-# 44 seems to be the number of color escape characters used by grep
-todo | cut -c-$((COLUMNS + 44))
+if [[ -d ~/org ]]; then
+ # 44 seems to be the number of color escape characters used by grep
+ todo | cut -c-$((COLUMNS + 44))
+fi
+
+# checkupdate.service populates this db
+pkg_count=$(checkupdates -n | grep -cv '\[.*\]')
+if (( $pkg_count > 0 )); then
+ short "Outdated packages: $pkg_count"
+fi