Back to Basics: Reference Filing
One of the greatest sources of clutter in just about any office environment is unfiled paperwork. I think everyone suffers at least a little from Keep-It Syndrome, that horrendous affliction that causes us to imbue every scrap of paper that crosses our desks with a mysterious power that makes it nearly impossible to throw anything away.
At least part of the problem is indecisiveness. Many of the papers that we keep aren’t really necessary, but we keep then “just in case” we need them down the road. Since they’re not particularly useful, they’re hard to organize in any meaningful way, so they stack up or get shoved into a shoebox or crammed into an unruly filing cabinet in no particular order.
But that’s only part of the problem. A deeper problem is knowing we need something, but not knowing how to file it in a way that keep s it out of our way when we don’t need it but makes it easy to retrieve in a moment when we do need it. The fear of losing something important, or forgetting about it, can be paralyzing, often leading us to leave more stuff out than we file away.
Filing is probably the easiest, least thought-requiring task you can do in an office, yet because so much is at risk, it creates a great deal of anxiety – and in virtually every office environment I’ve ever worked in, that anxiety has contributed greatly to the failure of the filing getting done.
So what to do?
First of all, we need to distinguish between several different kinds of papers. The first are project files, which I’ve discussed before – these need to be close at hand, and are usually the easiest to figure out. The second are official documents – invoices, bills, receipts, forms, reports, meeting minutes, etc. These also tend to fall into natural categories that suggest themselves and are easy to develop a filing system around.
The real problem area when it comes to filing is reference material. Reference material is anything that contains information that we need or will need at some point and which will have an application beyond their immediate use. For me, one major body of reference material – we’re talking maybe 10,000 pages here – are academic articles and notes that I’ve been collecting since I started graduate school over a decade ago. As an academic, I use this material for writing papers, researching topics for presentation in class, and provoking new ideas – but none of it does me any good if I can’t find what I’m looking for when I’m looking for it.
The system that immediately suggests itself is alphabetical, and for years that was how I organized most of my papers: alphabetical by author’s last name, just like my books. The problem with this system is that while it’s easy to figure out where new papers go – just look at the author’s last name – file retrieval is a pain. If I want information on food taboos in the South Pacific, for example, I have to remember that Margaret Mead wrote about that topic. Mead’s easy to remember – she is probably the most famous of all anthropologists – but what if the paper I want is something I glanced at by an author whose name I can’t recall, maybe a graduate student at an obscure university?
To solve the problem of retrieval, I reorganized many of my files according to main subject. This is the system that David Allen recommends in Getting Things Done, and it does greatly assist with retrieval. After several years of topic-based filing, I had several nicely organized drawers with folders arranged alphabetical by topic: “Colonialism” after “Cold War” and before “Counter-Insurgency”. Finding a folder full of references on any particular topic was a breeze.
On top of the filing cabinet, though, was a growing pile of unfiled papers. Un-file-able papers. Papers that dealt equally with two or more topics, papers that didn’t lend themselves to any easily-remembered topic heading, and so on. As Allen notes, if it takes more than a few seconds to file something, the chances that you’ll do it drop drastically – filing has to be quick, easy, and even fun, or we’ll resist doing it. Which means that as my pile of work I couldn’t categorize, label, and file in a few seconds grew, I became more and more resistive towards filing altogether.
And thus my empire of paper fell.
Enter the Paper Dragon
The system I am beginning to implement is inspired by the system used by the Paper Tiger document management software. In the Paper Tiger system, files are numbered and filed low to high. Each new document or group of documents goes into the next available empty folder, and a description of the contents and keywords are entered under that folder’s number in the software’s database. Thus, my folder full of resources on counter-insurgency might be in folder 08174; to find it, I simply search the database for “counter-insurgency”, which will tell me exactly where the documents I need are.
The Paper Tiger software isn’t cheap – the full-featured version of individual end-users is around $170. Instead, I’m creating a simple spreadsheet, with columns as follows:
Folder # | Title | Author | Keywords | Notes
The folder number column is already numbered to 1000 (or 01000, actually – I can add more numbers up to 99,999 if I need to. I’m thinking long haul, here!). The idea is that to find anything, I can CTRL-F search. Later, I can create queries against the table, but for now, a simple “find in page” search should be sufficient. Later still, I can import the whole shebang into Access or some other database – maybe I’ll go crazy one weekend and import it into MySQL and write a Ruby on Rails front end! (I’ve always wanted to learn Ruby on Rails…)
The Paper Tiger is essentially a tagging system for physical documents (although technically it could be extended to cover digital documents on my PC or, indeed, any item anywhere that I was willing to catalog. But the important thing is, it solves both the problem of filing – without being restricted to one topic heading, I no longer have to worry about not being able to find something because I filed it under “Imperialism” and looked for it under “Colonialism” – and the problem of retrieval – the only skill I need to find a file is counting.
What about you? How have you solved your filing problems – or have you? What hasn’t worked for you in the past (or the present), and what has? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
WRITER'S BIOGRAPHY
Dustin Wax
Dustin M. Wax is a freelance writer and project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don't Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.
Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.
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Comments
FrugalNYC says on November 14th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Definite still struggling with this one. I thought the Back to basics series was over, glad to see its not. I’ve got a post with links to all your back to basics articles.
Thanks Dustin
Ashley says on November 14th, 2008 at 11:27 am
I struggled with this same problem when I did debate in college. My partner built an Access database like what you have described. We kept our articles in numbered files, and entered data about the title, publication place and date, author, and subject. We could query based on any field. It was great! I had not thought about applying that same system to my notes and articles from grad school. Sounds like a good idea, though a lot of upfront work.
Sam Denby says on November 14th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Have you looked at Zotero? Seems particularly apt if you are an academic. And you could add a keyword-tagged note for each of your paper documents.
Alexander says on November 14th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Same problem here: one file, multiple locations.
Figured it out by:
STEP 1
Rule 1) if the document is equally important, I make a copy and place it in both folders
Rule 2) if the document is more relevant in Section A than Section B, I file the document in Section A and file a page of handwritten notes for Section B.
Step 2
When I have too many such papers, I will create a third category called “Topics relating Section A to Section B”.
Step 3:
Eventually I will create Section C, which is all section A/B documents because they all relate
What this does is force me to review my notes twice (one when I create section A/B, second when I create section C).
msmerlin says on November 14th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
For a less high-tech solution, I will take a very thin piece of paper and make a few-word reference note of the article to put in the file under the minor subject of one of the topics of said two-subject article. The paper is then filed in the other file. I write the file name (by subject) up in the right-hand corner of the paper in pencil on the main article. So in either file in which I look, I either have a reference notation to where the original paper is found or else have the original paper. I think your system is brilliant, but I’m not sure I’d follow through on entering everything into the system.
Dustin Wax says on November 14th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Frugal NYC: I thought BtoB was over too, but as I looked through my list of post ideas, I realized that “reference filing” would be a good Back to Basics post. I think this one wraps it up, though. THink of it as the “Rocky Balboa” of the series – 20 yearrs after Rocky V, suddenly there’s one more thing to say.
Sam: I need to revisit Zotero’s new features, but I have used it quite a bit in the past. Zotero is well-suited to capturing online, digital references but, in my experience, not so great for offline, physical material.
sara elisabeth says on November 14th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
my solution was to eliminate paper files. anything i get in paper form, i scan. then i upload everything to evernote. i have some loose categories everything is filed into, but if i can’t find it quickly by category, i simply type in whatever i remember into the search box and voila! the file returns.
Keter says on November 14th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Perfect timing, Dustin. I’ve been struggling with a pile of reference stuff that needs a home (and because its all different sizes and shapes, no one solution can work), and just last night I learned how to set up a database in OpenOffice. MASHUP! :oD
Vincent says on November 16th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Our “keep it syndrome” has cause us to keep so so many things such as our 3 years old to do list. Make an effort to clear your wardrobe or work station and have a good laugh at your junks.
Cheers
Vincent
Personal Development Blogger
Matt says on November 16th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
@Dustin “Zotero is…not so great for offline, physical material.”
How so? It has always had the ability to import from various databases of physical (rather than electronic holdings). It has also always had the ability to add references manually & I can think of few disadvantages that Zotero has over other reference managers as far as managing dead tree resources.
ruminator says on November 16th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
I’m an ex-academic with a huge collection of papers and reports. My garage has about 20 book boxes of materials that remain to be dealt with. Here’s what I’m doing.
I use LaTeX for text processing (having shed Word as all but useless for technical work) and so bibtex is the solution to bibliographic information. Because I work on Macintosh systems, the BibDesk tool (Google it) is perfect for managing bibliographic databases. It also allows links to files and that’s my key.
As I process my papers, I’m scanning them to PDF. The file name is the author’s last name and a two-digit year. This is the key that lets me find things I need, using BibDesk as the database engine. I can also cite materials easily in LaTeX when writing.
Polyquats says on November 17th, 2008 at 12:26 am
I used a similar system for the papers I collected doing my PhD. But instead of setting up a separate database to record the numbers, I used the referencing database I was using – Endnote. I entered the number I had assigned to the document in the “label” line of the endnote entry. If the Endnote entry is imported directly from the Journal online site, the keywords, abstract etc are already there and searchable. I could also use the label to indicate if the reference was a book from the uni library, an oversize report that didn’t fit in the filing cabinet etc.
For my postdoc, I am trying to avoid printing papers, and saving as many documents as possible as pdfs. I save them all to the same folder, using the author’s name and year published. Again I use the label item in Endnote to indicate where the documents are. I did try using iTunes to keep track of the pdfs, but it required too much double entry.
Another idea for keeping track of the references you use is to do your note taking in a journal program such as OneNote, where you can search all your notebooks easily, instead of worrying about which file the notes and/or draft is in.
carlin says on November 17th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
I had the similar problem of managing information. May be the problem with information overloading. I read a lot and whether all of them are useful now or not cannot be judged easily.
The mind mapping tool called freemind which I lately found and started using seems to be very useful. Give a try and I am sure you will love it because of its features. First time learning to use might take 15minutes or 30 minutes. But once you are familiar it will save infinite number of hours. http://freemind.sourceforge.ne...../Main_Page
I am wondering for what all tasks I can OR cannot use it.
Nicolas says on November 18th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Hi,
I banned almost all paper (except books) from home and scanned everything. I then filed it on an Internet server. The advantage is that my home could burn down without loosing my staff and I can also access from anywhere when I need it. I often needed a reference when I was not at home.
On the other hand I recommend to really throw things away. Knowledge gets old quickly and you can search for many things on the Internet.
I also preach having a clean desk and wrote about it on the Time Management Master blog.
http://memytime.wordpress.com/.....lean-desk/
laptop says on November 24th, 2008 at 1:40 am
i like this post. some good information.
Bob Mayrand says on January 30th, 2009 at 8:48 am
You’re absolutely right! If it isn’t easy and fast to file, it automatically gets stacked in piles and ultimately lost.
I had this problem with filling my bills. It just seemed like a waste of time to file bill after bill after bill and they ended up being stacked and, you guest it,lost!
My ultimate solution to my problem is to gather my bills till payday, staple them together with a loose leaf paper on the front and date it. I also write on the front page the amount payed and how it was payed and include any important notes pertaining to the bills.
I then file the bills together in the same folder according to the date payed.
This way all my bills are filed in a snap into the same file and I can trace any of them in a chronological order if need be.
When the taxation year is over, I move them to an archive box and keep them for 5 to 7 years as the local laws recommend.
Then simply start a new file titled “BILLS 2009″