Organising my Org files

In my last post, I wrote about how I manage my projects in Org-Mode, an Emacs mode for writing documents, managing tasks and a bunch of other over-powered things in plain text format. This post is about how I organise my Org files – the documents that contain all my projects and notes.

What is an Org File?

Let’s start with a brief, bazillionth description of what an Org file is. An Org-mode document is basically a plain text file, the kind one edits using a text editor. What allows Org-Mode to work as a task management or writing environment is the way it marks up plain text.

An .org document is structured as an Outliner, a hierarchical tree. The image above is from the Org-Mode website’s features page, and shows how the outline can be folded.

Each element in this structure, starting from the top level headline all the way down to its individual children, can be assigned various types of metadata. You can assign dates, priorities, properties, tags, effort estimates, time-clocking logs… and so on.

Each item in the outline now possess the capability to be anything it wants to be¹, because the metadata allows it to gain an identity. A line of plain text has suddenly gained a green card to the nation of your mind. This new citizenship allows it to play a specific role in the organisation of your life. The item can now be a task, or an article headline, a decision in a decision tree, or the name of an organisation you are following.

One File or Many?

In the Org-Mode world, there is a popular trope that revolves around deciding if one should use one org-file per project, or bung all projects into one single, massive org-file. When I first started using Emacs, I really didn’t know what I was doing. Emacs created an Org file for me in my root, and I was paranoid about breaking things, and so I lived my Emacs life in just 2 or 3 plump, well-fed Org files.

I lived this way for about 6 months. All I knew was how to open a file. When I installed Emacs on my laptop as well and needed to access the files, I created a Symlink because I didn’t even know how to specify my root directory in Emacs, and had very little navigation skills.

A Handful of Org Files to run an Organisation

Eventually I figured out the basics, and soon opted for one file per project. The reason was the large file was becoming hard to navigate, and I had accidentally deleted entire subtrees a couple of times. A year later, the one file per project experiment hit a dead end because there were projects that were not being added to Org-Agenda (Org-Mode’s dashboard that shows you all your tasks) or tasks that completely missed my attention because I overlooked the file.

So I came back to a more balanced approach. These are the org files I use today

1. Worktodos.org – Contains all my work related to-dos, appointments, logs and notes. Everything work related, except for projects. So the task – ‘File Service Tax for this QTR’ comes in this file, but not the task – ‘Explain to client why I can’t just make his Promotional Video viral’, which would appear within it’s own project called Client’s Promotional Video, in the next file – the Master List of Projects.

2. Masterlist.org – Contains a list of all my work projects. First level Headlines identify the organisation, and second level headlines are projects.

3. Sales.org – This file contains the CRM for all the sales and marketing effort for my organisation. I have a separate set of TODO states for this file. (LEAD HOLD PROPOSAL WAITING / LOST | WON)

4. Inbox.org – A running dump of all things – tasks, bookmarks, notes etc, captured using the Emacs capture function or using the Android app Orgzly. Once or twice a day, I refile these items into their respective org files.

5. Hometodos.org – Contains all my tasks I need to get done at home, from ordering kitty litter to pay the rent on time.

6. Mytodos.org – This file contains to-dos and notes for my personal projects and hobbies.

So far, I’ve discovered that this handful of files are enough to run my little organisation. These files are available to me on all my devices (synced using syncthing). On my Android devices, I use Orgzly to view and sometimes edit my files. On my Desktop and Laptop, all of these files are bookmarked, and I can call them with a couple of key presses.

The best aspect of Org-mode, for me, is that it can be as simple or as powerful as I need it to be. With any other system, I get all the bells and whistles in my face, whether I use them or not. With org, I can represent my task or note items as simple bulleted lists or as tasks with more cathedral-bells and steam-engine-whistles than you can shake a GTD at.

Notes