Here’s how I manage mine and it works pretty well:
1) Every dwarf gets a custom profession name with My in front of it
MyMiner
MyMiner
MyMason
MyCarpenter
MyXbow
MyXbow
MyMechanic
MyCook
MyBrewer
MyHauler
MyHauler
MyHauler
MyHauler
MyHauler
2) Most dwarves get all the hauling tasks in addition to their primary task. These are called Hybrid Dwarves. My mechanic is a hybrid, so are my crafters.
3) Some dwarves I don’t have a job for so they become Haulers
4) Some dwarves such as my Masons, Miners, Brewer, Gatherer, Woodburner, and Woodcutter are “Exclusive Dwarves” and get the hauling tasks turned off because I want to be alerted when they are idle.
5) Every time migrants come, I go through and make sure I rename all their professions so they all have a “My” prefix. If I don’t have a position for them, they become MyHauler
6) When my haulers are idle (and there are a lot of them), I always give them a project that will take them some time to do. In my games I can ALWAYS find something that will occupy all of them for a few minutes.
Hauler Tasks:
* Collect a bunch of chopped wood into a wood stockpile right outside the fortress entrance. Once they are done I remove the stockpile and give them another task.
* Clear all stones out of room and dump them into the trash compacter.
* Move an entire stockpile from one area of the fortress to another
* Collect newly mined ore. (Like wood gathering, I prefer not to stockpile ore as it is being mined. I would rather do it all at once by creating a large stockpile, and then removing it when my haulers have brought everyting.)
* Furnish X bedrooms
* Split a general stockpile into multiple specific stockpiles, ie: Weapons, Armor, Furntiure
* Loot x goblin corpses outside
* Bring goods to depot
7) Each time I give the haulers a task they all get busy on it. Then I immediately check the idlers. If I did everything right the only idle dwarves should be my Exclusive guys who need more things to do, such as Masons or Wood Burners, or Engravers. Then I give them enough orders to keep them working for a few minutes but not too long until my idlers reach zero. Then I wait until my haulers become idle again.
This cycle helps me keep organized and focused on the task at hand. The worst thing you can do is give any dwarf a task so big they don’t start to become idle for a long time. This prevents a situation where you can’t bring goods to your depot because your haulers will be dumping rock for the next 30 minutes. It also tends to group your haulers together so they are not all over the map when you get attacked.
9) From the ranks of pure haulers, I draft my military. Once I have a full suit of armor for each dwarf I draft two to five dwarves, make them plate-wearing wrestlers who are off duty. When they get to the level of GREAT WRESTLER or above, then I switch them to their main weapon and let them spar or target shoot with that. Once they become better than GREAT at their new weapon, then I swap their practice weapon, set them to ON DUTY and station them permanently.
10) I always use the manager to give orders to my exclusive dwarfs. The only two dwarfs who work on REPEAT TASK mode are my Iron Armor Melter and my Gem Cutter. Everyone else gets their orders from the manager or from piecemeal designations.