Info Catalog org: Priorities org: TODO Items org: Checkboxes

org: Breaking down tasks

 
 5.5 Breaking tasks down into subtasks
 =====================================
 
 It is often advisable to break down large tasks into smaller, manageable
 subtasks.  You can do this by creating an outline tree below a TODO
 item, with detailed subtasks on the tree(1).  To keep the overview over
 the fraction of subtasks that are already completed, insert either ‘[/]’
 or ‘[%]’ anywhere in the headline.  These cookies will be updated each
 time the TODO status of a child changes, or when pressing ‘C-c C-c’ on
 the cookie.  For example:
 
      * Organize Party [33%]
      ** TODO Call people [1/2]
      *** TODO Peter
      *** DONE Sarah
      ** TODO Buy food
      ** DONE Talk to neighbor
 
    If a heading has both checkboxes and TODO children below it, the
 meaning of the statistics cookie become ambiguous.  Set the property
 ‘COOKIE_DATA’ to either ‘checkbox’ or ‘todo’ to resolve this issue.
 
    If you would like to have the statistics cookie count any TODO
 entries in the subtree (not just direct children), configure
 ‘org-hierarchical-todo-statistics’.  To do this for a single subtree,
 include the word ‘recursive’ into the value of the ‘COOKIE_DATA’
 property.
 
      * Parent capturing statistics [2/20]
        :PROPERTIES:
        :COOKIE_DATA: todo recursive
        :END:
 
    If you would like a TODO entry to automatically change to DONE when
 all children are done, you can use the following setup:
 
      (defun org-summary-todo (n-done n-not-done)
        "Switch entry to DONE when all subentries are done, to TODO otherwise."
        (let (org-log-done org-log-states)   ; turn off logging
          (org-todo (if (= n-not-done 0) "DONE" "TODO"))))
 
      (add-hook 'org-after-todo-statistics-hook 'org-summary-todo)
 
    Another possibility is the use of checkboxes to identify (a hierarchy
 of) a large number of subtasks (Checkboxes).
 
    ---------- Footnotes ----------
 
    (1) To keep subtasks out of the global TODO list, see the
 ‘org-agenda-todo-list-sublevels’.
 

Info Catalog org: Priorities org: TODO Items org: Checkboxes