Over at the Emacs subreddit, YakumoYoukai wonders why he should use Org-mode. He’s not some clueless n00b whining that it’s all too hard and why should he bother anyway. YakumoYoukai is a 30 year, dedicated, user of Emacs who doesn’t get what Org-mode is about and is looking for some tutorials or overviews.
You see this type of request a lot. They all result from the natural desire to understand everything that Org can do or to at least have an overview of its capabilities. The truth is Org is ever-evolving and it’s hard to get a grasp on the overall picture. Org-roam is an example. It’s a fairly new addition to the Org panoply that didn’t exist for most of the life of Org-mode so if your view of Org was not formed recently, it’s out of date.
My advice to people like YakumoYoukai is what it’s always been: don’t try to understand the whole package. Instead, pick a particular problem and investigate how Org can help with it. It’s much easier to find videos and tutorials dealing with some particular aspect of Org than it is to find any that cover the whole package.
Once you’ve solved that first problem, look at what else Org might help you with. My own journey started with using Org as a sort of time logging application. I expanded that into a more general agenda and record keeping application, and finally into my main writing engine. Somewhere along the line I started using code blocks as a sort of low level literate programming. I’ll doubtless use it for additional tasks as they come up.
Even though I’ve been using it almost as long as it’s existed, I still don’t understand the whole package. Like Emacs itself, there’s always more to discover and learn.