weekly-task-audit

Weekly Task Audit

What This Does

Scans your last 7 daily notes to surface task patterns that indicate something is stuck, blocked, or should be moved to Someday/Maybe. This is different from task-clarity-scanner (which clarifies individual tasks) and retrospective (which reviews accomplishments).

When to Use

• "task audit"
• "audit my tasks"
• "what rolled forward this week"
• "show me stuck tasks"

Instructions

Step 1: Gather Daily Notes

Get the last 7 days of daily notes:

# Generate dates for last 7 days
for i in {0..6}; do
  date -v-${i}d +%Y-%m-%d
done

For each date, check if the daily note exists: /Users/eddale/Documents/COPYobsidian/MAGI/Zettelkasten/YYYY-MM-DD.md

Read all existing daily notes. Skip dates without files (weekends, days off).

Step 2: Extract Task Data

For each daily note, extract tasks from these sections:

Task format: Usually - [ ] Task text or - [x] Task text or [[LINK - Task]]

Normalize task names for comparison:

• Strip checkbox markers
• Strip dates like [STALE 01-12]
• Strip leading [[ and trailing ]]
• Lowercase for comparison, preserve original for display

Step 3: Identify Patterns

Rolling Tasks (appeared 3+ days unchanged):

• Same task appears in Ready or Today's 3 across multiple days
• Never moved to Done Today
• Pattern: Keeps getting carried forward without progress

Yo-Yo Tasks (bounced between Today's 3 and Ready):

• Task was in Today's 3 on Day 1
• Moved back to Ready on Day 2
• Pulled to Today's 3 again on Day 3
• Pattern: Pulled twice, pushed back twice = yo-yo

Chronically Stale:

• Task has [STALE MM-DD] markers
• Same task marked stale on multiple days
• Pattern: Keeps getting flagged but never resolved

Waiting For Overdue:

• Items in Waiting For section
• Follow-up date has passed (format: Follow up MM-DD (original MM-DD))
• Pattern: Blocked work that's past due for follow-up

Step 4: Generate Report

## Weekly Task Audit - Week of [start date] to [end date]

**Days scanned:** [N] of 7
**Total unique tasks seen:** [count]

### Rolling Tasks (appeared 3+ days)

| Task | Days Seen | Last Location |
|------|-----------|---------------|
| [task text] | Mon, Wed, Fri | Ready |
| [task text] | Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri | Ready |

### Yo-Yo Tasks (Today's 3 ↔ Ready)

| Task | Pull Count | Push Count |
|------|------------|------------|
| [task text] | 2 | 2 |

### Chronically Stale

| Task | Stale Dates |
|------|-------------|
| [task text] | 01-10, 01-12, 01-15 |

### Waiting For Overdue

| Item | Follow-up Date | Days Overdue |
|------|----------------|--------------|
| [item] | 01-10 | 6 |

### Summary

- **Rolling:** [N] tasks have been sitting untouched
- **Yo-Yo:** [N] tasks keep getting pulled and pushed
- **Stale:** [N] tasks repeatedly flagged
- **Overdue:** [N] waiting items past follow-up

**Recommendation:** These [total] items might be:
- Someday/Maybe candidates (not actually urgent)
- Blocked on something unspoken
- Need decomposition into smaller tasks

Want to triage these now?

Step 5: Interactive Triage (Optional)

If user wants to triage, go through flagged items one at a time:

Use AskUserQuestion for each:

Task: "[task text]"
Pattern: Rolling (5 days in Ready)

What do you want to do?

Options:

• Move to Someday/Maybe - Not urgent, park it
• Decompose - Break into smaller tasks (ask for subtasks)
• Add blocker note - Document what's blocking it
• Delete - It's no longer relevant
• Keep as-is - Conscious decision to keep

After all decisions, apply changes to today's daily note using Edit.

Guidelines

• Read-only by default - Don't modify files unless user explicitly requests triage
• Normalize for comparison - Same task might be written slightly differently across days
• Count appearances, not modifications - A task appearing 5 days means 5 days of carrying forward
• Respect weekends - Missing daily notes are normal, don't flag as concerning
• Surface patterns, don't judge - Some rolling tasks are intentional (ongoing projects)

Examples

Good trigger: "audit my tasks" → Runs full audit, shows report

Good trigger: "what rolled forward" → Focuses on rolling tasks section

Bad trigger: "review my tasks" → This sounds more like task-clarity-scanner

Integration

This skill complements but doesn't replace:

• task-clarity-scanner - Clarifies individual unclear tasks (daily use)
• retrospective - Reviews accomplishments and learnings (weekly reflection)
• weekly-task-audit - Surfaces stuck patterns (weekly maintenance)