Sure, you can try breaking a task down to its smallest component, but not all problems can chunk like that. And even the smallest component will take non-zero work.
I would be curious to learn about a system that could actually accomplish that.
For my side projects and explorations I use org-roam, Nix, and direnv.
So activation energy is:
- org-roam-find-file, type, "so me proj string", enter
- C-c C-n to go to heading
- C-c C-a f to open project directory attached to heading
- envrc-mode sets buffer local PATH values according to flake.nix 100% reproducible environment
So tying this to my productivity system with org-mode and org-agenda is either org links that can execute arbitrary elisp like:
elisp:(org-roam-find-file "so me proj string")
These combine to rule out the biggest factors preventing from moving side projects forward:
- build issues or the chance of them that inevitably arise with anything less than 100% reproducibility
- a way to talk about and organize each project and ascribe meaning to groups of projects because each is an org-roam node
- a radical assault on anything monotonous I feel the computer should be doing for me or anything that annoys me at all
- the freedom to wander aimlessly and make progress, yet never lose a given starting place
You are correct that many tasks cannot be made that small, if they cannot be achieved then the task becomes locate and ask for assistance.