I.A. for me

In a previous post I talked about the wave of new information (mostly papers and presentations) that were handed over to my inbox when I started talking about updating the webpage where I work. Yesterday brought a new complication when an email arrived asking me if I had 8 particular papers, and I realized the file names of the documents I had weren't descriptive enough for me to tell; they weren't even consistent, as they arrived from several different individuals who each have their own idea of what is descriptive enough for a file name.

Thanks to a project I'm already doing, I knew what was already on the site, which was a huge plus. However, I realized I'd been pushing off sorting my email attachments because I wasn't ready to do anything with them yet. Looking through, I realized I'd received some files more than once (or maybe the files were different, but the file names weren't). What a mess I'd made for myself by not being ready for the information--having a personal information management system is where designing one for someone else starts.

I made a folder on my desktop and created a new text document in it where I listed the things people "wanted" me to have for posting to the site. I downloaded all of my attachments into that file, and then started the ardous task of detailing which posters, presentations, and papers I had. I got rid of duplicates and renamed files that had the same name and different content. Now I have a system to deal with incoming papers and a list of what's in there and what needs to get in there, so it's all ready when I am to go to the site (hopefully not more than 2 weeks).