I'm with Dave - I've got stuff all over the place - some handwritten,
some in plain text files, some on old databases. At one point I started
keeping a private blog on a database, and the idea was that every entry
would have a list of keywords appended to it, so that I'd be able to
find things again; but it was too much like hard work.
I've got a filing system for my day job, which seems to be fairly
efficient. If I want to know where the maintenance contracts are,
they're in the maintenance folder. If I want to know where health and
safety documents are, they're in the health and safety folder. Every now
and then, however, something crops up where I need to find a particular
document, and I can't remember how I've filed it, and end up doing
massive searches to locate it.
My feeling is that a filing system doesn't actually help you to remember
things. It helps you to retrieve things, which is different. If it's
fairly well organised it actually allows you the luxury of forgetting
things. For example there are certain tasks which have to be completed
by certain dates. I put a reminder in my diary a few days in advance of
the deadline, file away the relevant documents in the filing system, and
forget all about them until the reminder jogs my memory.
At home, in my creative work, things are less structured. I've got an
old notebook full of handwritten ideas for projects. Every now and then
I look at it and think to myself 'Yes, that's a really good idea' - I
rediscover ideas that I've forgotten all about - but I usually don't go
ahead with them. The ideas I pursue are the ones that I find myself
carrying around in my head all the time. I don't have to write them
down, because they're living with me. So in a way I kind of trust my
defective memory to select the things that are essential and let slip
the ones that aren't. It isn't much of a system, but it has the virtue
of being sort of organic.
- Edward
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