In a novel I read a long time ago (I want to say that it was one of Heinlein's Lazarus Long novels, but I'm not sure), a person is in a one-man spaceship, tossing things about. He is secure that he doesn't have to remember where he put that bag, that sock, because the spaceship's AI monitors all of his movements, and will track what goes where, returning that information when asked. In contrast, another person (this one, I think, was Podkayne of Mars, also a Heinlein product) finds out the hard way that while her computer will remember and regurgitate everything she tells it, using the tag 'miscellaneous' to describe lots of things is a good way to lose them.
What brings this to mind is some filing that I was doing this afternoon. We have a multi-tiered filing system. Papers that come into the house are initially segmented, with bills going directly into a red Bills folder, junk mail to the appropriate receptacle, and papers (for example, insurance documents) that have to be kept but not paid going into a Papers To Be Filed folder. Both folders are kept in easy reach in a black plastic bin on the side of the refrigerator. Once the bills are paid, any forms that came along go into the PTBF folder as well. On a recurring basis (for which read: when the folder's bulging), one of us takes it, sorts it by type - health, insurance, utilities, etc - tossing all but the most current (in most cases, not all), and then, with a groan, sitting down at the filing cabinet and inserting them into their appropriate master folder. The system works pretty well, though about every two months I think that if we ever had to leave the house in a hurry, and those papers burned, chances are we'd be screwed. I also think why do we HAVE all of this...stuff...anyway?
Of course, what I really want is the paperless office, with resilient backup and an AI to tell me where everything is. Any Day Now.
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