attention industry

you are not better at organizing than a computer is at searching.

Nearly everyone I know has a complex file sorting system. Especially those who manage a large number of work files on their machine.

To these people, I probably seem massively disorganized. The major difference is, I put my faith in search before I rely on my own organization. The upside for me, is saved time.

Instead of having a few dozen folders and subfolders, I keep massive folders for each subject. When I need something, I search in the appropriate folder. This would be stupid, except for one thing: consistent naming practices.

When I write a short story, I’ll save a version with the story title as the file name. But I’ll also save a version called “short story_TITLE_nov13”. 

If I go into documents, and type short story into the search bar, they all come up. The date in the filename is the creation date, and I’ll add “v2”, etc, to the end if I feel keeping past revisions is necessary.

Instead of needing to remember which folder something is in, I just need to know what type of thing I’m looking for.

In a work situation, it would be more like: “client name_docket_title_date_version” which, still, is dead easily searchable.

I understand that this “feels” less organized than folders, but being reliant on the durability of folder superstructure is no less tech dependent than being reliant on the durability of a filename and the search tool built into your device’s file management system.

That said, there are also tens of thousands of unfiled emails across my many accounts, so I may just trust my search skills more than the average person.