org-mode is a simple outliner for note taking and list management. It doesn't impose any complex features on users. This is something users excel at by themselves. My suggestion is to continue this tradition and discover task management capabilities in org-roam, an org-mode extension for non-hierarchical notes management.

some random image you can find on barberry garden

Change Log:

[2021-05-10 Mon]: Update post to reflect changes in org-roam v2. Previous version of this article is available on GitHub.

Task management with org-roam Vol. 7: Capture – Sharing my org-roam capture workflow, focusing on quick task entry and efficient processing. I've set up a dedicated inbox file per machine to avoid sync issues, and use org-agenda with the REFILE tag to process captured items. For meetings, I've created a smarter capture template that automatically places one-on-one notes in the right person's file - a nice example of using org-roam's query capabilities to streamline capture.
Task management with org-roam Vol. 6: Select a person and view related tasks – Sharing a quick utility I wrote to view all tasks related to a specific person in org-roam. By combining vulpea's selection functions with org-agenda's tag matching, we can easily see everything tagged with a person's name (including their aliases). Just a few lines of code, but it makes a big difference in managing person-related tasks!
Task management with org-roam Vol. 5: Dynamic and fast agenda – Sharing a significant performance optimization I created for org-roam agenda generation. By dynamically tracking notes containing TODOs with a 'project' tag, I reduced agenda loading from over 50 seconds to under 1 second. The solution automatically updates tags when files are visited or saved, querying only relevant files when building the agenda view. I've included all the code and explained the implementation details, from checking for TODO entries to SQL queries.
Task management with org-roam Vol. 4: Automatic tagging – Sharing how I automated task tagging in org-roam with vulpea. When you mention someone in a task by linking to their note, the task automatically gets tagged with that person's name. I'm using vulpea-insert hooks to handle this cleanly, avoiding the need for advice on org-roam functions. The code includes checks to ensure we only add person tags to actual TODO items.
Task management with org-roam Vol. 3: FILETAGS – Sharing my approach to managing person-related tasks in org-roam notes. I explain how to use filetags to automatically tag all tasks in a person's note (like @FrodoBaggins), maintaining the tag inheritance functionality from regular org-mode while moving to individual roam notes. I've included code to automate the tagging process, making it easier to maintain consistency when adding new people notes.
Task management with org-roam Vol. 2: Categories – Sharing how I improved the agenda view for org-roam notes by fixing category display. Rather than showing file IDs, we can now show meaningful categories based on note titles or explicit CATEGORY properties. I've included a function to automatically extract and format categories, plus options to handle long titles gracefully. The result is a cleaner, more readable agenda that better integrates with org-roam's note-taking approach.

Since org-mode gives a lot of freedom, everyone implements tasks management system differently. In the nutshell, most of the implementations I've seen consist of the following elements.

Task - the simplest actionable item with some TODO state.
Project - a TODO item with outcome requiring multiple steps to achieve it.
Meta project - long lasting project without a final outcome. It consists of projects or tasks. Think of it as of an area or a category. For example, personal blog is a meta project, as it doesn't have any terminating outcome. It does have projects with specific outcome (like setting up your blog or writing a post) or simple tasks (like renewing SSL certificate), but the blog itself doesn't have an outcome.
Resource - a person, a tool, a location or whatever possibly related to a task. In plain org-mode usually implemented as a tag.

Take a look at the following example of org-mode file with all these elements.

#+title: Work

* emacs-plus
:PROPERTIES:
:CATEGORY:               emacs-plus
:END:

Emacs Plus is [[https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs.html][→ GNU Emacs]]
formulae for macOS [[https://brew.sh][→ Homebrew]] package manager. It offers a
wide rage of extra functionality over regular
[[https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/emacs#default][→ Emacs]] package. Emacs Plus
intent is to give the most of 'plus' stuff by default, leaving only
controversial options as opt-in.

** TODO Restore icons selection for =emacs-plus@26=          :@FrodoBaggins:
Frodo Baggins volunteered to help with this.

** TODO [0/3] Automate bottle producing                            :PROJECT:
*** TODO Create a project on Bintray
*** TODO Investigate if =brew test-bot= can be used for =emacs-plus=
*** TODO Write a CI job that creates and uploads bottles

* Blog
:PROPERTIES:
:CATEGORY:               blog
:END:

https://d12frosted.io

** TODO Write a post about org-roam and agenda
** TODO [0/2] Get rid of embedded HTML for images in posts         :PROJECT:
*** TODO Write a custom handler of image links
This should transform link to images into proper HTML.

#+begin_example
  <div class="post-image post-image">
  <img src="/images/some-image.png" />
  </div>
#+end_example

*** TODO Replace all image exports by regular org links

As you can see, it has 2 meta projects: emacs-plus and personal blog, each containing a task and a project. Meta projects have their own category property (set by hand or using org-set-property which is bound to C-c C-x p by default), so in agenda view one can quickly distinguish (and filter) tasks from different meta projects (for example, using org-agenda-filter-by-category which is bound to < by default).

Formally (and technically) projects might be defined as a task having sub-tasks, but in this rare case I vote for simplicity - project is a task tagged as PROJECT.

When a task relates to a person or some location, I tag it respectively, just use @ symbol as a prefix to distinguish from utilitarian tags. Agenda helps to quickly find all tasks with specific tag. Use M-x org-agenda m or M-x org-agenda M (to list only TODO items).

With org-roam it makes sense to create a separate file for each meta project. In the endless debate 'many small' vs 'few big' org files, org-roam favours the former approach (though even this is debatable).

#+title: emacs-plus

Emacs Plus is [[https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs.html][→ GNU Emacs]] formulae for macOS [[https://brew.sh][→ Homebrew]] package manager. It
offers a wide rage of extra functionality over regular [[https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/emacs#default][→ Emacs]] package. Emacs
Plus intent is to give the most of 'plus' stuff by default, leaving only
controversial options as opt-in.

* Tasks
** TODO Restore icons selection for =emacs-plus@26=          :@FrodoBaggins:
Frodo Baggins volunteered to help with this.

** TODO [0/3] Automate bottle producing                            :PROJECT:
*** TODO Create a project on Bintray
*** TODO Investigate if =brew test-bot= can be used for =emacs-plus=
*** TODO Write a CI job that creates and uploads bottles

#+TITLE: Blog

https://d12frosted.io

* Tasks
** TODO Write a post about org-roam and agenda
** TODO [0/2] Get rid of embedded HTML for images in posts         :PROJECT:
*** TODO Write a custom handler of image links
This should transform link to images into proper HTML.

#+begin_example
  <div class="post-image post-image">
  <img src="/images/some-image.png" />
  </div>
#+end_example

*** TODO Replace all image exports by regular org links

So far the transition was simple. However as you can see, in agenda buffer the inferred category contains garbage - note id.

In the next article we are going to explore the means to fix the agenda buffer from the unwanted visual garbage. Stay tuned!

References

org-roam documentation on GitHub.
org-mode documentation on the official site.
Org Mode - Organize Your Life In Plain Text! by Bernt Hansen.

Task management with org-roam Vol. 1: Path to Roam

Related posts

References