, I'll use org-link to immediately jump to
the original message and I'll reply to it.

The only problem here is some kind of duplication. Org-mode has its own
tags and these have nothing in common with notmuch tags. So, in order to
use tags your TODO items and mails, you would need to tag them twice
(once in notmuch and once in org).

What might work here would be some kind of integration between Org's
Agenda view and notmuch search. But I do not have an exact idea how this
could look like.

Bye
Michal