Org-mode Workflow Part 1: Capturing in the Inbox · Jethro Kuan https://blog.jethro.

dev/posts/capturing_inbox/

Org-mode Work�ow Part 1: Capturing in the

Inbox
14 Dec 2019

(Previous Post: Org-mode Work�ow: A Preview)

Have you ever sat down with nothing but a pen and a piece of paper, writing down everything you
need to do? Recall how you felt right a�er. Did you feel more in control? Isnʼt it strange that you feel
better looking at the long list of work, knowing that your little exercise accomplished nothing on the
list? What pushed you to do this little exercise?

The list made you feel more in control because it freed yourself from having to remember to do these
things. With every task on paper, you can utilize the full capacity of your brain to do the actual hard
work of accomplishing tasks.

Your brain is for having ideas, not storing them – David Allen

Filling up the inbox is equivalent of doing this exercise, systematically and consistently. The inbox is
where everything begins. Every article, thought and assignment starts from the inbox. Because the
inbox is so crucial to the work�ow, the process of adding and processing items is as frictionless as
possible. The inbox is all about trust. Trust that you everything you will need to think about is captured
somewhere. This allows you to give your 100% for the current task.

Tasks pile up quickly, and arrive whenever they please, more o�en than not while we are in the middle
of something. The inbox is designed such that I am able to �le these tasks away in a snap, and keep my
attention on the current task.

Filling up the inbox should be fun! If you feel dread when you do this, youʼre probably doing this
wrong.

Capturing Items Manually

Org-mode ships with a feature called org-capture, which allows for quick storage of notes, from
anywhere. I use this to quickly add anything to my inbox.

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Figure 1: Capturing items manually

Capturing Articles
Org-mode has a neat feature called org-protocol, which ties in neatly with org-capture. Here, I use a
Javascript bookmarklet to automatically add webpages and PDFs to my inbox.

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Figure 2: Capturing articles with a bookmarklet

The bookmarklet is uses the new org-protocol syntax which isnʼt very well documented. This also
requires you to setup org-protocol appropriately.

javascript:location.href ='org-protocol://capture?template=c&url='+
encodeURIComponent(location.href) +
'&title=' + encodeURIComponent(document.title) +
'&body=' + encodeURIComponent(window.getSelection())

Capturing Email
I use an email system called notmuch. I have 3 important email accounts to keep up with, so I use
isync to periodically fetch my email and save them for o�ine use, and the Emacs notmuch interface

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gives me access to mail from all accounts at the same time:

Figure 3: The notmuch main interface

Figure 4: notmuch sample mail view

Capturing an email is also a key away. It creates an entry in my inbox with a link to the email.

Figure 5: Email Capture

Whatʼs Next?
Here are the capture templates I use:

(setq jethro/org-agenda-directory "~/.org/gtd/")

(setq org-capture-templates
`(("i" "inbox" entry (file ,(concat jethro/org-agenda-directory "inbox.org"))
"* TODO %?")
("e" "email" entry (file+headline ,(concat jethro/org-agenda-directory "ema
"* TODO [#A] Reply: %a :@home:@school:" :immediate-finish t)
("l" "link" entry (file ,(concat jethro/org-agenda-directory "inbox.org"))

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"* TODO %(org-cliplink-capture)" :immediate-finish t)

("c" "org-protocol-capture" entry (file ,(concat jethro/org-agenda-director
"* TODO [[%:link][%:description]]\n\n %i" :immediate-finish t)))

Iʼve shown that org-mode provides great tooling to capture items. With this, we have completed
probably the most impactful step in the work�ow. In the next part of the series, I will explain how I
process these items.

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