Org-agenda: List project with deadlines

Org-agenda: List project with deadlines

[Sébastien Gendre]

Hello,

I have some problems to manage my tasks for school with Org-mode. I had
read manual, blog posts and tried different way. With no success.


* What I need.

For the school, I have a list of projects to do. Each with a deadline
and different level of importance. And each project have their how
tasks. Some with schedule, some with deadline and some with neither.

Some times, I need to see only the list of projects, with their status,
deadline, percentage done, importance and class name. How many days left
would be nice. But not their inner tasks.

When I work on a project, I need to see its tasks with their
deadline/schedule, importance/optionality and status.



* The problem I got

I search a good way to manage it with Org-mode, but I have difficulty to
do it easily. I always end with a complex system.


** Record the information

Each class have its own file. In each class file, I have a section named
"Projects and Tasks". As the name say, this section regroup the class
projects and tasks.

For each project and their tasks, I was thinking of creating a heading
for the project and sub-heading for its tasks. Adding a [%] in the
project title, a level A to C for its importance, a DEADLINE for its
deadline and a tag for the class name.

To record a new projects, I use a capture template to not forget
anything. The new project go into an Inbox.org file and I use Org-refile
to move it to its file.

But how do I differentiate a project from a task for Org-mode ? Tags
have inheritance. Do I use a property ?

Is it a good idea to organize every thing by classes ? Or is it better
to have one Org file named "Assignments" to regroup every projects ? In
these files, I have other information recorded, like the taken notes,
the list of distributed documents and their notes and also the list of
class sessions to see them in my agenda.


** List the projects

To list only the projects, I wanted to use Org-agenda todo list view and
editing the column shown. But the manual say it may cause issues.

What can I do ? Do I use it correctly or do I need to it in a completely
different way ? Is it better to use a column view for it ? If yes, is it
possible to build a column view from multiple files ?


** List of tasks from a project

What is the best way to do it ? A custom Org-agenda view for each
project ? A column view under the project top heading ?


* Conclusion

I have the felling that wanting to have everything well organized and
using Org-agenda push me to think of too much complex ways to do thing.

Maybe I need to do like with a bullet journal, with an Org-mode file
instead of a page and don't try to use too much features.

Do you have any suggestion ? Do I forget something ? For what I have
suggested, am I completely wrong ?



Best regards

Re: Org-agenda: List project with deadlines

[Christian Moe]

Hi, Sébastien,

A general take: Org does not tell you how to organize your notes, it
provides tools for doing it any way you like, and this freedom bewilders
everyone. People work out their own systems, with advantages and
disadvantages. You may find it liberating to consider that there is no
single right way to do it. Though of course it's always good to arrive
at some consistent scheme you can re-use.

To add to the bewildering choice: One option you did not mention is
capturing column views [[info:org#Capturing column view]]. This gives
you updateable table of tasks and the properties you select for column
view. While you cannot perform actions on the tasks in those tables as
you can when using column view directly, they are helpful for getting an
overview (I find them easier to take in at a glance than the column-view
overlay). Using different column definitions for subtrees, you could
have a top-level table for projects and project-level tables for tasks.

As the info page mentions, in addition to the built-in system there is
also a contributed package, org-collector, that offers an alternative
approach to tabulating tasks and properties. I have found it powerful
and flexible. Since it does not rely on column-view definitions, though,
it means a tiny bit of duplicated effort if you're going to use column
view as well.

Yours,
Christian

Sébastien Gendre writes:

> Hello,
>
> I have some problems to manage my tasks for school with Org-mode. I had
> read manual, blog posts and tried different way. With no success.
>
>
> * What I need.
>
> For the school, I have a list of projects to do. Each with a deadline
> and different level of importance. And each project have their how
> tasks. Some with schedule, some with deadline and some with neither.
>
> Some times, I need to see only the list of projects, with their status,
> deadline, percentage done, importance and class name. How many days left
> would be nice. But not their inner tasks.
>
> When I work on a project, I need to see its tasks with their
> deadline/schedule, importance/optionality and status.
>
>
>
> * The problem I got
>
> I search a good way to manage it with Org-mode, but I have difficulty to
> do it easily. I always end with a complex system.
>
>
> ** Record the information
>
> Each class have its own file. In each class file, I have a section named
> "Projects and Tasks". As the name say, this section regroup the class
> projects and tasks.
>
> For each project and their tasks, I was thinking of creating a heading
> for the project and sub-heading for its tasks. Adding a [%] in the
> project title, a level A to C for its importance, a DEADLINE for its
> deadline and a tag for the class name.
>
> To record a new projects, I use a capture template to not forget
> anything. The new project go into an Inbox.org file and I use Org-refile
> to move it to its file.
>
> But how do I differentiate a project from a task for Org-mode ? Tags
> have inheritance. Do I use a property ?
>
> Is it a good idea to organize every thing by classes ? Or is it better
> to have one Org file named "Assignments" to regroup every projects ? In
> these files, I have other information recorded, like the taken notes,
> the list of distributed documents and their notes and also the list of
> class sessions to see them in my agenda.
>
>
> ** List the projects
>
> To list only the projects, I wanted to use Org-agenda todo list view and
> editing the column shown. But the manual say it may cause issues.
>
> What can I do ? Do I use it correctly or do I need to it in a completely
> different way ? Is it better to use a column view for it ? If yes, is it
> possible to build a column view from multiple files ?
>
>
> ** List of tasks from a project
>
> What is the best way to do it ? A custom Org-agenda view for each
> project ? A column view under the project top heading ?
>
>
> * Conclusion
>
> I have the felling that wanting to have everything well organized and
> using Org-agenda push me to think of too much complex ways to do thing.
>
> Maybe I need to do like with a bullet journal, with an Org-mode file
> instead of a page and don't try to use too much features.
>
> Do you have any suggestion ? Do I forget something ? For what I have
> suggested, am I completely wrong ?
>
>
>
> Best regards

Re: Org-agenda: List project with deadlines

[Ihor Radchenko]

Sébastien Gendre <seb@k-7.ch> writes:

> But how do I differentiate a project from a task for Org-mode ? Tags
> have inheritance. Do I use a property ?

It is completely up to you.
It is, however, common to use either project tag to PROJ todo keyword to
mark project.
You can exclude specific tags from inheritance via
`org-tags-exclude-from-inheritance'.

> Is it a good idea to organize every thing by classes ? Or is it better
> to have one Org file named "Assignments" to regroup every projects ? In
> these files, I have other information recorded, like the taken notes,
> the list of distributed documents and their notes and also the list of
> class sessions to see them in my agenda.

Depends. There is no silver bullet for task management.

IMHO, the benefit of grouping by class could be when you sometimes need
to suspect certain classes, excluding the related tasks from the
agendas. Then, you can trivially comment or flag the whole class heading
with a special tag (for example :HOLD:) and configure your agendas to
not lists tasks with that tag (tasks inside commented headings are
skipped by default, as defined in `org-agenda-skip-comment-trees').

However, if all you classes are mandatory, and your workflow does not
involve focusing on certain classes and temporarily hiding others,
global "Assignments" file may be more suitable.

> ** List the projects
>
> To list only the projects, I wanted to use Org-agenda todo list view and
> editing the column shown. But the manual say it may cause issues.

Those issues are only relevant to more complex column views, when you
utilize summary attribute (see 7.5.1.2 Column attributes).
AFAIU, your needs are simpler. So, you don't need to worry here.

> What can I do ? Do I use it correctly or do I need to it in a completely
> different way ? Is it better to use a column view for it ? If yes, is it
> possible to build a column view from multiple files ?

Yes, you can build column view from multiple files in agenda.

> ** List of tasks from a project
>
> What is the best way to do it ? A custom Org-agenda view for each
> project ? A column view under the project top heading ?

You can use sparse tree from project heading.
You can also narrow the agenda scope to heading at point ("<<" in agenda
dispatcher)
If you projects are taking a long time, you can create custom agenda
views for those projects.

> I have the felling that wanting to have everything well organized and
> using Org-agenda push me to think of too much complex ways to do thing.
>
> Maybe I need to do like with a bullet journal, with an Org-mode file
> instead of a page and don't try to use too much features.
>
> Do you have any suggestion ? Do I forget something ? For what I have
> suggested, am I completely wrong ?

I strongly discourage you from using many features all at once.
Start simple and add things one by one, when you have free time and
interest to improve workflow. Only add new things when you get used to
the existing simpler workflow.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>