Quote:
Originally Posted by magobaol
Hi hypotyposis, I'm very interested in this argument. I never really understood how use tag to have benefit. I've always used very robust folder structures for my needs, but sometimes I feel I miss something to get links between data, but tags didn't help me so much.
Can you give me some other informations about the Allen thoughts regarding tags or, even better, tell me your experience?
Thank you,
Francesco
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Hi Francesco,
I think the podcast I was thinking about is the one on "best practices of doing". There's also some relevant stuff in the DA newsletter that just went out today and that emphasises that electronic tools are often too complicated to be useful. I've always heard DA advocate flat lists, and I find a lot of power in this approach.
You might want to head over to the DA Co forums for some more detailed discussion of this kind of stuff. In my personal experience, I've had problems managing tags from Things to Evernote, etc. I understand that they can be made to act "just like" folders/projects, but I tend to always over-tag.
I've mentioned in another thread that I recently returned to a flat list of projects in OF (i.e., 0 folders to discriminate between projects). I'm very happy with this choice: it forces me to make a decision as to which projects should be active and which should be sent to someday/maybe during the weekly review. I can see how tagging would drag me into making more distinctions, which would create much drag on my system.
If you take a look at Todd's Ready-Set-Do! page (fair warning: can get a bit wordy), I think he has a very, very good implementation of strict GTD which includes in my personal experience the best system to organise files on a Mac. I tried tagging folders before that, and I had the same problems I mentioned above.
In my case, and if I have to think about it, I believe the tags were encouraging me to "leave things in their places" without giving an order to them that mirrored the order you get in a physical filing system. Being able to mirror this workflow in my electronic system gives me a great feeling of control and clarity, the kind described in GTD, but maybe it's just me (although I swear I'm not hooked on an IV of Jack Daniel's as discussed regarding certain senior members of the forum in another thread!).
Hope this helps; I probably haven't thought this thing through entirely so I'm interested in your questions as well as in your own experiences.
Cheers,