Filing system taxonomy blues

So, I'm cruising down the highway from Sligo to Collooney[1] with the MP3 player in 'too loud' mode. One of my favorite manipulators of language, Bob Dylan, is doing his thing and I'm singing along in my best tone deaf voice. He is armed with nothing more than English and an acoustic guitar. As usual, I'm in awe. I sit back to let the waves of symbols he is emitting wash over me un-resisted.

I'm on the way back from the offices supplies store where I picked up some much needed bits and pieces to rescue my terminally ill paper filing system. For days, nay, for weeks now, I have been dreading this filing exercise. My big problem with filing has always been the certainty that I will not be happy with the results.

All those pieces of paper. They all need to be filed somewhere. But where? Is this piece of paper best filed under 'insurance', or 'house' or 'Acme Insurances Inc.' or 'bills'? So many options, so many incorrect taxonomies to choose from. So much desire to find the one that is perfect. I should know better of course. There is no perfect taxonomy for a filing system.

Bob sings: "Some of the people can be all right, part of the time.".

That sure sounds like a good description of my filing systems to date. I read about some recommended filing system and put it into practice. It works great for some stuff and does not work great for other stuff. The stuff it does not work for tends to manifest itself only after a lot of work on the parts of the filing system that do actually work well.

Bob sings: "But all the people can't be all right all the time."

Now I feel better I think. The trick with the quest for a perfect filing system is to simply stop looking for it. It doesn't exist. There is no perfect taxonomy I could dream up that would work in all circumstances. I need to get a life. I need to pick a system that works reasonably well and just stick to it. I need to try to revel in its incompleteness, its wrong-part-of-the-time-ness. Can I do that? How to start?

Well, I started my revised filing and I finished it. Then I wrote this article. What did I do? I labelled a bunch of folders from A to Z and set up the simplest of all filing systems - alphabetical.

So where have I filed the house insurance bill? Under 'I' for insurance as it happens. Why? Because I had to pick one place. 'B' for bills or 'H' for house would have worked equally well. Am I guaranteed to find something I need on a first attempt? No, in this case, I might have to wade through the bills folder and then the house folder before hitting on the insurance folder. The trick for my peace of mind has been to realize that there are only a small number of sane possibilities. Therefore, pick one sane word for each piece of paper, file it alphabetically under that word and get on with your life.

Bob sings : "But all the people can't be all right all the time."

Ain't that the truth. My filing system now bows to this simple truth about myself. I don't get the filing right all the time but on average I can expect to find what I'm looking for in 2 or three stabs. That is better than agonising forever about a perfect taxonomy for the filing system itself. Especially since the agony will be forever unrequited.

My paper filing system is non-deterministic - the very anti-thesis of what computing is (classically) considered to be about - and I love it.

Bob sings: 'I'll let you be in my taxonomy if I can be in yours.'

At least, I think that he what he said[2].

[1] http://tinyurl.com/434eu

[2] http://bobdylan.com/songs/ww3.html

ITworld.com, Ebusiness in the Enterprise

Sign up for ITworld's Daily newsletter
Follow ITworld on Twitter @IT_world

• Email
• Print
• Share
  • Slashdot
  • Digg
  • Stumble
  • Reddit
  • Newsvine