Re: How to deal with small projects which are often changing their status/ person

["Julian Burgos" <julian@hafro.is>]

Hi Martin,
I think that you should be using tags for this.  For example:

* Project XYZ       :projectxyz:J.Smith:
** TODO Write Text
** WAIT Feedback on Text
** TODO check feedback
** TODO send to original author
** WAIT for Feedback

In this case you are adding a tag with the project name and another with
the author (for example).  Then when you export this to the agenda, or
generate a list of pending tasks, all the subnodes of this tree will
inherit the tags and you will see them associated to each task.

Another option is to use a different file for each project (maybe not too
practical if you have many of them).  When generating a list of task you
get the file name with each task.  If you name the file as your project
(say projectxyz.org), then you know where that task is coming from.  You
can add something like this to your .emacs file so you do not have to add
all these small files "by hand" to the agenda list:

;----------------------------
(load-library "find-lisp")
(add-hook 'org-agenda-mode-hook (lambda ()
(setq org-agenda-files
      (find-lisp-find-files "/home/documents/smallprojects" "\.org$"))
))
;----------------------------

With this all org files in the "smallprojects" folder will be added to the
agenda.

Hope this helps...

Julian

-- 
Julian Mariano Burgos, PhD
Hafrannsóknastofnunin/Marine Research Institute
Skúlagata 4, 121 Reykjavík, Iceland
Sími/Telephone : +354-5752037
Bréfsími/Telefax:  +354-5752001
Netfang/Email: julian@hafro.is

> Hi,
>
> I'm working with org-mode to document my work and to keep track of tasks
> and
> projects.
>
> At the moment there are many little projects where I
>
> * get a text from someone (or write it myself)
> * have to read and edit it
> * send it oer email to 1 or 2 other colleagues which have to read / edit
> it
> * get it back and check the changes
> * maybe send the text again to the original author
> * then finally release the text for publication
>
> ... and you imagine, there is not only 1 such text at once but several of
> them.
>
> I wonder what is an approriate way to keep track of such workflows with
> org-mode..
>
> I'm using MS Outlook for mails and so when I receive a mail, I store a
> hyperlink pointing to that mail in Outlook.
>
> For a process like the one above I would have a task
>
> * TODO Write Text about topic XY and send it to colleague(s)...
>
> then
> * WAIT Colleage(s): Feedback on Text about topic XY
> * TODO check feedback/changes of Colleagues and edit again, and send for
> approval
> * TODO send to original author
> * WAIT for Feedback of original author
>
> (if changes, repeat process above)
>
> * TODO send text to publishing colleague
>
> or similar...
>
> I hope it is clear what I mean, there are a lot of small steps and each
> time
> creating a new task takes much time and I have to copy the name of the
> "project" again and again...
>
> Maybe it would be better to add all the notes about the progress as notes
> in
> the Logbook and change the Heading of the task each time, but that also
> seems strange to me...
>
> Would there be a way to make the "children" inherit automatically a text
> from the project name, e. g.
>
> * Text about topic XY for publishing in ABC
> ** WAIT John: Feedback on Text about topic XY for publishing in ABC
> ** Send Text about topic XY for publishing in ABC to Ellen for approval
> ...
>
> in a way that " Text about topic XY for publishing in ABC" is filled in
> automatically by a placeholder?
>
> Or what is your way for tracking such workflows in org-mode?
>
> Kind regards
>
> Martin
>
>
>
>
>