Re: How do you manage complex project with Org-mode

[Sébastien Gendre]

Hello Milan,

Thank you for your reply and advice. :)

Indeed, using deadline with longer in-advance warnings is a good idea. I
completely forget this feature. Using priority and split big task
is also a good advice. Today I pay attention to keep Org-mode as simple as
possible. It was not the case in the past and few times I stopped using
Org-mode because of that.



Milan Zamazal <pdm@zamazal.org> writes:

>>>>>> "SG" == Sébastien Gendre <seb@k-7.ch> writes:
>
>     SG> But, as a student, I regularly have big and important projects
>     SG> to do for the school. The kind of project who need several days
>     SG> to be done, with deadlines too soon, and if you fail one them
>     SG> the consequences can be disastrous. And generally, I have to
>     SG> many of these project in the same time and not enough time to do
>     SG> all the work. So, I also need to follow the progress of each
>     SG> project to choose which is sufficiently advanced to be stop for
>     SG> the benefit of another less advanced project.
>
>     SG> And I don't know how to manage this kind of projects with
>     SG> Org-mode. How to do it, without failing a 6 days project because
>     SG> I spent to much time on something else and I have only 3 days
>     SG> left with 3 half-day important appointment I cannot cancel. I
>     SG> can't risk failing a single one of these project by trying. So,
>     SG> when I am in a period with a lot of these projects, I stop using
>     SG> Org-mode and concentrate on doing these project as fast as I
>     SG> can. And because I often have this kind of project, I spend most
>     SG> of the year without being able to use Org-mode.
>
> Hi, I’d join the suggestion to keep things simple in the beginning.  My
> task flow is different from yours but in order not to miss really
> important things, I use the following:
>
> - Deadlines, with longer in-advance warnings when needed (e.g. “-3w” in
>   DEADLINE).
>
> - I use priority A for and only for stuff that is on risk of really bad
>   consequences if not handled ASAP.  And I schedule such stuff to a
>   future date if it doesn’t make sense to work on it now for any reason.
>
> As for progress, I’d say that if you don’t know how far are you with
> your short-term tasks and which of them require attention currently then
> you might have a problem with your workflow.  Maybe you are too
> overloaded or you don’t split your time among the tasks appropriately.
> Org mode is a good tool to implement support for different workflows but
> cannot help if a used workflow doesn’t work very well for you.  Again,
> starting simple with Org mode and paying attention first to how you work
> and how it could be improved generally might be a good idea (and a
> life-long process for many of us).
>
> Regards,
> Milan