When and When not too do?

Café
#1

I am currently based on my property in the bush, I am taking the opportunity to relax but there are multiple things I also wish to do while here. I have noticed however I keep making life difficult for myself by not noticing when something is in the negative. For example consider the following examples;

  • When its windy
    • I cant spray the blackberry
    • I don’t like washing dishes on the back veranda
  • I don’t like walking when it is hot
  • I do like walking when it is not hot
  • …

Now add to this that right now it may or may not be hot/windy and later today the weather app tells us it may or may not be hot/windy. Similarly I am only here for 5 more sleeps before I leave for a month, I want to list the things I can or must do and if I can/cant do them and which can wait until my return.

  • The above is only a subset of possible conditions and compatibility with different actions
  • Many of the conditions are relevant in their negation eg; its not windy so I should now spray
  • There can be one or more items that can be done when a particular condition is true or false.

I am thinking about a way to organise items with a condition or its negation to encourage me to do things when I have the ability to do so rather than put them off until they can’t be done :frowning_face: which has happened a few times.

  • It was still this morning so I did the dishes and walked 4km
  • There is a light breeze and its not too hot so I am doing some physical outdoor chores off my list
  • I plan to go to town this afternoon so I will also
    • Get some town water
    • Buy some bread

All of this I would like to handle in a way that I simply add a task and choose which conditions are or should not be true, such that I can plan my day effortlessly. Some are reoccurring.

Any thoughts?

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#2

Honestly, the scenarios you describe don’t seem like they require mechanisation to me.

But if you want a computer-based solution to this…

Consider the new Nova Language, which is technically a programming language, but behaves unlike any other I’ve ever seen.
I will link the last of its three introductory pages as it is more relevant to your predicament: How Nova makes complicated decisions.

#3

First I am not necessarily asking for mechanisation, or automation, but whether or not this is needed would surely depend on the individual circumstances, the number of tasks, the complexity and conditions that are present. There may cases where such tasks and conditions may apply to small or even large groups of tasks and people to carry out the tasks.

The language you link to could be an approach, but if I have some solutions in Pseudocode, I should be able to implement them in TiddlyWiki if desired.

My Current thoughts are a condition table and traffic light system, on paper or in code, but still need to design the algorithm. I was wondering if anyone had tackled a similar problem.

  • In a way its like dependencies of tasks, less on other tasks, but on environmental conditions that change, thus the list changes.
#4

I just have subsume macros (The Subsume Plugin — Turn links into sliders!) with list widgets. One is “Waiting” with items tagged Waiting, for items waiting on responses from others. “When I’m tired”, “When the power goes out”, etc. So if it is raining, you open “When it’s raining” and see a list of things you can do then. I suppose you could also do “When it’s not raining” and just add ! to the list widget to make it the opposite of “When it’s raining”. But that seems overkill to me.

4 Likes
#5

Oohhhh… That’s what that does! That’s cool.

1 Like
#6

Add a list of things you want to do any given day and their severity.
It is a given that time is finite – and we won’t have time to do all the things that we’d like to do.

The FMEA framework might be of help to prioritize things that you should do:

Avoid Failure When Using Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA)

(Avoid Failure When Using Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA))

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#7

This one uses color for probabilities:

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#8

If you’re looking for a TODO list that supports conditional logic, have a look at HyperList – Geir's Everything

I’ve never got to start using it, but the concept looks cool.

No connection to TiddlyWiki at all, but there was a Vim plugin.

#9

Thanks David, I now have an equivalent implementation of the HTML details tag, which I could use for this, rather than subsume. But your example has stimulated some ideas. I imagine one could add dependencies to a set of tasks, then at the top of a tiddler have a set of toggle buttons to set the current (or a future state like this afternoon) eg windy=no raining=yes etc… we need only list the conditions that apply to the items in the current list (eg due), so no need to ask for the state unless it required.

Then one could have a set of details widgets that are open or closed depending on the “states”. eg; “Do when not raining” / "“Do when raining” but it may easier to use icons next to the tasks representing the required or avoidant conditions.

Whilst I am touching on implementation, or using tiddlywiki terms to describe this, I am still only trying to identify an efficient algorithm to meet the requirements. I am quite proud of other algorithms I have designed previously and feel there is one for this kind of problem.

  • For example setting a time stamp in a review-weekly field, then simply testing if it is greater than 7 days old, if and only if you action it, update the time stamp, this keeps it in the weekly list forever until it is timestamped afresh. No date calculations need except for the listing, date stamps are just now.

I want an algorithm that can be integrated with standard lists like the above. And like the above keeps it as simple and minimalist as possible.

  • now I am searching how best to represent light wind/rain vs heavy wind/rain without multiplying the number of conditions.
  • interestingly if we do set the current state for our lists, in some ways we are logging our observations and they can be recorded in our journal, which is another use of such a method. eg @home, Lightrain, strong winds, batteries charged (I am off grid).

I think I may be more likely to deploy this framework on another project that came up recently. I lost my phone recently, but still had my tablet and desktop and access to a Wifi network. It was interesting seeing what I still had available to me and that which was lost, with my mobile.

  • One thing I lost with my mobile was a payment method, although I had my wallet in my backpack, once I put the real wallet in my pocket, I mistook it for my keys and locked myself out (with the dog) :frowning:
  • This would be used for a periodical risk identification, countermeasure and redundancy planning rather than an active to do list system, and the identified states may be used. Also for my off grid life style as insufficient solar is backed up with a generator, second battery, etc…
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