I have some item in an org buffer marked as TODO and having a scheduled timestamp:
* TODO do something
SCHEDULED: <2014-11-02 Sun>
How do I cause the SCHEDULED timestamp to be removed when I move this item to the 'waiting' state?
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Why do you want it to be removed? Is it for the purpose of not showing up on the agenda? – Malabarba Oct 27 '14 at 14:42
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I'd like it removed because by default I don't schedule WAITING items. But I'd like it to still show up on the Agenda if SCHEDULED because sometimes I do schedule them (e.g. to check in after X days of WAITING). – mankoff Oct 27 '14 at 15:02
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Yes, it's for the purpose of not showing up on the agenda - Generally it's some task I did work on, and now am waiting for a response to an email. So transitioning it to 'WAITING' indicates that I can't work on it now, and want the scheduled timestamp to leave (Of course, if I later add a scheduled timestamp to it, I want it to show up again). – Nathaniel Flath Oct 27 '14 at 15:26
Maybe something like this (tested briefly from buffer and agenda)
(defun rasmus/remove-schedule ()
"Remove SCHEDULED-cookie is switching state to WAITING."
(save-excursion
(and (equal (org-get-todo-state) "WAITING")
(org-get-scheduled-time (point))
(when (search-forward-regexp org-scheduled-time-regexp nil t)
(or (delete-region (match-beginning 0) (match-end 0)) t))
(get-buffer "*Org Agenda*")
(with-current-buffer "*Org Agenda*"
(org-agenda-redo)))))
(add-hook 'org-after-todo-state-change-hook
'rasmus/remove-schedule)
If you're doing this so that WAITING items don't show up in the
agenda buffer, I'd like to suggest an alternative.
You can define WAITING to be a DONE-type keyword. These can easily
be configured to not display in the agenda, even when they have a
schedule. You can do that globally with this:
(setq org-todo-keywords '((sequence "TODO" "|" "WAITING" "DONE")))
Or on a per-file basis with this header:
#+SEQ_TODO: TODO | WAITING DONE
Then, to have these items not display in the agenda, just make sure you set:
(setq org-agenda-skip-scheduled-if-done t)
Finally, if you occasionally need a WAITING item to be displayed in
the agenda, set a DEADLINE on it instead of a SCHEDULE. The
display of deadlines is controlled by a different variable
(org-agenda-skip-deadline-if-done ), so they will still display in the agenda.
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1If you use done logging this will create a done log for waiting, which might be a bit confusing. – ceving Dec 4 '14 at 8:09
