People ask me how long it takes to file an issue for one apricot. The honest answer is eleven seconds, because I’ve built the workflow well. The dishonest answer, the one I give at parties, is “however long the apricot deserves.” Both are true.

Here is the actual issue template I use.

The fields

Summary. Tree, branch, and position. Tree 4 / SE branch / outer cluster, 2nd from tip. If you cannot locate the fruit from the summary alone, the summary has failed and so have you.

State. The lifecycle every apricot moves through:

Open → Ripening → In Review → Ready to Pick → Done → (rarely) Reopened

Reopened is for when I pick too early, regret it, and have to mentally re-open the question of “what is ripeness, really.” This is more common than I would like.

Assignee. Me. It is always me. I once assigned an apricot to a visiting nephew as a teaching exercise. He let it rot. The ticket is preserved as a cautionary tale.

Priority. Driven by sun exposure and softness:

• Critical — soft today, gone tomorrow
• Major — pick within 48 hours
• Normal — on track, no action
• Minor — barely an apricot, frankly

Custom field: Ripeness Score (1–5). The single most important number in the orchard. A 5 is a religious experience. A 1 is a green marble that will hurt you.

The automation that changed everything

The breakthrough was a workflow rule: when an apricot’s Ripeness Score is set to 5, the issue auto-transitions to Ready to Pick and pings my phone. I no longer patrol the orchard hoping to catch perfection. Perfection notifies me.

The goal of triage is not to do more work. It is to make sure no apricot ever surprises you again.

On discipline

Is it excessive? My neighbor thinks logging individual fruit is “a cry for help.” But his harvest is a guessing game and mine is a dashboard. When the peak ripeness window opens, I am not running around. I am calmly working a sorted queue, picking the Critical tickets first, sleeve rolled up, phone buzzing with fruit.

That is not obsession. That is operational excellence. It just happens to smell incredible.