DeadSwitch Toolset – Structured Shadows in Emacs

~ Tom's IT Cafe

There’s no room for clutter in the command line of a ghost.

DeadSwitch doesn’t “manage time” – he enforces silence. Tasks, missions, and rituals are stored in plain text. The command center is Emacs. The engine is Org mode. The interface is custom Agenda views – all hardwired to reflect control, not chaos.

This is not productivity. It’s protocol.

The Setup: Org as Infrastructure

DeadSwitch splits his operations across multiple files:

  • tasks.org – daily operations, long arcs, hidden threads
  • posting.org – content queues, message timing, digital traces
  • sports.org – discipline, physical readiness, control of the body

Each file is stored deep in the ~/ghost_ops/deadswitch/ structure – a location that doesn’t ask to be seen.

The Views: Custom Agendas as Recon

The heart of the toolset lies in the custom commands. Filtered. Segmented. Brutal.

  • ca – All in One Agenda
    A full tactical sweep – calendar, next moves, standalone tasks, project tasks, and items on hold. This view gives a single screen of the entire ops map.
  • ct – Tasks and Projects
    Focused purely on work. It excludes habits, fluff, and posts. It shows:
    • NEXT project actions
    • Projects without subtasks
    • Standalone unlinked items
    • Tasks under active projects
    • Waiting threads
  • cp – Posting Ops
    This one monitors the DeadSwitch message engine. Same structure, but scoped to posting.org. Every post is a mission. Every WAIT tag holds a reason.
  • cs – Sport and Discipline
    This is the gym of the mind. Tasks in sports.org are listed raw – no glamour, just grind.

Each view is filtered using custom skip functions like:

  • deadswitch/skip-projects
  • deadswitch/skip-projects-and-tasks
  • deadswitch/skip-tasks

These act like firewall rules for thought – filtering the irrelevant and surfacing the signal.

Command Behavior

  • Morning: Launch ca – sweep the field
  • Midday: Jump to ct or cp for focused ops
  • Night: Run cs – discipline review, prep the next layer

Every action is stored. Every delay is marked. Every thread is traceable.

Why Emacs?

Because it answers only to you.

There’s no cloud, no sync trap, no analytics feed watching your habits. Just keystrokes and sovereignty.

You don’t buy Emacs. You build it. You own every shortcut, every buffer, every view. It’s not an app. It’s a system.

Emacs doesn’t adapt to you – it becomes you. And DeadSwitch only runs what he can inspect.

Closing Frequency

Silence isn’t absence. It’s intention.
DeadSwitch doesn’t use Org mode to be productive.
He uses it to stay sovereign.

In silence, we rise. In the switch, we fade.

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