Discussion of Bad Org Mode Habits

Org-mode is the notebook I dreamed of when I was a kid. (I was the third-grader with a calculator watch in 1983.)

Nothing beats being able to embed some quick, on-the-fly spreadsheet calculations within an outline used for project planning. No other tool I've tried allows order to emerge from chaos quite so easily or intuitively.

Could you explain a bit more what you mean by "gaming" the agenda? Do you mean not to structure outlines as todo lists?

-- madalu

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I like thinking of org-mode as being able to produce "emergent" todo lists and project plans from outlines and raw notes. I guess the point that I'm trying to make here, is that org-outlines need to be built as outlines: it doesn't work so well if the higher level organization of your notes and thoughts doesn't lend itself to hierarchies. I think it does for more people (particularly thoughts,) but sometimes the notes don't reflect this and can be too flat to really be useful in their own right. And it's not just "wouldn't it be nice if your notes were organized differently," but actually "org works better as a system when your notes form more coherent outlines."

What I mean by "gaming the agenda," is mostly a trap that I fall into a fair piece (and I think there's evidence on the listserv which points to the fact that other people may be doing this as well, but it's what happens when you construct outlines and use TODO headings not because it makes sense in context of the outline or your project, but becuase you know you're going to be working off of an agenda. I know org is breaking for me, when I don't interact with outlines directly, and just work off of the agenda and capture.

-- tychoish