Re: Org-agenda: List project with deadlines

[Christian Moe <mail@christianmoe.com>]

Hi, Sébastien,

A general take: Org does not tell you how to organize your notes, it
provides tools for doing it any way you like, and this freedom bewilders
everyone. People work out their own systems, with advantages and
disadvantages. You may find it liberating to consider that there is no
single right way to do it. Though of course it's always good to arrive
at some consistent scheme you can re-use.

To add to the bewildering choice: One option you did not mention is
capturing column views [[info:org#Capturing column view]]. This gives
you updateable table of tasks and the properties you select for column
view. While you cannot perform actions on the tasks in those tables as
you can when using column view directly, they are helpful for getting an
overview (I find them easier to take in at a glance than the column-view
overlay). Using different column definitions for subtrees, you could
have a top-level table for projects and project-level tables for tasks.

As the info page mentions, in addition to the built-in system there is
also a contributed package, org-collector, that offers an alternative
approach to tabulating tasks and properties. I have found it powerful
and flexible. Since it does not rely on column-view definitions, though,
it means a tiny bit of duplicated effort if you're going to use column
view as well.

Yours,
Christian

Sébastien Gendre writes:

> Hello,
>
> I have some problems to manage my tasks for school with Org-mode. I had
> read manual, blog posts and tried different way. With no success.
>
>
> * What I need.
>
> For the school, I have a list of projects to do. Each with a deadline
> and different level of importance. And each project have their how
> tasks. Some with schedule, some with deadline and some with neither.
>
> Some times, I need to see only the list of projects, with their status,
> deadline, percentage done, importance and class name. How many days left
> would be nice. But not their inner tasks.
>
> When I work on a project, I need to see its tasks with their
> deadline/schedule, importance/optionality and status.
>
>
>
> * The problem I got
>
> I search a good way to manage it with Org-mode, but I have difficulty to
> do it easily. I always end with a complex system.
>
>
> ** Record the information
>
> Each class have its own file. In each class file, I have a section named
> "Projects and Tasks". As the name say, this section regroup the class
> projects and tasks.
>
> For each project and their tasks, I was thinking of creating a heading
> for the project and sub-heading for its tasks. Adding a [%] in the
> project title, a level A to C for its importance, a DEADLINE for its
> deadline and a tag for the class name.
>
> To record a new projects, I use a capture template to not forget
> anything. The new project go into an Inbox.org file and I use Org-refile
> to move it to its file.
>
> But how do I differentiate a project from a task for Org-mode ? Tags
> have inheritance. Do I use a property ?
>
> Is it a good idea to organize every thing by classes ? Or is it better
> to have one Org file named "Assignments" to regroup every projects ? In
> these files, I have other information recorded, like the taken notes,
> the list of distributed documents and their notes and also the list of
> class sessions to see them in my agenda.
>
>
> ** List the projects
>
> To list only the projects, I wanted to use Org-agenda todo list view and
> editing the column shown. But the manual say it may cause issues.
>
> What can I do ? Do I use it correctly or do I need to it in a completely
> different way ? Is it better to use a column view for it ? If yes, is it
> possible to build a column view from multiple files ?
>
>
> ** List of tasks from a project
>
> What is the best way to do it ? A custom Org-agenda view for each
> project ? A column view under the project top heading ?
>
>
> * Conclusion
>
> I have the felling that wanting to have everything well organized and
> using Org-agenda push me to think of too much complex ways to do thing.
>
> Maybe I need to do like with a bullet journal, with an Org-mode file
> instead of a page and don't try to use too much features.
>
> Do you have any suggestion ? Do I forget something ? For what I have
> suggested, am I completely wrong ?
>
>
>
> Best regards