Re: Input on organization of files for multiple projects?

[Bernt Hansen <bernt@norang.ca>]

John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com> writes:

> In any case, this works pretty well, but I think I'm becoming more and
> more sensitive to the fact that I'm not as interested in just tracking
> "journal" type entries. I now have bigger projects that are more
> coherent and on-going vs. just supporting other people's projects and
> noting what I contributed and test results. I find more often that I
> used C-a s to search for something and end up in a file a couple
> months back with some open todo items that I need to take care of.
>
> But then I run across and update or new data... and I find myself
> debating about whether to add it to 2011-05May.org or create a new
> timestamp for it in 2011-07Jul.org.
>
> So, I'm in the mood for input and suggestions. I've read a lot of the
> org tutorials (norang in particular), but not a lot quite put the
> whole picture out there -- how many files, how are they organized,
> etc. A lot of people describe having files per "activity" (writing,
> chores, research), but I'm in the same job, but contributing to
> perhaps 5 or so main projects as well as my ideas/brainstorming stuff
> (I work in R&D engineering/product development).
>
> I'm hoping to hear some input about big picture structuring, keeping
> track of year+ long projects, todo flows, if files have ever gotten
> too big (a fear of mine), if and how you archive, etc.
>
> I've thought of going to a structure with proj1.org, proj2.org, etc.
> and then archiving into an archive_yyyy.org with main headings for
> each project as I finish todos or as things get old. Or maybe I won't
> need to. Maybe an org file can survive an entire project and just get
> archived for reference when I'm done working on it. I'll probably
> still need some kind of "odds and ends" file for things that don't
> belong to a specific project.

Hi John,

I've been using org-mode for 5+ years now and I'm still using the same
structuring for tasks and notes that I originally set up.

I have a miscellaneous todo.org that I dump miscellaneous non-project
tasks into.  Diary stuff goes in diary.org (i d in the agenda) and
anything that should be grouped together (for some definition of a
group) lives in a separate org file.  I archive old entries from X.org
to X.org_archive monthly.

I now dump org files into directories and the directories contribute to
org-agenda-files (so new files just show up as the are created), and I
can add/drop entire directories of org files from my agenda easily.

This has the advantage that I'm free to split or consolidate org files
anytime I want - the agenda will still find the entries as long as they
are in directories that contribute to the agenda.

If you have 5 main projects that are unrelated I'd probably have one org
file for each project and group stuff in there in whatever order makes
sense to you.  I tend to keep project notes in project files.  When
notes for a project are generally useful I'll split that into a
notes-only org-file by itself and publish the results to HTML.

HTH,
-- 
Bernt