I’ve got a lot of stuff. Ideas, instruments, data, papers – you know, stuff. But it’s not the stuff that’s the problem, it’s keeping track of it – and if it’s bad now, it’s only going to get worse. As new technology continues to enable us to externalize our memories, we’ll have more and more things to keep track of. For artists, this is a particularly thorny issue – the amount of stuff we have to keep track of expands with our creative output (disproportionally when new technology is used). So how should we keep track of everything?

Edison had a good start. Despite being a bit of a prick, Edison perfected a system of documentation that allowed him to accurately keep track of 5 million pages of notes over his lifetime – his notes were so complete, he was even using them as evidence for his (frequent) patent trials. But this type of rigor didn’t merely serve to be a record – in an excellent analysis, Lifehack describes Edison’s notes are described as:

1 – Comprehensive – Nikola Tesla called his system an ‘empirical dragnet’.
2 – Forward Looking – His system recorded everything today’s typical day planners keep track of – ideas and sketches he had for new inventions, contacts, to-do lists, and actionable items.
3 – Rearward Looking – By keeping a record of both his successes and failures, he was able to avoid repeatedly going down dead-end roads.
4 – A Memory Aid – A weird thing happens when you write something down – while you are attempting to externalize your memory, you actually internalize it more. Edison used this to his advantage.
5 – (Last and most important) Searchable – because what good is it if you can’t find anything? Edison organized his notes chronologically by subject matter – it was still a manual process, but at least it was a bit faster.
[Check out Edison's notes here...]

Modern planning techniques borrow much from Edison’s methods. The GTD method of productivity uses the a folder technique, championed by evangelists like Merlin Mann. GTD’s tickler system calls for 43 folders – one for each day of the month, and twelve for each month itself. It’s an effective trick, but still an analog beast in a digital world. Another route would be to have a private Wiki, but I’ve never found one that works for me. Tiddlywiki is nice, but frustratingly local – and I’ve yet to find a server-based model that doesn’t have an uber-complicated install (although I’d happily be proven wrong – anybody with a better experience pipe up in the comments).

I currently keep track of my stuff by applying some consistent rules religiously. I frequently work in different media – I like to use Moleskine notebooks for songwriting and any project notes I want to keep down in a more physical format, and my prose writing and recording is done on my computer. For my paper notes, I have a small stamp that I use in the bottom right-hand corner of each page - this allows me to quickly check dates, subject matter, and iMap categories (as well as looking pretty cool). For my digital material, I keep a rigid folder and naming convention that effectively limits the amount of places I could put something. Everything is named with a 12-digit date, category, name, and creator (this makes it sortable by date also). This file is actually called 200711131838 – Post – Organization Techniques – KSE. There are three folders on my desktop – one for personal, one for work, and one called heap (my landing folder – I try to empty it every night). It’s got nothing on Edison (and I’m always looking to improve, especially making stuff more searchable) but for now, it seems to work pretty well.

How do you keep track of your stuff?