Personal time management for techies
Buzz through crazy busy days with as little stress as possible. Stay focused by seeing only one task at a time. Use this simple. fast, fun tool all day with the keyboard in a familiar terminal environment.
Quick installation (MacOS)
brew install python@3.11
python3.11 -m pip install pipx
pipx install busy
See detailed installation instructions for more.
Getting started
To get started, add some tasks to your default queue.
busy add 'Donate to the Busy project'
busy add 'Phone mom'
busy add 'Do the laundry'
busy add 'Take a shower'
Then, when you're ready to start your day, ask Busy what to do first:
busy
Returns:
Donate to the Busy project
That's it! Get to work.
See commands for details or read on to experiment more.
Handling tasks
When you've finished that task, mark it off to find the next task.
busy done
It will ask you to confirm that you're done, then mark the task as done and tell you what to do next.
Phone mom
If you want to see the whole queue, with sequence numbers, type:
busy list
Here's the list you will see. Note that the completed Tasks are gone:
1 Do the laundry
2 Take a shower
See planning to learn about time management or read on!
Planning
If you decide, in the moment, to wait until later today to perform a task, drop it to the bottom of the queue using the drop command:
busy drop
If you see a task on the list that seems urgent, and you intend to perform it immediately, pop it to the top of the list:
busy pop 2
Let's say you realize that it's not an appropriate task for today, but you want to defer it to tomorrow:
busy defer
It will ask you to confirm "tomorrow" as the day for deferral. Agree with it for now. The Item will then be moved into the plan State with tomorrow's date as the plan date. As usual, Busy will tell you what to do next after deferring that task.
At the start of a new day, tell Busy to add all the previously deferred Items to the current queue.
busy activate
Congratulations! You may now start enjoying the benefits of a more relaxed approach to your busy life.
Ready to get busy?
Learn the principles and data model
