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Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

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Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#71

Post by yur3i__ »

adimitrov wrote: post #22
yur3i__ wrote: post #4

I do use org mode for writing documents and presentations but I feel like a lot of these 'organization' tools just result in spending more time tweaking them than actually doing the work you set out to organize.

It's deceptive to look at a document like this and think that you'd have to use all of that knowledge and configuration in order to use org mode for planning your tasks. Much like Rome, this document wasn't written in a day. You can start using org-mode for task planning and agenda with a fresh (Doom/Spacemacs/vanilla)-Emacs install and be productive from the get go. That's what I did. Then, you add things whenever y…

Maybe my problem is I don't do complex enough work to warrent a tool like this (I'm still a BSc student). I do use emacs for almost everything already but I don't use anything for organization really because it just seems like a really complex way of just setting a reminder somewhere

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#72

Post by jasode »

madballster wrote: post #49

I see a lot of comments arguing that it's not "worth it" to spend dozens of hours to "get into org-mode" when there are "intuitive tools" such as Evernote or Trello or Todoist etc. What some are missing is the fact that low barriers to entry sometimes turn into barriers to growth at a later stage. After (!) one has sunk thousands of hours into them. I used to keep my academic notes in Evernote and it turned into hell…

>, org-mode eliminates the risk of hitting any sort of barrier

Ultimately, it depends on the type of user but the "barrier" may be that it's plain text. So Org Mode's data format as a desirable selling point is also its ceiling of functionality.

Yes, I store 90% of my notes in plain text. But I also store some programming notes in MS Excel because I need a datagrid as UI with dynamic calculations. I store some project notes in MS Word because I need to embed graphics along with text. I suppose I could use Org Mode as a "single source of truth" by linking to .xlsx and .docx files but I reorganize my folder structures too often to make such file links stable.

I made a previous comment why Emacs Org Mode along with everything else I tried in the last few decades to organize life is a very hard problem of "boiling the ocean": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23112843

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#75

Post by Nullabillity »

jasode wrote: post #72
madballster wrote: post #49

I see a lot of comments arguing that it's not "worth it" to spend dozens of hours to "get into org-mode" when there are "intuitive tools" such as Evernote or Trello or Todoist etc. What some are missing is the fact that low barriers to entry sometimes turn into barriers to growth at a later stage. After (!) one has sunk thousands of hours into them. I used to keep my academic notes in Evernote and it turned into hell…

>, org-mode eliminates the risk of hitting any sort of barrier Ultimately, it depends on the type of user but the "barrier" may be that it's plain text . So Org Mode's data format as a desirable selling point is also its ceiling of functionality. Yes, I store 90% of my notes in plain text. But I also store some programming notes in MS Excel because I need a datagrid as UI with dynamic calculations. I store some proje…

Org-mode documents can include graphics[0] and (formula-driven) spreadsheets[1].

[0]: https://orgmode.org/org.html#Images

[1]: https://orgmode.org/org.html#The-Spreadsheet

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#76

Post by karlicoss »

tams wrote: post #30

The key to using org-mode effectively is ignoring most of the features and using only a tiny subset that you actually need. You aren't going to look like a wizard, but you are also not going to need to maintain anything ever. These kinds of cookbooks are nice to have around, but it's best to treat them as references, not guides.

In remember seeing this exact document five years ago and being completely overwhelmed.

Now, looking at this, all of these features make sense to me, but I'm far from using all of them. Agree it's more of a kitchensink reference.

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#77

Post by m463 »

madballster wrote: post #49

I see a lot of comments arguing that it's not "worth it" to spend dozens of hours to "get into org-mode" when there are "intuitive tools" such as Evernote or Trello or Todoist etc. What some are missing is the fact that low barriers to entry sometimes turn into barriers to growth at a later stage. After (!) one has sunk thousands of hours into them. I used to keep my academic notes in Evernote and it turned into hell…

This sort of resonates with me.

I use emacs extensively, but I started using omnifocus years ago and that is what I still use. The features for me are: just about perfect sync across devices. self-hosted data. enough sorting and prioritizing features.

But I will say around ios 7 timeframe they drank the apple Koolaid and changed just about everything in the app - and most were meaningless look-and-feel changes. Just about everything else in the app was negatively impacted.

to think of putting my data - the data I run my life with - into something that will only ever improve over time is very compelling.

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#78

Post by jasode »

Nullabillity wrote: post #75
jasode wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>, org-mode eliminates the risk of hitting any sort of barrier Ultimately, it depends on the type of user but the "barrier" may be that it's plain text . So Org Mode's data format as a desirable selling point is also its ceiling of functionality. Yes, I store 90% of my notes in plain text. But I also store some programming notes in MS Excel because I need a datagrid as UI with dynamic calculations. I store some proje…

Org-mode documents can include graphics[0] and (formula-driven) spreadsheets[1]. [0]: https://orgmode.org/org.html#Images [1]: https://orgmode.org/org.html#The-Spreadsheet

Yes but I use MS Excel features like pivot tables and MS Word graphics features like drawing arrows as overlays on top of screenshots to annotate them.

The other limitation of out-of-the-box Org Mode "plain text" architecture is that it limits collaboration of letting other users edit my file because fine-grain locking is not as straightforward as with a db file like SQLite. My "master todo list" is easier to manage if I can let my significant other can enter items for me instead of me doing all the manual data entry myself.

I do understand that since Emacs has Lisp, it can ultimately do anything if you really want to customize/extend/research it.

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#79

Post by jillesvangurp »

birracerveza wrote: post #3

Org Mode keeps being pushed again and again, but honestly this title is one of the boldest claims I've seen about it. Just look at the document. It's a 400+kb HTML page of Emacs configurations, keybindings and other stuff that makes absolutely no sense unless you've been an avid Emacs user for years. Where is the Plain Text here? I see nothing of the sort. Sure, the output might resemble Plain Text, but it's clearly…

A few simple observations:

- the venn diagram of people using emacs and using org-mode seems to largely overlap. That makes it impractical in non emacs heavy environments (aka. the wider industry).

- tooling outside of emacs is mostly not there.

- org mode is a basically similar to other wiki dialects with similar syntax, limitations, tooling, etc. Other than the (emacs) tooling, I don't see a strong reason for preferring it.

The above makes it a non-starter for me personally (not an emacs user) or for teams that have non emacs users (i.e. all teams I've been on, ever). That does not invalidate it as a personal note taking tool of course. But lets indeed not overstate its utility. Some people like post-its, scribbling in a notebook, simply remembering to do stuff, or their super duper emacs setups. Whatever works for you.

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#80

Post by slightwinder »

madballster wrote: post #49

I see a lot of comments arguing that it's not "worth it" to spend dozens of hours to "get into org-mode" when there are "intuitive tools" such as Evernote or Trello or Todoist etc. What some are missing is the fact that low barriers to entry sometimes turn into barriers to growth at a later stage. After (!) one has sunk thousands of hours into them. I used to keep my academic notes in Evernote and it turned into hell…

> In my opinion, org-mode eliminates the risk of hitting any sort of barrier after years of sunk costs.

Nah, it moves the barrier, but it's still there. There always are barriers. In case of org-mode it's the limitations of emacs and time you need to invest into forging them into whatever system you seek, which often is not even possible with emacs.

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