Thanks for the useful post. I have just come across your site and am posting a longer comment to your main FSIM post, but wanted to make a specific comment about folders.

My first small point is about symmetry across filing systems. I have worked to ensure that my folder structure makes sense across all my personal systems: meaning that my document, email, finance program and password program all share the same structure (of root folders and the first level of sub folders). Do you adopt a similar approach?

My second point is regarding the number of folders / sub-folders. FSIM style tagging only really works for documents, so although I see my number of folders reducing as you do, I still see folders as important means of classification and linking between completely different systems.

I am not yet sure if there is a ‘best’ common way to organise folders. My system has a few more folders than yours, with a clearer topic rather than function approach, part of which is no doubt due to using this to classify spending and emails. My root folders are: business, finance, fun (e.g. writing, travel), home, notes (diary and NVAlt files), people, stuff, and vocation).

Finally, can I ask a question on organisation beyond documents – how do you approach photo organisation? My music is automatically handled by iTunes, as it is at least a simple folder structure, but I manage photos myself as Aperture is not nearly as transparent. I have root folders for decades and sub-folders for events, with filenames of “yyyy-mm-dd event_#” (as an aside I find hyphens useful in the dates as I don’t always use full dates and without the hyphen ordering does not work properly in either windows or osX).

Thanks again for the post!

I stumbled across your blog as I have been researching how to best simplify and future proof my workflow: leading to text files, NVAlt and Simplenote. One issue with these solutions is the flat folder structure, tags get you so far but you are still presented with a long list of files. So your and AmberV’s excellent posts made a lot of sense as a means of providing additional, searchable, robust, easy categorisation.

So I gave a lot of thought to how best to adopt this system for myself. I first mapped all the types of docs I have and the groupings that made most sense to me. After many hours of thinking, rereading your post multiple times to clarify the theory, moving things around etc, I ended up with effectively the same six tags as you. It feels like this was my own doing rather than being influenced by you, but either way it does perhaps mean that this system can be more readily transferable to different people or situations than folder structures.

Next was the question of sub-tags. I came at this in a different way. My approach rests on two principles: ease of remembering, and allowing automatic cross comparisons between wholly different documents. The answer, for me, has been to have only a single sub-tag (either 1, 2, 3, or 4) and for the meanings of these sub-tags to be identical across all tags. This obviously removes some information that your system allows, but for me the benefits will hopefully outweigh the cons.

Getting into the detail, I was struck by AmberV’s use of internal and external for several of her top tags and in your system 1′s and 3′s often denoting similar meaning across tags (so I do not profess to be wholly original). I mapped out what I thought could be the most useful binary distinctions between my documents and came up with: internal/by me vs external/by others; abstract/reflexive vs practical; informal/personal vs formal/official; draft vs completed. The first two of these resonated the most as both readily applying to just about everything but also allowing useful distinctions across all tags. Two sets of binary tags leads to four combinations in total, so to reduce typing one number would denote a combination of both variables.

So my system uses the following: 1 = by me and reflexive (e.g. diary entries, charting my weight, wedding speeches, fiction writing, meeting notes, letters to friends) 2 = by me and practical (e.g. tasks lists and project work, made-up recipes, meeting actions, job applications, letters to the bank) 3 = by others and reflexive (e.g. friend’s fiction, health reports from the doctor (as these just record my health rather than require action – potentially financial statements could fit here too), articles about the creative process or say meditation, letters from friends) 4 = by others and practical (e.g. recipes from the web, letters requiring action, training material)

I realise there is a blurred line between these sub-tags, as there is with any system, but it makes sense to me. My file name structure is very similar to yours, though of course a bit more detail may be required in the prose name. I have also added at the end of the name the option for additional metadata (e.g. which chef wrote the recipe). I previously have used [] to denote this sort of information but I realise that ( ) makes more sense so that spotlight searches on “[…” will only bring up tags.

I am only just starting to use this system and have yet to proliferate across all files (where my first step is to get consistent dating in the file names) so I have still to see the benefits of this system, meaning it may well change.

Finally, again, thanks for the inspiring and insightful analysis and practical help, and I hope this comment is of some interest to you or other readers.

I can be found on facebook.

Mr. Smith and the choir experience was such an influence in my life. The experiences we had, from performing Joseph’s Technicolor Dream Coat before anyone knew who Andrew Lloyd Webber was to the basic leadership training that set the stage for my life. I will always cherish those times.

Mr. Smith was the organist at my wedding in 1986. Although that marriage has dissolved and I am very happily re-married, having him perform at my wedding was very special.

I do have one regret. My father (rest his soul) used to record some of our special events, such as Xmas eve, on a cassette recorder. For years, I had the tape of my one solo on Xmas eve but, alas, it has been lost.

Mr. Smith, the choir experience, and the friends I made, will always be a special memory for me.

John Crellin Pittsburgh, PA

many thanks for the informative and detailed way you’ve gone through this. In the end I decided to use a time based folder system. I use year/quarter for my folders. This suits me as projects will naturally disappear once they are completed. Finding is easy because of the FSIM.

The only problem now is how to get all my data into this system. emails aloe are taking a while. I also decided to convert files from proprietary formats where possible. My emails are being saved as rtf/rtfd.

Perhaps on your next post you could look at how best to automate the filing. I use Typinator to put in the current date and time, but somehow with the use of Hazel there must be a way of dragging a file into a folder and having it automatically rename. I’ve also completely stopped using tags as they are not part of the original file (I think?).

Email is also an issue. I receive it in high volume and if I’ve not been able to access it for a few days it builds up. My current Typinator setup replaces some text with todays date and time which is my unique file id. This doesn’t work with emails 2 days old. Also email attachments need thinking about. Still I really like the system.

Good questions. I’m writing a reply as a post that should be up shortly.

I’ve been trying to get my head round your post and AmberV’s comments, plus the forum posts. I understand the filename system. I have a few questions:

1. Do you apply your system to all files you create on your computer including proprietary or only text files?

2. The folders are causing me an issue. Since the filename pretty much covers the file, there would seem no need for folders, except that you would end up with a single folder with a massive amount of data. Would it be best to use a few folders that cover broad areas such as ‘work’, ‘family’, etc.. This one really baffles me.

many thanks

So I find that Plaintext is the one app to rule them all in that I can access everything from that app, but by limiting Plaintext use to only those projects in which I’m in full writing mode, and using Simplenote synced with NV for the rest (sketches, notes, etc.) the workflow goes pretty well.

Jesse should definitely bring PlainText to the desktop solve this dilemma once and for all.

Thank you for your response Doug, I was going crazy searching for NV replacement. Will simply wait and see how things play out.