Organizing by time or by subject and an idea

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

I use org-mode for all of my work notes. For the most part, I'm very
happy with it. I know everything is in there somewhere and I can find
it. I currently have one file for my projects organized something like
this:

#+begin_src org

* Tracking

This is for misc todos. It's just a repo for holding them until done
and then I typically archive them.

* Project 1
** Journals
*** 2011 November
**** [2011-11-15 Tue] Weekly project update 				:mtg:
Summary

**** [2011-11-22 Tue] Weekly project update 				:mtg:

*************** todo action item 1
*************** done action item 2
		 CLOSED: [2012-01-11 Wed 18:01]
*************** cancelled action item 3
		 CLOSED: [2011-12-26 Mon 11:05]
		
**** [2011-11-28 Mon] Met with Person to go over test methods			:mtg:
Summary

*** 2012 January
**** [2012-01-03 Tue] Weekly project update					:mtg:
**** [2012-01-10 Tue] Weekly project update 				:mtg:
**** [2012-01-11 Wed] Analytical testing
**** [2012-01-17 Tue] Weekly project update					:mtg:

* Other project trees
Similar stuff as Project 1

* Misc Journals
Journal entries organized similarly as above, but not on my main projects

* Reference
Odds and ends that I just need to put somewhere for reference later

#+end_src

So, one of the issues I've constantly struggled with in org is whether
to try and create a skeleton outline of all of the aspects of the
project and fill it in bit by bit during things like weekly
meetings... or whether to do what I do above and go chronologically,
simply creating journal entries for the day something happens. Part of
the reason for choosing chronological is that I am required to
document Intellectual Property related concepts. Time ordering makes
it simple to just print out an export of the items since my last brain
dump and past them into a technical notebook for dating/witnessing.

To just keep adding means my exports will either be redundant (include
all the stuff I pasted last time too) or tedious (find all new updates
and move to separate temp file for exporting).

Last night as I drifted off to bed I had an idea connected to role as
team leader I have. It involves ordering by outline, but having some
way to show time-based updates. Imagine "snapshots" of
exports/org-files. Perhaps:


--- View as of two weeks ago when just creating a new project outline tree:
#+begin_src org

* Project 1
** Material evaluations
** Test results
** Voice of customer feedback
** Business plan

#+end_src

--- Now imagine a team meeting has occurred:
#+begin_src org

* Project 1
** Material evaluations
*** Polymer A + polymer B: John Smith has evaluated this combination
and it has acceptable such and such properties. Will proceed with the
following DOE to confirm:

[table of proposed experiments]

*** Polymer C + D: So and so also suggested looking into this combination

** Test results
** Voice of customer feedback
** Business plan

#+end_src


--- More time has passed and testing and another team meeting occurred
#+begin_src org

* Project 1
** Material evaluations
*** Polymer A + polymer B: John Smith has evaluated this combination
and it has acceptable such and such properties. Will proceed with the
following DOE to confirm:

[table of proposed experiments]

*** Polymer C + D: So and so also suggested looking into this combination

** Test results
John's test results are in. He confirmed A+B will be successful and
C+D has failed crucial requirements:

[table of experimental results, graphs, etc.]

Based on these results, the team decided to move forward with a small
scale pilot run of material.

** Voice of customer feedback
*** Team proposed week of [date] to move forward with voice of
customer feedback for prototypes using A+B.

** Business plan
*** Voice of customer will feed into value proposition and help
determine sale price

#+end_src


So... you get where I'm going, hopefully. I've thought of trying to
switch to an outline format by subject rather than date simply because
I think it makes waaaaay more sense. I'm constantly digging through
date trees for updates on the same subject matter that span several
team meetings. What I find neat is that I could publish my org-mode
file as the team leader to html and perhaps create some sort of
iterative snapshot view for the team. They could click through
hotlinks for each revision date in some sort of header that would
feature all new tree items in bold or something. It could create an
"OS X like time machine" view of the project history and make it easy
to see when things happened.

Thoughts? I'm open to suggestions on how to organize my information
better as well and am curious whether orgmoders typically opt for time
based entries (like mine far above) or a more outline/subject-focused
approach. For now, I've just been trying to get everything entered
*somewhere* -- having done that for a while, I'm realizing that my
current system is tedious for mining and think I'm headed toward an
outline/subject oriented approach.


Thanks for feedback (and for reading a rather long post),
John