TL;DR
Note-taking:
- Decide what kind of note-taking person you are: digital or paper
- Pick an application or paper system
- Find a format that fits your style and needs
- Declutter your notes and fit into your new format
Email:
- Identify and clean up old email accounts
- Clean up old email subscriptions, spam, marketing, etc.
- (Optional) Decide what kind of email person you are: inbox zero or searchable inbox
- Set filters, clean or archive old mail, and set things to your new format
File Maintenance:
- Identify your data handling priorities and responsibilities
- Review your files and decide if they actually belong somewhere (system files, executables, etc.)
- For those that don’t, set up a categorization system based on your needs or best practices (examples below)
- Organize current uncategorized files according to your new format
How many times do you (honestly) think about your note-taking ability, email, and general file maintenance prowess? I’m going to say you probably suck at it, like most of us. It’s OK! Science says smart people are messy. They also say smart people curse a lot, and if that’s the case, I need to go get [bleep]-ing tested with Mensa. Seriously though, I continually struggle keeping up with my digital homesteads, both for work and for my personal devices, let alone any written to-do lists. We live in a content-flooded world these days, drowning in ads (apologies for future readers if we’ve monetized), and sometimes it’s just hard to figure out what’s important and what’s not. And even when we do start down the path of becoming more organized, it all just keeps piling on until we feel like we’re back at the beginning again with mountains of data or chicken-scratch notes.
Since we’re on the topic of organization, when was the last time you vetted all of your email addresses? C’mon now, how many do you really have? Do you use all of them? Check all of those 10,000 emails and spam messages? I’m calling myself out here; when I finally started trying to pull things back on track a few weeks ago (again), I couldn’t see the light at the end of the email-filled tunnel. Among just four personal accounts that I’ve kept track of, I had approximately 70,000 email messages, with hundreds pouring in daily from old email signups, online shopping ads, marketing, social media updates, and only a handful of legitimate messages I wanted/needed to care about. Don’t get me wrong, I still have a long way to go, but I’ve at least triaged some of the email flood at this point.
I’m not going to promise you that the below methods are going to drastically change your life and make you a super-duper, well organized neat freak. I applaud anyone who possesses those skills and are able to maintain the “zen of neatness.” If you’re one of those people reading this, leave a comment below and enlighten us poor darkened souls to your ways. But for the rest of us, here’s some tips I’ve gleaned and new habits I’m working on to try and keep things digitally tidy.
Quick tangent — my boss educated me recently on the word “gleaned” and a bit of it’s history. I thought it was quite fascinating, as it’s a word I’ve used my whole life, but one that I’d never bothered to look up.
Note-taking:
Decide what kind of note-taking person you are: digital or paper
Sometimes this isn’t an easy choice to make. I tend to do a little bit of both interchangeably, depending on my situation. I type around 100+ words per minute, but I tend to capture information better during calls and meetings by writing it down. I’m also more prone to remember those bits of information that I physically write as opposed to what I type. It may not be the same for everyone, but there are articles that point this out as the preferred approach.
Still, with all of the information coming at us day in and day out, if you aren’t storing things digitally, you’re most likely behind the curve of those who do. And if you have hand-writing like mine, it could be painful trying to figure out what I scratched into the paper.
My advice? Do what feels natural in the situation you’re in, but opt for learning how to digitally capture your notes, even if it’s after writing them down first.
Pick an application or paper system
There are a ton of note-taking applications out there and various paper systems for keeping up with your hand-written notes. I can’t cover everything here so here’s my rundown:
Digitally, I’m currently using OneNote for work, and CherryTree for personal and pentesting purposes. It took me awhile to get accustomed to OneNote, but there are some handy features that make it really nice. One, if you don’t mind your OneNote notebooks being in the cloud, you can access them from wherever you like. I also find the “Tags” incredibly useful, such as adding a To-Do or marking things as Important or as a Question. One of my notebooks acts as a work dashboard so I can keep up with assignments, due dates, and my status updates. CherryTree has very similar functionality and (in my opinion) great hotkeys; it is super simple to create a node (Ctrl+N), fill in some documentation, realize there’s a subcategory (sub-node) you need to add (Ctrl+Shift+N), and keep going. I won’t go into all the glorious hotkeys available here, but do go check out the documentation if you’re a keyboard ninja who loves having everything hotkeyed (I’m a newbie in this regard).
For handwritten notes, I tend to stick with half-size spiral-bound notebooks for long term items I may want to reference later, and either smaller notepads or index cards for quick tasks I need to get done right away. Truth time: I have a small obsession with office supplies, so I have tons of spare notepads and index cards that I’ve had for nearly ten years now. I only recently started following this approach so that I could actually use them up and shred them when I’m finished. I also tried Bullet Journaling for both work and personal and I really enjoyed it; it was awesome for keeping track of workouts and progress. It does require some time investment to keep up with it though, but then again, nearly everything from an organizational perspective does.
Find a format that fits your style and needs
Whether you’re going the digital route or sticking with paper (or doing a hybrid approach), you have to decide on a repeatable format that appeals to you and the way you process information. I have an overactive brain much of the time, so I tend to list everything that comes to mind as fast as I can, and then sort into categories of importance. I use the “ABC” system: A – needs to get done today or as quickly as possible, B – important, but not critical, C – would be nice to get done, but not important. Some people may also want a D for things like reminders, but I generally just use C for those. Within your chosen digital application, you may have the ability to create a template so you can customize a given layout or setup to the way you process information. I have my OneNote new page template set up with the ABC method and a “Status Update” section in the lower half. I make a new page every week and generally spend a few minutes at the end of every week preparing the next weeks’ page by updating it with items still left on my lists. For written notes, I alluded to my methods above, but I follow the same approach. One of my problems is that I often write things down that aren’t directly related to my list, so I have scribbles everywhere and it muddies my system. That’s where my new “index card system” is starting to help me out. For example, when the boss calls and I need to jump on a new critical task, I grab an index card and start capturing everything instead of desecrating my notebook. Then I digitize anything from the index card that needs to be saved for later. Ultimately, my goal is to primarily use a digital system, with my written notebook as backup.
Declutter your notes and fit into your new format
The easy part, right? Eh, depends on what your backlog is and if you even care if you have a backlog! I’m in the process of digitizing my old notebooks and adapting to my new system at the same time, so it’s easy to feel burn out or get bored of process. That’s why it’s really important to focus on the first steps of identifying what kind of notetaker you are (or want to be) and thinking through how you want your setup to be. Those decisions shape how much work you’re going to have to put in to keep everything going. Obviously we want to be efficient with our system, so we can use our time on more important things, like getting the work done! Once you have cleared up your backlog (or decided they aren’t important enough to keep), it’s all about working your system and tweaking things as you go. Don’t be afraid to change things that aren’t working or start over and try different systems. There are way more options out there than I can cover here and you’re only a search engine away from discovering them.
Email:
Identify and clean up old email accounts
If you’re like most of us, you have multiple email accounts, many of which you intended for a specific purpose or created on a whim for whatever reason. If you’re ready to start reeling all those accounts in, the first step is identification. There are, of course, many ways to do this and depending on your situation, may take multiple ways to identify all of them. Some great ways to start are here. I used a combination of google searches, sifting through old emails, social media, and trying to knock the dust off my brain (a.k.a, just trying to remember). There were definitely a few I had forgotten about or even making, so it was an eye opener. List everything you find, reobtain access if you can (and only if it truly belongs to you), and give a purpose for each one. If you don’t need it, evaluate what’s there, forward or save down anything you want to save, and then delete the account. Once you have a list of email addresses you can’t live without, it’s time to move on!
Clean up old email subscriptions, spam, marketing, etc.
You could do this as part of the last step I mentioned within the TL;DR for this section, but I prefer cleaning these up first so I don’t have a sea of unwanted stuff mingled with things that might actually be important. Plus you get the added benefit of not having to set email filtering rules. I started one-by-one going through emails and any that were directly relating to marketing or subscriptions that I didn’t want, I either followed the link to be removed from the mailing (which works most of the time…) or using the handy feature available in most modern email clients (unsubscribe, no offense Reddit, I still love you). I use both ProtonMail and Gmail, and nearly every subscription, spam, marketing had a link or quick button from ProtonMail or Gmail to unsubscribe. Once I unsubscribed, I searched for everything from that particular source and deleted it. As of this post, Gmail was the clear winner on ease of use in this department, as ProtonMail’s desktop client limited me to deleting 50 emails at a time, where Gmail didn’t have a limit.
(Optional) Decide what kind of email person you are: inbox zero or searchable inbox
I included this for completeness sake. I’ve found there’s generally two schools of thought (I’m sure there’s more out there) on how to maintain your inbox: inbox zero or searchable. I’ve tried both and I prefer “inbox zero.” I was able to manage this several years ago, and it’s something I’m striving for again, though I make do with being searchable without too many hiccups. Maybe I’m a hybrid in this as well? For a few additional points of view, check out this blog over at doist.
Set filters, clean or archive old mail, and set things to your new format
If you’ve made it this far, you can’t stop yet. You’ve identified all (or most) of your emails, unsubscribed to the pesky newsletters and marketing, and possibly adopted a new email management philosophy. To bring it home, sort through the remaining emails you have and toss anything you don’t need anymore. Just be careful you don’t delete important messages, receipts, or photos. Also, if you noticed any marketing/spam messages still coming through after your un-subscription marathon, make sure you set up the appropriate email filters in your preferred email client to show those things who the boss is — straight to the recycle bin! You could also set up some filters based on your new email methodology. For example, if you’re trying to keep your inbox tidy and keep things filed away into folders, you could set up a filter that sorts things as they come in, or maybe after they’ve been read. There’s so many options out there, it’s really up for you to decide how you want to organize things. Of course, no one’s system works for everyone, so it’s important to find what works for you. I personally try to keep things filed per assignment or per subject. I’ve found it’s too confusing for me to keep up with messages filed per person, as there may be a many-to-many relationship (i.e., many people may be involved with the same or many different assignments/subjects). Whereas keeping things per assignment, it’s easy for me to keep related messages together so I don’t get contexts mixed up. I try to think of this as a one-to-many relationship (i.e., one assignment/subject may have one or many different people involved).
File Maintenance:
Identify your data handling priorities and responsibilities
First and foremost, if you’re doing all of this for work purposes, you have to know what your data handling responsibilities are. If your company or business has a documented data handling policy, of course you need to be following that (not some weirdo’s advice on the internet). However, if you’re looking on how to get started for personal reasons, you first have to identify what kind of files and data you have (or will have) and develop a classification system. Your photos, tax documents, anything personally identifiable (PII) — these need to be protected. It’s easy to say that everything needs to be protected, but assigning priorities based on what data you have (or will have) is key. This isn’t a strict requirement for those just trying to clean up their home systems, but in nearly every other case, this is crucial. You can’t protect what you don’t value. For those needing some guidance on creating a policy, Netwrix has a pretty decent template that covers data security (mostly from an access perspective). Note: I am not endorsing the Netwrix template nor suggesting you use it. It is for example purposes only.
Review your files and decide if they actually belong somewhere (system files, executables, etc.) & for those that don’t, set up a categorization system based on your needs or best practices
Depending on what operating system you’re using, this could mean many different things. For Windows users, if it’s an application, there’s probably already a folder in your “Program Files” or “Program Files (x86)” directories. If you have a bunch of .exe’s laying around though, it may be helpful to put them all in one place along with their dependencies. Of course you’ll need to consult with the executable’s readme or installation documentation to make sure you won’t break something. I find I have stuff all over the place though; apps I’ve downloaded and installed from a folder on my desktop, straight from my Downloads folder, or some quick “Scratch” folder I made in temp that I meant to clean up after the fact. Identify those things and try to develop a system of where you’re going to keep certain files. Perhaps your word documents are all saved in your “Documents” folder or subfolders within it. Or maybe you use your preferred cloud storage provider so that you’re able to access documents from multiple devices. For some additional tips specific to Windows, check out this blog from computerhope.com. If you’re a Linux user, there’s a bit more structure and expectation for where you store files. One of the best rundowns I’ve seen of this is over at The Linux Foundation. I use Linux nearly every day and still can’t remember these off-the-cuff, so it’s important to use a reference wherever you can! Plus Linux allows you many freedoms, some of which may not be in your best interest if you don’t know what you’re doing. I don’t have much experience with Macs, but here’s an interesting article I found where pro’s talk about their file storage methodologies. The important thing here is, figure out where things should be stored; for personal files, either follow your given operating systems doctrines on where things should be stored, or develop and follow your own methods.
Organize current uncategorized files according to your new format
I’m sure you’ve figured out the theme by now… Once you’ve stored your important system and personal files where they need to go, it’s time for everything else. I tend to be a data hoarder, but I still try to keep things organized by general categories: books, audio books, photos, code portfolio, etc. I’m also a bit of a masochist and for a ton of files that I don’t have categorized, I throw them all into one huge folder on my desktop and create subdirectories for things while I go through each file. So when I open up an old .pdf from a school assignment, it goes into a subdirectory called “School Assignments.” Once I’ve gone through every file in the folder, I sort the folders into related categories, if necessary. Then I throw them on my network attached storage (NAS) for safekeeping. If you don’t have a NAS, maybe you use the cloud or a removable solid state drive (SSD). Both options have affordable pricing available (1 TB SSDs can be routinely found for $50-$75, or even less).
Summary:
Congratulations! You’re well on your way to being digitally tidy. Like most things, it’s highly personalized how you choose to keep your notes, emails, and files maintained. My own system is a work in progress and I’ve used many different points of research and my own personal trial-and-error experience to shape it where it is today. So rather than give you rigorous guidelines on technically specific ways to achieve organization, I wanted to share my own experiences and struggles while also offering some suggested additional resources.
Thanks for your blog, nice to read. Do not stop.
Thanks Mark!