Talking Turkish Names

Good luck. How do you exactly do it? By context? (Department A, Department B.) By person? (John, Jane, Ayman.) Does it not seem like a futile effort? Exactly 20 years ago I wrote my first and only file directory system. It was the dying days of CDC and the only PC available was locked behind a special access room. Using Fortran and the native OS of CDC, the mission was to write a multi-level directory structure. It did make sense to have some directories. But I did not feel comfortable at all about second and third level subdirectories. How would anyone remember the structure. Since those days, I’m looking for practical and meaningful logical method to organize my files, e-mail messages and folders. I’m yet to find one. Overtime, I’ve developed elaborate filing schemes only to be abandoned a few years later.

After the advent of Mac OS X, I’ve found justification to give up hope of file and folder organization. I’m now just depositing my files somewhere and then use search tools to locate them when necessary. Until recently, I could not do the same with e-mail messages. Having passed the 20,000 message barrier recently, I’ve now come to the realization that I must let go of e-mail organization too. The solution, if you could call it one, is very simple. Just put all your messages in an archive folder. Yes, it is a statement of defeat but if you think about it, it works. What’s the point in trying to impose structure on your e-mail folders while that structure is susceptible to change on a constant basis? Now, of course I use IMAP and hence must keep my mail folders down to reasonable sizes in terms of message count. That I do by using years as folders. “2007″, “2006″, “2005″, “2004 and before”, and so on. It works. The next big step will be to make sure nothing unnecessary is filed. And perhaps on one idle day some of the junk in the old material can be sifted away.