Re: How do you manage complex project with Org-mode

[Milan Zamazal <pdm@zamazal.org>]

>>>>> "SG" == Sébastien Gendre <seb@k-7.ch> writes:

    SG> But, as a student, I regularly have big and important projects
    SG> to do for the school. The kind of project who need several days
    SG> to be done, with deadlines too soon, and if you fail one them
    SG> the consequences can be disastrous. And generally, I have to
    SG> many of these project in the same time and not enough time to do
    SG> all the work. So, I also need to follow the progress of each
    SG> project to choose which is sufficiently advanced to be stop for
    SG> the benefit of another less advanced project.

    SG> And I don't know how to manage this kind of projects with
    SG> Org-mode. How to do it, without failing a 6 days project because
    SG> I spent to much time on something else and I have only 3 days
    SG> left with 3 half-day important appointment I cannot cancel. I
    SG> can't risk failing a single one of these project by trying. So,
    SG> when I am in a period with a lot of these projects, I stop using
    SG> Org-mode and concentrate on doing these project as fast as I
    SG> can. And because I often have this kind of project, I spend most
    SG> of the year without being able to use Org-mode.

Hi, I’d join the suggestion to keep things simple in the beginning.  My
task flow is different from yours but in order not to miss really
important things, I use the following:

- Deadlines, with longer in-advance warnings when needed (e.g. “-3w” in
  DEADLINE).

- I use priority A for and only for stuff that is on risk of really bad
  consequences if not handled ASAP.  And I schedule such stuff to a
  future date if it doesn’t make sense to work on it now for any reason.

As for progress, I’d say that if you don’t know how far are you with
your short-term tasks and which of them require attention currently then
you might have a problem with your workflow.  Maybe you are too
overloaded or you don’t split your time among the tasks appropriately.
Org mode is a good tool to implement support for different workflows but
cannot help if a used workflow doesn’t work very well for you.  Again,
starting simple with Org mode and paying attention first to how you work
and how it could be improved generally might be a good idea (and a
life-long process for many of us).

Regards,
Milan