Hi all, I've discovered emacs org-mode a few days ago, and I think I've finally found the tool I've been looking for for monthes. I'm a PhD student and I feel the need to organize my thoughts tasks and notes.
I would like to implement a GTD-like workflow in org-mode. I used to use tiddlywiki ([mGSD]) and would like to find a similar workflow in orgmode.
I have several projects, in different areas (research, administrative, etc.) for my work and my personal life. In each project, I would like to have a project's description, some todos, and a history (logbook).
I've read this page [http://orgmode.org/worg/org-gtd-etc.html] and some of the tutorials related to GTD. However I'm still having (at least) one question. Given an action in a project, I would like to see the action's project in the agenda view, and even better, to order actions by project (or by context, then by project). Does somebody have any hints on how to do that ?
Below is an export of the .org file I made for myself to determine how to implement my worflow. This is inspired by different tutorials and posts from this mailing list. There are still some open questions... Again, any hints are welcome !
Thanks !
Clement
[mGSD]: http://mgsd-docs.tiddlyspace.com/
1 Basic workflow :
-------------------
- catch everything in a scratch file
- every week, empty scratch file and organize process information, refile TODOs, create projects, etc. Go through every active project and choose next actions (change state from TODO to NEXT).
- DO things ! get a list of NEXT actions (using agenda view ?) in a given context. Possibly filter actions according to realm (personal/work) and area (administrative, research, etc.). Actions should also be ordered according to their projects. It would be something like :
- Context 1
- project 1
- list of actions
- project 2
- list of actions
- Context 2
*I think the main difficulty is to get the project to which the action belongs as it is only a heading above the action. My first question is : should I use properties, tags , something else ?*
2 File organisation
--------------------
I will probably use different files for the different areas.
- *scratch.org* (for quicknotes,todos, ideas of projects, to be organized/refiled later on during the weekly review)
- Work
inbox.org: tasks without project or things to be refiled (maybe redundant with the SCRATCH file?)
research.org: some ongoing and or longterm projects
bibliography: does not really contains projects but scientific notes about the articles I read, with TODOs/NEXT for things to read, tags.. One entry for each article. Maybe organised under some main entries. Project will often have links to bibliogrpahy entries.
development: code development
administrative:
- Personal
inbox.org: problem : same name as the work inbox (maybe use Pinbox and Winbox)
perso.org: no need for now to make areas for personal things
*Is there any way ( interest ?) to use subfolders to separate Work from Personal things ?*
3 Project
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3.1 Project's contents :
=========================
3.1.1 project description
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Should I put it under another headline (description, outcome) or directly under the project's headline ? Any thoughts about this ?*
Must be easily exported in html to a website giving an overview of my current research work (PUBLIC) .
3.1.2 Action list:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Actions will not published or in restricted acces (RESTRICTED, this means at least two levels of publication).
*Use property for that ?*
Each action has
* status :
- TODO : an action
- NEXT : a TODO set to NEXT during weekly review, directly actionable. Record a time stamp to be able to identify next actions which stay too long in this status
- WAITING : not actionable right now. Record a time stamp and note to explain what i am waiting for. I would also like to list actions that should be done by the person X (my boss, a colleague, etc.) and export it to html (then to a restricted acces webpage, or sent by email, or whatever). *Should I use a tag with the name of the person, or a property "WAITING_ON:" ?*
- DONE : record a time stamp to be able to make a list of actions done during last week / month and export it (RESTRICTED).
- CANCELED
this is done either with :
1. "#+TODO: TODO(t) NEXT(n!) WAIT(w@/!) | DONE(d!) CANCELED(c@)" in each file's header
2. The following code in the .emacs
(setq org-todo-keywords
'((sequence "TODO(t)" "NEXT(n!)" "WAIT(w@/!)" "|" "DONE(d!)" "CANCELED(c@)")))
* contexts (as few as possible)
Use tags
- :@office:
- :@home:
- :@errands:
- :@offline:
3.1.3 Project's logbook
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Record of every step in the project, with time stamps, after project description and list of actions. (Possibly published on website ?, RESTRICTED/PUBLIC).
3.2 Area
=========
- is given by the file in which it is contained (i.e category)
- usefull to easily filter tasks (if I just want to do administrative work this morning, or read some bibliography...)
3.3 Tags
=========
general keywords, relative the project's content, for easy search / filter (not really GTD related)
4 Agenda views (actions with their relative project)
-----------------------------------------------------
5 Could column view be of any help given what I would like to do ?
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6 Use of templates
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7 Hooks for automatic export
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