Re: Re: How you ORGanize yourself? (aka: Why not one file to rule'em all?)

["Tim O'Callaghan" <timo@dspsrv.com>]

My .02Euro-cents worth.

I used to have an uber.org file setup, but i found it de-focused my
thinking. I'd get sidetracked because a topic caught my attention or
looked out of place.

I've moved to something a bit more dynamic now, its still under
construction though. I wanted to be able to minimize the amount of
keystrokes i need to access a particular file, and have something that
translated well to a mobile keypad. So my new philosophy is that I've
decided to use numbers. They're easy to memorize and can be used in a
kind of personal Dewey decimal scheme.

Breaking it down, I have a bunch of directories in ~/

| org         | the main org directory, under git
             |
| 0_INBOX     | a clearing house for file based "stuff" - firefox
downloads to here |
| 1_PROJECT   | root tree for current project folders
             |
| 2_SOMEDAY   | root tree for someday project folders and tickler
reminder files    |
| 5_TOREAD    | electronic media i want to read - pdfs text files etc.
             |
| 6_TOLISTEN  | podcasts, audiobooks etc,
             |
| 7_TOWATCH   | downloaded videos etc.
             |
| 8_REFERENCE | general reference material.
             |

Using git, I sync my ~/org directory across the various machines i use
org-mode on, but i leave the [0-9]_ named directories local to the
machine. That provides context. I'm still experimenting with keeping
the numbered directories under git. Its proving problematic when my
sourcecode is also under git too.

The 1_PROJECT folder contains a folder per project. Each project
folder has a 1+<project name>.org file in it, which automatically gets
picked up and used in the Agenda (see .emacs stuff below for details).
That way the agenda is only populated with work i can actually do on
that machine. I'm still looking into how to use git and the attachment
system to manage project directories as separate git projects...

In the sycned ~/org folder i have these files which are included in
the agenda. All of these files can be found with two keystrokes, a
number then a '+'.

| 0+inbox.org    | where all my remember stuff is dumped.            |
| 1+projects.org | personal/portable misc small project container    |
| 2+someday.org  | Someday/Tickler/To-Buy                            |
| 4+calendar.org | Appointments, birthdays (yet to sync with google) |
| 8+contacts.org | Contact information                               |
| 9+journal.org  | Musings, Writings, rants etc.                     |

And finally i'm using the numbers again, and "traffic light" style
colors for task and project state tracking.

| key | color  | tag  | description
                 |
|-----+--------+------+-----------------------------------------------------------------|
|   0 | green  | DONE | Task done
                 |
|   1 | grey   | TODO | Heading is a next action that was outlined and
might need doing |
|   2 | yellow | NEXT | Heading is a next action that needs doing.
                 |
|   3 | orange | WAIT | Heading is something i am waiting for
                 |
|   4 | yellow | APPT | Heading is an appointment of some kind
                 |

Tim.

---- the .emacs code ----

(setq  org-default-notes-file (expand-file-name "~/org/0+inbox.org")
      org-todo-keywords
      (quote
       (;; normal workflow <need action> | <no action required>
        (sequence "TODO(1!)" "NEXT(2!/!)" "WAIT(3@/!)" "APPT(4@/!)"
                  "|" "DONE(0!/@!)" "DEFERRED(D@!/!)" "CANCELED(C@!/!)")
        ;; project state indicators
        (type "PROJECT(P!/@!)" "SOMEDAY(S!/@!)" "|" "PROJDONE" "PROJCANC")
        ))
      org-todo-keyword-faces
      (quote
       (;; "traffic light" style task colours
        ("TODO" :foreground "grey" :weight bold)
        ("NEXT" :foreground "gold" :weight bold)
        ("DONE" :foreground "forest green" :weight bold)
        ("WAIT" :foreground "orange" :weight bold)
        ("APPT" :foreground "gold" :weight bold)
        ("CANCELED" :foreground "indianred" :weight bold)
        ;; project level todo indicators
        ("SOMEDAY" :foreground "orchid" :weight bold)
        ("PROJECT" :foreground "grey" :weight bold)
        ("PROJDONE" :foreground "forest green" :weight bold)
        ("PROJCANC" :foreground "indianred" :weight bold)
        )))

(setq org-agenda-files ())
;; use ~/org and search the top level directories in the 1_PROJECT folder
(defun toc:add-org-agenda-directories (dir filter)
  "add files matched by filter in directory dir to org-agenda-files list"
  (interactive)
    (dolist (d2 (file-expand-wildcards (expand-file-name dir)))
      (if (file-directory-p d2)
          (dolist (f (directory-files d2 t filter t))
            (push f org-agenda-files)))))

; only include numbered files from org directory
(toc:add-org-agenda-directories "~/org" "[1-9]+.*.org$")
; auto include - 1+<project-name> files
(toc:add-org-agenda-directories "~/1_PROJECT/*" "1\+.*.org$")
;;
(setq org-refile-targets '((org-agenda-files :maxlevel . 3)))