u/Fit_Needleworker_861

I often found myself using Taskwarrior priority as a quick gut-feeling field: H, M, or L.

That works, but after a while I noticed a problem: priority was mixing too many things together.

A task might be urgent but low value. Another might be hard but strategically important. Another might not be urgent, but it unlocks a lot of other work. I wanted something more deliberate than “this feels like H”.

So I built a small standalone utility: taskwarrior-valore.

It interactively walks through a task list and asks a few weighted questions:

- Outcome Value

- Time Sensitivity

- Commitment

- Leverage

- Effort

- Uncertainty / Friction

The calculation is intentionally simple:

benefit_score =

Outcome Value * 5

+ Time Sensitivity * 4

+ Commitment * 4

+ Leverage * 3

cost_score =

Effort * 2

+ Uncertainty/Friction * 2

net_score = benefit_score - cost_score

The net score is then normalized to a 0-100 value based on the theoretical min/max possible score. That normalized value is written to a numeric value UDA and mapped to Taskwarrior priority using a numeric UDA:

uda.value.type=numeric

uda.value.label=Value

Example usage:

./assess_value.py +PENDING project:Work

Dry run:

./assess_value.py +PENDING --dry-run

Only assess tasks that do not already have a value:

./assess_value.py +PENDING --only-unrated

Run without argument for preset filters or custom.

My goal is not to replace Taskwarrior’s urgency calculation, but to add a more intentional human assessment layer for deciding what is actually worth doing.

Repository:

https://github.com/catanadj/taskwarrior-valore

I’d be interested in feedback from other Taskwarrior users:

- Do these dimensions make sense?

- Would you weight them differently?

- Should this write tags/recommendations too, e.g. +do-now, +schedule, +defer?

- Would a hook-based version be useful, or is an explicit interactive tool better?

- Do you have a better method of task value assessment ?

P.S. This utility is a more polished version of the "z" module in an old project of mine. If you are looking for more such tools especially ones helping with GTD methodology with TaskWarrior you can check the suite here and let me know if you prefer any of the utilities to be stand-alone like valore.

I’ve been working on a small companion tool for Taskwarrior called jot.

The motivation is simple: Taskwarrior is excellent for tracking tasks, but I often need a better place for the context around those tasks. Things like:

- what happened on this task

- why a decision was made

- what to remember next time

- project-level notes that should not belong to one task only

- recurring-task context when using Taskwarrior-Nautical

jot keeps that context in Markdown files while still letting Taskwarrior remain the source of truth for tasks.

What it supports right now:

- task notes

- project notes

- Nautical chain notes

- quick timestamped entries under note headings

- short task events projected into Taskwarrior annotations

- search across notes and logged events

- a terminal UI with task/project browsing, latest edits, search, and a command palette

- soft delete by moving notes into a local trash folder

The design goal is not to replace Taskwarrior or hide it behind another app. It is meant to sit next to it and handle the note/context layer that Taskwarrior itself does not really try to own.

Repo:

https://github.com/catanadj/taskwarrior-jot

I’m interested in feedback from people who use Taskwarrior seriously, especially around whether the task/project/chain note model makes sense in real workflows.