Karl Voit has a nice post in his Using Org Mode Features series. It’s advice on how to start using Org-mode. Org-mode is large and complicated and can seem intimidating. That leads many people to start with someone else’s configuration. I did that and can testify that it’s a big mistake.
I was completely awed by Bernt Hansen’s Org Mode – Organize Your Life In Plain Text!. I thought it was brilliant and wanted to recreate his wonderful workflow for myself. It didn’t work out well. I had all these capabilities enabled and didn’t understand how to use any but the simplest.
That brings us to to Voit’s first point: start simple. I always advise people to start out with just headers, lists, and tables and to add other features as you find you need them. Whatever you need is almost certainly there but there’s no point in enabling it and adding the extra complexity until you really need it. Voit agrees with that and his own list of things to start with is similar to mine. The point, though, is to start with a minimal set of features.
Voit also suggests starting out with a single file. That’s really good advice. It’s easy to add new files later if you need them but it’s really hard to combine several files into one if you discover that’s your best strategy. This is in keeping with Voit’s advice to not overthink your file structure. It’s certainly going to change as your workflow does so your best strategy is to hone it as you go along rather than trying to get it perfect from the beginning.
Voit also discusses learning Org, discovery, and the Org-mode community. It’s a good post and definitely worth reading if you’re thinking about starting to use Org or are just beginning your journey.