Where is that file?

A McKinsey report found that knowledge workers (people who work most of their days on computers), spend on average, a whopping 23% of their time searching for files and information.

No one taught us how to manage information, so we’ve had to work it out for ourselves - and often not been very effective at it.

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I've been working with computers for 40 years, and have seen the exponential rise in the volume of information we have to deal with on a daily basis. I've also seen people struggle to manage this volume of digital information, and find it when they're sure it's there somewhere.

Image if you could find information quickly when you need it - every time. In less than 60 seconds, even if you you haven't opened or saved it for years.

This is not about remembering where you saved it, and it doesn't require you to have spent lots of time organising your files, or having the best file naming convention either (though that might be helpful). It only requires a simple process of making connections between files.

You brain does this for you when you sleep at night. It organises any new information received by making connections (creating new neural links) to existing nodes of information. That's how you can recall it later, by associations. And if there's a strong feeling or image associated with a memory, it's even easier to recall. You didn't have to try to remember that crocodile walking down the street 30 years ago when it escaped from the local zoo. It was so unusual it comes quickly back to mind. So we'll mimic this in our computer file storage.

If you link each file (document, spreadsheet, note, etc) to one or more files in one of just four logical categories/locations, you'll find it quickly, and your future self will thank you for that tiny effort you made - even years ago!

Capture it

If a thought comes to mind, or some information comes into your hands or floats across your screen (computer, tablet or mobile), whether physical or digital - capture it in a note. This is the first step.

Then comes the question of where, and how. What app and what location, and how (what processes) can you make capturing the information as frictionless as possible? There are many answers to these two questions and the trick will be to find the ones that fit in your context.

Organise it

Before you freak out and tell me, "I don't have time for this!", or "this sounds like a bunch of work", I have some good news. If you follow two simple steps you can be assured you'll be able to find this note again, even well out into the future.

1. Store the note in one of four places
2. Connect the notes to another note in one of the other three places

The four places

Areas

Projects

Resources

Archive

Make connections

Once you have added the note (information node), connect it to a note in one of the other three locations. Leonardo da Vinci and Richard Branson have something to say about this matter of connecting the dots.

How do you do this?

This is easier in some of the digital software than in others, but it's so valuable that you might want to make some changes to facilitate it

In a folder structure (Finder on the Mac, or Explorer on the PC)

If your places are folders on a computer, then