Information Management is a Hallmark of Better Productivity
10 Ways to Master Information Management
Here are ten of my favorite ways to manage information:
Factor reference from actio
Carve out action items, To Dos, and tasks from your incoming streams of information. if it’s not an action, it’s reference. I first learned this practice when I was dealing with information overload as a support engineer. I ended up cementing the idea while working on our Microsoft Knowledge Base. The Knowledge Base is a vast collection of information, where each article tends to be optimized around either action or reference.
Create lists.
Make a new To Do list each day and use it to organize your key action items for the day. Create checklists for your common routines.
Create collections.
Put things into collections or think in terms of collections. Consolidate your notes into a single collection that you access quickly, such as in a personal notebook, a Word document or etc. Consolidate your thoughts or ideas into a single collection.
Put things where you look for them.
Where ever you look for it, that’s where it should be. If you keep looking for something in a certain place, either just put it there when you find it or add some sort of pointer to the actual location. While you might logically think something belongs in a certain place, the real test is where you intuitively look for it.
Keep things flat.
Out of sight, out of mind holds true for information. Avoid nesting information. Keep it flat and simple where you can. Think in terms of iTunes or a playlist. A well organized playlist is easy to jump to what you need.
Organize long lists or folders using A-Z.
When you have long lists or big collections, then listing things A-Z tends to be a simple way to store things and to look things up fast. Once a list gets long, A-Z or a numbered list is the way to go.
Archive old things.
When information is no longer useful for you, consider archiving it to get it out of your way. This usually means having a separate location. I’m a pack rat and I have a hard time letting things go, so I tend to archive instead. It let’s me get things out of the way, and then eventually get rid of them if I need to. Archiving has really helped me get a ton of information out of my way, since I know I can easily rehydrate it if I need to.
Bubble up key things to the top.
When you have a lot of information, rather than worry about organizing all of it, bubble up things to the top. You can effectively have a quick, simple list or key things up top, followed by more information. Keep the things up front simple. This way you get the benefits of both exhaustive or complete, as well as simple. Whenever you have a large body of information, just add a simple entry point or key take aways or summary up front.