One way to create tasks is just to go to a file and start typing. This is really strange to me, because you can tell you're just using a text file. But if you have a list of tasks this can be the fastest way, hitting M-S-RET after each item to create a new line.

However, if you're doing other stuff and want to create a task on the fly, org-capture is really useful.

(use-package org :ensure org-plus-contrib :config ; really long config section omitted ; not sure if I need this: (setq org-default-notes-file "~/Dropbox/org/inbox.org") (setq org-capture-templates '(("t" "Todo [inbox]" entry (file+headline "~/Dropbox/org/inbox.org" "Tasks") "* TODO %i%?

%a") ("n" "Todo [inbox, no link]" entry (file+headline "~/Dropbox/org/inbox.org" "Tasks") "* TODO %i%?

") ("b" "Backlog" entry (file+headline "~/Dropbox/org/backlog.org" "Backlog") "* %i%?

%a"))) :bind (; other bindings removed ("C-c c" . org-capture)))

With the above, I can hit C-c c to capture something; I then have three options:

t to capture a todo item with a link

to capture a todo item n to capture a todo item without a link

to capture a todo item b to capture a backlog item (i.e. idea)

The "link" is a link to wherever you were when you created the todo. For example I hit C-c c t right here and the link was to file:~/Dropbox/jb.com/org/_posts/2019-02-23-org-todo-setup.org::*Task%20intake:%20org-capture . That is a link to the section of the org-mode file that I'm using to write this article!