Slashdot Mirror
How Do You Organize Your Data?
kpellegr asks: "After returning from a well deserved holiday, I was faced with an exploding inbox. While organizing and deleting my mail, I realised I was having trouble classifying each mail into one specific folder. I had the feeling I should be able to link to one email from several folders (e.g. product information should be linked to from the 'vendor' folder, as well as from a specific project folder where this product is used). The more I thought about this, the more I realised that trees (such as the Windows filesystems) are not really ideally suited for organizing data. On UNIX-like filesystems, symbolic links allow the creation of simple graphs for organising data, but I have the feeling data could be organized more efficiently. How does the Slashdot crowd organize their data? How do you manage files, email, contacts, meetings and all the relationships that might exist between them?"
...it's a windows only product, but for organizing email on windows boxes, I would recommend Nelson. I use it at work, and it allows me to organize a single email using multiple classifications and has a ton of other feartures. Check it out.
I love wikis (see also Twiki, a very flexible one, and Openwiki if you prefer M$ technologies): you can organize anything you want, with anyone you want. It's more suited to a workgroup of people, but they work for individuals too. They're totally flexible, extensible, and templatable.
I'm sure people here will come up with ideas like knowledge trees and weird topological concepts, but gimme a wiki any day.
It also sounds similar to how Opera handles mail with the M2 e-mail client. It defines "access points" that can (but don't have to) look like folders for jumping into messages that meet a certain criteria. For example, all messages with an attached image are grouped together, as are all messages from a specific person, and all messages meeting some sort of user-defined criteria might also be lumped together under an "access point." In the end though, there really is only one mail box, these tools just allow you to "slice and dice" through your mail.
Virtual Folders (in Evolution) are quite handy. I used to dump all of my email in silly folders until I came to the same realization as our poster. These messages really fall into multiple categories. So, I use Evolution's virtual folder feature to create folders such as "customer, vendors, eFaxes, Follow-up, Important". In the rules for folders such as vendor or customer, I add applicable email addresses or domain names under the 'sender' filter. Another helpful categorization method is to create folders named after the person who sent the email. These days, its not uncommon for Joe Bob customer to have multiple email addresses. Virtual folders can easily consolidate all of those messages into one place. It all boils down to how we think and associate data, as the ultimate goal is easy retrieval of the data. If one associates events with a person, by golly, create vfolders w/ peoples names. :)