---
created_at: '2017-02-17T20:50:45.000Z'
title: 'Don’t Take My Folders Away: Organizing Personal Info to Get Things Done (2005)'
url: https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/handle/1773/2031
author: mpweiher
points: 104
story_text: 
comment_text: 
num_comments: 41
story_id: 
story_title: 
story_url: 
parent_id: 
created_at_i: 1487364645
_tags:
- story
- author_mpweiher
- story_13671599
objectID: '13671599'

---
[Source](https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/handle/1773/2031 "Permalink to Don&rsquo;t Take My Folders Away!  Organizing Personal Information to Get Things Done")

# Don&rsquo;t Take My Folders Away!  Organizing Personal Information to Get Things Done

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## Don’t Take My Folders Away! Organizing Personal Information to Get Things Done

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[__ Don't take my folders away, current.pdf (232.2Kb)][9]

##### Date

2005-01-11

##### Author

Jones, William

Phuwanartnurak, Ammy Jiranida

Gill, Rajdeep

Bruce, Harry

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##### Abstract

A study explores the way people organize information in support of projects (“teach a course”, “plan a wedding”, etc.). The folder structures to organize project information – especially electronic documents and other files – frequently resembled a “divide and conquer” problem decomposition with subfolders corresponding to major components (subprojects) of the project. Folders were clearly more than simply a means to one end: Organizing for later retrieval. Folders were information in their own right – representing, for example, a person’s evolving understanding of a project and its components. Unfortunately, folders are often “overloaded” with information. For example, folders sometimes included leading characters to force an ordering (“aa”, “zz”). And folder hierarchies frequently reflected a tension between organizing information for current use vs. repeated re-use.

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<http://hdl.handle.net/1773/2031>

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