First, watch this video in Youtube on why org-mode is so awesome. It will show you a lot of things that can be done with org-mode. Then, download this org file, open it in Emacs, and try some of the things in the video.
The documentation at http://orgmode.org/org.html is pretty helpful if you like reading in a browser.
You can read the installed documentation by clicking on this link: info:org.
Note: This file is meant to be read in Emacs. Some parts of it won’t work if you are reading it on GitHUB in a browser.
You may find other interesting org-mode videos on our YouTube Channel.
To use org-mode the way the Kitchin Group does, you will need to run jmax. You can get it at https://github.com/jkitchin/jmax.
Click this link: elisp:jmax-help to open the jmax manual.
Click this link: elisp:org-ref-help to open the org-ref manual.
See this video on YouTube to see some examples of org-ref in action.