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emacsorg-mode

org-mode agenda -- what does "Sched. 5x" mean?


tl;dr: In emacs org-mode agenda view, I don't understand why some of my TODO's are telling me how many days over their scheduled date they are, and others are not.


In emacs org-mode, if I type C-c a a I see my agenda for the current day. Right at the top there are typically a few entries in red, of the form

projects:    Sched. 5x: TODO [#A] Do this job

It seems to me that the reason it says Sched. 5x is that this is a TODO which was scheduled for 5 days ago. Indeed here is a complete entry in one of my org files:

** TODO [#A] Do this job.                          
   SCHEDULED: <2016-09-23 Fri .+21d>

and today it's the 28th, 5 days later. However I just noticed that I have some jobs which are scheduled to be done several days ago, and they are coming out in green. Here is another entry in one of my org files.

** TODO [#A] Stack Overflow test.
   SCHEDULED: <2016-09-23 Fri .+1d>

and given that it is now 28th, five days after 23, I would again expect a red entry in my agenda, with a "Sched. 5x" or something. But I get a green

test1:      Scheduled:  TODO [#A] Stack Overflow test.

right at the bottom of the list of things I should be doing on or before today. I am hoping to get this thing right to the top somehow, because it's 5 days late. Why is it not there in red? Have I done something stupid?

Edit: the value of org-scheduled-delay-days is 0.


Solution

  • Because of the +1d in the schedule line the todo should be done every day. So it's actually scheduled (at least) twice. Once today and again for the entry we missed yesterday. The agenda shows only one: today's. It's late and on-time simultaneously and org-mode doesn't understand that.