Rethinking Org-mode

Lately, I’ve been thinking it might be time to ditch Org mode. I need a better way of organizing my assignments. Leaving Org will be difficult, so I thought it would be a good idea to jot down my needs first.

I imagine I’ll return to this post frequently to tweak it after trying new things.

How I’ve Been Using Org

My process has spread across a few files:

• journal.org is my primary capture target using C-c c j
• tasks.org is my primary capture target using C-c c t
• notes.org contains random notes about various topics
• blog.org contained rough ideas/notes for future blog posts
• garden.org contained more ideas/notes for digital garden posts
• inbox.org contained notes added from beorg app

This might illustrate my problem: I have to look in several places to find information. I’ve stopped using 3 of these files already: blog.org, garden.org, and inbox.org. There are ideas/tasks still living in these files, but I haven’t added anything new since February.

For new blog topics, I start a new post with the title and maybe one sentence, then I return to it later when I find time to expand on it. This dev site has turned into my digital garden now that I’m getting better with Jekyll. I stopped using beorg because the Notes app syncs better with iCloud anyway.

Another frustration I’ve dealt with is Emacs doesn’t work that great in Windows. It’s still the same powerful app, but I’ve experienced unexplained crashes. Thankfully no work was lost, but it’s still irritating when I’m in the middle of writing something and my thought process gets interrupted.

All of my Org files sync to Dropbox so I can access them from anywhere, and this might be what causes my crashes. Working out of a Dropbox folder is a no-no for many other pieces of software I use daily (Crestron).

Things I Like About Org

Being able to quickly capture a thought is extremely valuable. I’ve gone through periods where:

• I force myself to write something at the start of each day, to focus my thoughts
• I write sparingly only when I have a big thought or problem
• I write frequently with every little thought, maybe summarized at the end of the day

Sparse trees are great, especially for filtering down my notes.org file to just the topic I’m working on at the moment.

Things I Might Be Doing Wrong

My tasks.org file has a bunch of TODOs in it. I have a template I follow where an entry looks like:

* TODO TEMPLATE - Location                                   :tags:
  DEADLINE: <2022-04-01 Fri>

  This is a template task for reference.  TODO item should include
  Customer Name and Location.

  A quick description of the project can be placed here or if there
  is something to know immediately about the next steps.

  Once the project is completed, it should be archived in Dropbox.

** Meetings

*** Kick-Off Call <2022-04-01 Fri>

    Notes about this meeting can be entered here or a link to the
    journal entry can be inserted.

** Systems

*** Boardroom

    Notes about particular systems can be entered here.

When I complete a project and it’s done, I mark it DONE. Once I’ve archived the project files in Dropbox, I archive the task with C-c C-x C-a. And it moves to my tasks.org_archive file. I think this process might be ok, but the archive file looks messy. I could probably refile it to clean it up, but that seems like a lot of extra work.

Where I’m Struggling

I seem to have a hard time visualizing the workload:

• How many projects I currently have on my schedule
• What the timelines are for those jobs
• What is still left outstanding
• What I should focus on next

Project Tracking

It might work better if I track projects in Excel? It’s a format that works well for very simple databases. I won’t be able to keep the same number of notes organized with the project, so that might be a downside.

I might be able to do something similar with different TODO states in Org? Right now I just have TODO and DONE. It would be nice to have checkboxes for various lifecycle stages such as:

• ASSIGNED
• BOM / SOW
• DRAWINGS
• PROGRAMMING
• ACTIVE
• COMPLETE

Or maybe just putting a table at the top of the tasks file would give me a good balance between Org and Excel.