Re: Input on organization of files for multiple projects?

[John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 10:15 PM, Bernt Hansen <bernt@norang.ca> wrote:
> 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.
>

Wow, seems like it's really working well, then!

> I have a miscellaneous todo.org that I dump miscellaneous non-project
> tasks into.

Out of curiosity, are these just "loose" todos (no headlines or
anything)? Maybe I'm a digitial neat freak, but having long lists like
that without organization just bugs me. Or do you access almost all
todos via agenda and so it doesn't really matter?

> 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.

Good to know.

>
> 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.

I must have missed that directories work. Very cool and saves me
having to add them manually all the time! This is great.

>
> 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.

I re-read your setup page on norang.ca, and it looks like it's
actually a bit updated since I saw it last. I think I'll move in the
project file direction and try to implement capture as well (haven't
been using that at all). I'm still a little hazy on how this will all
pan out, as I have really liked my "journal" method of documenting
what I work on in terms of it making sense (just write what I did
under a headline timestamped with today's date -- simple).

The on-going projects thing was the main irk I've had. It just
*doesn't* make sense to update data or info on a headline from 2
months ago when new information comes up. But I don't want to split
the data, either. I've done that before and linked between different
file headlines for ongoing data collection and it's a hassle to follow
all those links around to compare data that should be in one place.

In your block agenda view, how do you get the "====" line separating
sections? Mine just pile on top of each other.


Thanks for the input!
John

>
> HTH,
> --
> Bernt
>