10.4.3 Sorting agenda items

Before being inserted into a view, the items are sorted. How this is done depends on the type of view.

• For the daily/weekly agenda, the items for each day are sorted. The default order is to first collect all items containing an explicit time-of-day specification. These entries will be shown at the beginning of the list, as a schedule for the day. After that, items remain grouped in categories, in the sequence given by org-agenda-files. Within each category, items are sorted by priority (see Priorities), which is composed of the base priority (2000 for priority ‘A’, 1000 for ‘B’, and 0 for ‘C’), plus additional increments for overdue scheduled or deadline items.
• For the TODO list, items remain in the order of categories, but within each category, sorting takes place according to priority (see Priorities). The priority used for sorting derives from the priority cookie, with additions depending on how close an item is to its due or scheduled date.
• For tags matches, items are not sorted at all, but just appear in the sequence in which they are found in the agenda files.

Sorting can be customized using the variable org-agenda-sorting-strategy, and may also include criteria based on the estimated effort of an entry (see Effort estimates).