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Comment by jadenjohnch | Hacker News Reader

ADHD here too. I use org-super-agenda and a central TODO file to manage my stuff. I've got like 10 capture templates--homework, personal, email followups, etc.--and since they have tags, I have org-super-agenda filter them into sections like OVERDUE, Homework (7 days in future), Future Homework (>7 days in future), Emails, Habits, Personal, Projects (basically any TODO with TODO children), etc.

I've also started using org-roam and I'm loving it for capturing my thoughts. Because hell knows I need some way to keep my thoughts a little more organized and a little more permanent.

One problem with Emacs and i3wm and Linux I've found as an ADHD person, though, is that the customizability lets me never be satisfied and spend more time screwing with stuff than actually working. I've never had a specific workflow or strategy last more than like 2 months, and most last like 2 weeks.

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> I use org-super-agenda and a central TODO file to manage my stuff

Hadn't heard of org-super-agenda, but looks great. Thanks!

https://github.com/alphapapa/org-super-agenda

> I've also started using org-roam and I'm loving it for capturing my thoughts.

I've tried with Org-Roam but I find the idea of breaking thoughts into little bits very awkward when I mostly work with philosophical books, where the priority is the relation of a concept to the others in the same book, then to the author, then maybe school, then to other authors. I haven't figured out how to model that in org-roam, but maybe there is a way? I also like to divide my notes into folders based on their author (awkward for multiple authors, I admit), but org-roam seems built to keep everything in one massive folder. I just use plain org files and grep around for relevant other stuff.

> the customizability lets me never be satisfied and spend more time screwing with stuff than actually working.

Yeah, I hear that. The one above is the most stable workflow I've come up with after numerous iterations. Keeping it as simple as possible, basically a super powered todo list or bullet journal, has helped, i think.

> I find the idea of breaking thoughts into little bits very awkward when I mostly work with philosophical books, where the priority is the relation of a concept to the others in the same book

Then don't! I'd just make a file node for each book and take regular notes within that.

> I also like to divide my notes into folders based on their author

You could roam-tag them or link them to a page for the author. I've only been using roam for about 2 weeks, but so far, I set up my file nodes like so:

  #+filetags: :tags:othertags:
  #+title: Something Interesting
  This is a brief description of something interesting. It's just a sentence or two.

  Links: [[id:12345][Something related]], [[id:23456][Very cool stuff]], [[id:34567][Absolutely amazing things]]

  * First section

  * Second section

And so on. It works pretty well so far.

> a super powered todo list or bullet journal

My main problem is I keep changing themes and the format/way I take notes. I haven't actually messed with my agenda or anything in about 6 months, and if I do, it's usually just something minor like adding a new group or sorting by lowest effort.

Thanks, I might just give org-roam another try!

See also https://github.com/alphapapa/org-ql which supports org-super-agenda grouping.

Hey Alphapapa! You're an absolute legend, thanks for all the work on those programs.

So is there an advantage to using org-ql over super-agenda and org-agenda?

Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad they're useful to you.

org-ql is a search tool. It provides an alternative to some parts of org-agenda and integrates with it to some extent. Its searching is much faster and more powerful than the built-in Org search tools; see its documentation for details.

org-super-agenda performs a different function, to group results in agenda buffers (which can be from org-agenda or org-ql). See https://github.com/alphapapa/org-super-agenda#faq

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