Being Organized with Org Mode

Over at the Emacs subreddit, rmberYou has a post on how he uses Org mode to get and stay organized. The post is mainly a taxonomy of his Org mode files but his setup may be useful to others.

A couple of points are worth mentioning. First, he prefers a single large Org file for each general category. That’s the approach taken by Carsten Dominik¹, the original developer of Org mode. I like that approach because every thing related to a given category is one place. This is especially helpful when you’re employing reproducible research methods.

Secondly, one of the commentors notes that you should also integrate a knowledge system to record and help you remember bits of knowledge even if they aren’t actionable. I do this by recording things I’ve learned and might want later in my journal. Org mode is really good for this because of its tag system. I can simply add tags to the entry that reflect its content and then when I want it again, it’s easy to find if I can remember even one of the tags.

It’s worth spending a couple of minutes to read rmberYou’s post. He says being organized helps you deal with today’s hectic pace. I’ve found that a little effort in being organized allows me to get things done while still indulging my basically lazy nature.