Yesterday I was reading the always-informative Mac Sparky blog, and was pointed towards a very interesting article by Alex Payne on our propensity these days to use computer programs as an ‘everything bucket’ in which to throw knowledge and, well, stuff into. We are talking here about the likes of Evernote, Yojimbo et al. His gist is that this is bad – that by shoving everything into one bucket and then begging our computer’s search function to find what we need, we are grinding our machines to a halt, and missing an opportunity to really leverage the information we have. Go read the article – it a good ‘un.
Thing is, I don’t agree. I know, I know, I’m an argumentative git, but I genuinely think that this misses the point – not just in terms of technology, but also in the way in which how we manage our information effects our productivity.
I posted a reply on Mac Sparky, but thought I would expand a little here on my thoughts, and look at how this interacts with how we Get Things Done (or simply how we get things done).
Firstly, I don’t think that the application is the cause and the search-engine is the victim. I think modern search technology is exceptionally powerful, and is designed to cope with how we abuse it these days. Be that the likes of Google on the web, or Spotlight on a Mac, even ‘basic’ and free search engines have mind blowing power. Never mind the likes of WolframAlpha.
This search power means that when we put documents and files onto our computer, we are not just throwing them into one general bucket, we are in fact throwing them into thousands of very specific and focused buckets. Not only that, we are putting them in a matrix cross-referenced buckets.
Let me take an example. 3 years ago when I waded through the pile of post when i got home from work I’d open a letter and realise it was a gas bill. Now being a good Getting Things Doner I notice that this bill is automated and so there is no action to take. I thus goto my filing system, find the ‘gas bills’ folder, and put it in. Next it is a bank statement for a new account I have opened – no folder open yet, so I get a new one out, fire up the label maker, file the statement, and put the new folder in the right place in the cabinet.
Worked perfectly. If I need a gas bill I just go to the relevant folder and pull it out. The same for the bank statement.
What about now? Well, I get home from work, and I have both my bank statement and my gas bill in my e-mail inbox. So I drag them into Evernote. Erm, that’s it.
And if I want the gas bill? I type ‘gas bill’ in the search bar and hit return. From anywhere in the world. A ready made ‘gas bill’ bucket. And a new bucket for the bank statement without disturbing the dust on the label maker.
Even better? I don’t recognise one of the debits on my new bank statement – the description is just a 10 digit number. Three years ago I would spend two hours trawling through files, then an hour on hold to the bank to try and work it out. Now I just bang the number into the search bar and… oh, it’s my customer reference number for my gas supply. That’s fine then. Not only do I automatically have a bucket for ‘gas bill’ and ‘bank statement’, I also have one for the specific customer reference number on my bill. In fact I have a bucket for every word in every document or file on my computer. And that is an improvement.
I know Alex wasn’t being luddite about this – I exaggerate to make a point. But the alternatives using a complicated folder system and file taxonomy, whilst being very powerful, have one fundamental problem. I can’t be bothered to do it. Bad I know, but me, and about 90% of the world, are too busy procrastinating to have the patience to put our information anywhere careful – the slower this process becomes, the bigger the temptation is to just lob the stuff in a draw. The beauty of an ‘Everything Bucket’ is that it is in fact an ‘Everyone Bucket’. And that, is a good thing.
So what do you think?
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