I liked this recent post on Zen Habits (“12 New Working Rules You Should Embrace Today”)…

One of the items on the list coincided nicely with the (too) recent realization I’ve had that filing is dead, it’s all about archiving now:

“5. Archive, don’t file. Traditionally, people filed paper documents in folders, labeled the folders, and organized them in cabinets. With more and more documents being stored in computers, this way of organizing carried over to the computer desktop, with folders and files all being organized (or disorganized, if you aren’t careful). This meant that either you spent a lot of time filing and organizing, or you lost things.

Today, many people still work that way, even if it doesn’t make the most sense. What makes more sense, with the power of computers and speed of today’s apps, is the method popularized by Gmail: archive and search. Instead of creating folders for everything, and then diligently filing, you could now just hit “archive” and then use Gmail’s very fast search engine to find what you need. Of course, you could still “tag” things which is almost like folders but more versatile, but even that is optional.”

I remember when I first switched from Hotmail to Gmail. In Hotmail, I had created a folder of old emails that I never wanted to throw away. So I was VERY scared to “lose” them in Gmail’s archive feature.

Soon I realized that they were easier to find that before… rather than sort through ALL of them, I could just use a keyword to find the one I wanted.

And — like junk around the house that should probably be thrown out rather than stored — I ultimately never looked at most of those emails again. But knowing that I could pull them up at any time gave me peace of mind.

Link (via Zen Habits)