Digital Files

Managing Your Info
By Alexander M. Osias
Newsbreak Contributing Writer


WHERE people once ranted about not being able to get a landline, even jeepney drivers today own at least one cell phone. Where people once carried bulky paper planners and organizers or hired secretaries, we now have handheld devices that can store telephone numbers and e-mail addresses, take pictures, record events on internal calendars, and keep track of lists of tasks to perform during the day. Where people once worried about how costly long-distance communication once was, now there are free online e-mail accounts, and Internet phones.

So why do we periodically find ourselves frustrated at being unable to find, access, or transfer our electronic information?

It's usually because our strategies for managing our electronic information are either haphazardly shaped by the latest technology fads or are non-existent. Assuming that you've decided "Today is the day I begin organizing my information," where do you start?

Core Strategy

Start by defining your most important goals, and shaping your initial information management strategies around them. In shaping your strategies, consider the following questions:

1. Where does my information come from, and in what form(s) do I get my information?

2. In what form(s) should I store this information?

3. When and how quickly do I plan to access this information in the future?

4. Find the latest, cost-effective, standards-based tool(s) to store and access this information.

5. Revise your strategy accordingly.

Example 1: A single, updated contact list

1. My information comes from a variety of places—cell phone numbers texted to me, business cards sent via SMS, printed business cards, numbers scribbled on napkins, e-mail addresses. In most cases, I record them on my cell phone somehow. In the case of e-mails, I tend to find the last e-mail sent by an individual and send a reply.

2. I quickly decide to store this information on my home computer for a variety of reasons: it's at home and can't be accidentally lost in a taxi, it's less exposed to the elements, and it has a larger capacity to store information than my cell phone.

3. However, I do want to be able to synchronize the information with my cell phone. I plan on being able to copy (rather than encode manually) the numbers and information on my cell phone.

4. I go out and review the various cell phones and find that a lot of them now synchronize or upload their information to PCs. Often software and a wireless or physical (cable) link are required. I also have an e-mail application that has a contact list as part of its features.

5. I decide that my strategy is to use my cell phone as my satellite contact list storage. If I'm out of the house, I'll store any contact information that I need on it. When I get back to the house, I synchronize the information with my PC's database. If I can't find a way to export that information to my e-mail application's contact list, then I'll copy them one by one. Not the best solution, but good enough for my goal.

Example 2: An easy, idiot-proof filing system for my home and office PC files

1. My information comes from e-mail attachments (work and home), from files burned to CD, from floppy disks, from USB drives, and sometimes from files that I've created for personal or business use.

2. I have too many files to store anywhere other than my PCs, although I do occasionally archive files and burn them to CD when I need to clear up space. They normally remain in the same file formats they came to me in.

3. I sometimes find I need to bring work home. I need to be able to carry files back and forth. I also need to be able to find any file I need, instead of checking a variety of places until I finally have to use a file search tool (which may not work). I need to quickly ascertain that a given file is or is not in my PC.

4. I check out the features of Windows XP for file storage and synchronization. I check out the latest USB drives and CD burning drives and software. I ask my office mates and friends how they shuttle work back and forth. I hear about something called "Google Desktop" and research it.

5. I decide to get a 256 MB USB drive. I also decide to adopt three main folders for my files: Personal, Professional, and Dump. "Personal" stores all-important personal files, "Professional" stores all important work-related files, and "Dump" contains all the funny e-mail attachments, pictures, and otherwise trivial files. If I need to quickly back-up my personal files, I just copy the Personal folder to a USB drive. If I quickly need to clear up drive space, I drag the contents of the Dump file into the Trash.

I also decide to create several sub-folders in my Professional folder with the following naming convention: - . This will also hopefully make it easier for me to find the right folder to copy into the USB drive whenever I need to.

Then I download "Google Desktop" for my office computer. It's a utility that apparently can perform full text searches on every single file in your computer.

Information Management Gear

Some information management devices could help you formulate your own strategies:

• Cell phones - currently available models tend to have crude to exceptional applications on them, such as to-do lists and event calendars. Others can even take photo stills, record audio fragments, and even take short videos.

• PDAs - I prefer PDAs separate from a cell phone for several reasons: being able to take notes while on the phone; more options for storage and file transfers; constantly improving information synchronization tools.

• USB drives - you can now store up to a gigabyte of information on these drives (if you can afford those models) and they're treated like another drive on your PC. Fortunately, they're just plug-and-play and are very portable.

• Laptops - for obvious portability and power.