So far, my workflow in OrgMode for managing tasks and events was to have one file called organize.org that contains top-level headings - Tasks, Events that contained respective items. Once I finished those items, I’d move them to a different file called archive.org. So, my organize.org file looked something like this:

organize.org

 * Tasks
  * Task 1
  * Task 2
 * Events
  * Event 1
  * Event 2

Initially, I was directly archiving all the tasks/events that I completed, so my archive.org became a dumping ground. A few weeks later I looked at my archive file and it was so hard to go look at it and separate them out, so I created similar top-level headings.

Now my archive.org had Tasks and Events as the top-level headings and I would archive all the DONE tasks and events to their respective headings. This also felt a little tedious because each time I had to archive something, I had to select the specific file and heading. I could have used the archive feature that org-mode provides, but that creates a new file whenever I want to archive something from another file. I want to maintain just one file for archive and if I want to archive anything from any of the other files, they’ll all go to this one archive.org. This is part of my PARA workflow.

Note: By the way, I use Doom Emacs, so some of the keybindings I mention in this article will be specific to Doom Emacs. They may not work with Spacemacs or Vanilla Emacs.

What I figured out later was to have a :PROPERTIES: drawer containing the location of the archive file and the heading under which it can be archived to. And, I did this for all the headings where I usually archive stuff. Now that I’ve set this up, all I do is hit SPC m A (or M-x org-archive-subtree) and the item goes to the right location. And not just that, it also adds a :PROPERTIES: drawer in the destination location with all the relevant details like where that heading came from, at what time the task was archived, etc.

organize.org

 * Tasks
   :PROPERTIES:
   :ARCHIVE: ./archive.org::* Tasks
   :END:
 * Events
   :PROPERTIES:
   :ARCHIVE: ./archive.org::* Events
   :END:

Now, if I have to look at all the things I’ve done and events I’ve attended over the past day/week/month/quarter/year, I just have to go to archive.org and do a sparse tree search (SPC m s s or M-x org-sparse-tree) on that tree and I can slice and dice the data however I want. In case you want to know what properties get added in archive.org, here’s a preview.

archive.org

 * Tasks
 ** DONE Task 1
    CLOSED: [2020-09-12 Sat 11:51]
    :PROPERTIES:
    :ARCHIVE_TIME: 2020-09-12 Sat 11:52
    :ARCHIVE_FILE: ~/Documents/org-mode/organize.org
    :ARCHIVE_OLPATH: Tasks
    :ARCHIVE_CATEGORY: organize
    :ARCHIVE_TODO: DONE
    :ARCHIVE_ITAGS: task
    :END: