the Home Office can be a chance to
organize ourselves a little better today
I will share with you how I organize my
information the focus will be on the
guiding principles not on tools please
keep in mind and not at all perfect so
please comment on where you have better
ideas and how you organize yourself and
maybe you take this exceptional time to
get a little distance think and
reorganize a few things around you
gritty youtubers here is the guy with a
Swiss accent with a new episode and
fresh ideas around sensors and
microcontrollers remember if you
subscribe you will always sit in the
first row when I started this video I
thought to tell you about my most
important tools the first topic on my
list was information management then I
discovered that this is enough for one
video please comment if you are
interested in a further video about the
rest of my tools and how I work with
them information management is not
visible but probably the most critical
tool for my work let's start with three
rules as simple as possible but not
simpler this rule is not from me this is
from another Swiss guy Albert Einstein
number 2 searching is easy finding is
difficult that is why we should focus on
finding not on filing time is a
principle organizer it is accepted and
well known by most of the people I deal
with firstly the oldest tool for
information management in my lab I still
own a few books but most of them are
purchased a long time ago these three
are the most important ones for me in
electronics all are references to get an
overview of a topic the author's put a
lot of effort in organizing the
information otherwise I do no more buy a
lot of books and if I buy them
usually electronically I'm also a big
fan of audiobooks and podcasts they are
excellent for when I'm on the move my
favorites by the way are books about
massive projects like my last ones the
build of the 747 jumbo jet or the sr-71
I admire what these engineers were able
to get done in a short time most of my
actual information comes from the
internet it comes with a significant
disadvantage nobody does the organizing
for me I hop from one linked to the
other always paying attention not to
lose me hyperlinks are tremendous but
dangerous a few years ago I found
Evernote this was a game-changer for me
because it has a Web Clipper
it runs on Windows and iOS my leading
platforms if it comes to information
processing as soon as I find an
interesting article I clip it on the PC
I immediately tack it
on iOS I put it in the folder
exclamation mark stuck why I use my iOS
devices everywhere and often I do not
have the time to tack the article most
important is that I capture it in the
past I lost a lot of time to find a link
a second time when I was back in the lab
or office because I did not take notes
the first time sometimes I also capture
ideas in a note
from time to time usually on Monday
mornings when I also clean my mailbox
and pay my bills I go through all notes
in the folder exclamation mark stack tag
them and move them from exclamation mark
stuck to the folder of the current year
I only have one folder per year not more
why because many years ago I read
somewhere that you have to organize your
information with a goal of finding it
later
with too many folders the finding is
hard because I often do no more remember
what I thought
during filing filing along the time line
for me is the best because I usually
roughly know when I dealt with it
like I said before in rule number three
time always is one of the essential
organizes for me because most people I
deal with know and accept it one outcome
of this behavior is that I publish my
videos every Sunday at 9 a.m.
Swiss time sharp so you can organize
yourself if you want a full-text search
does the searching I use tags mainly to
restrict the topic and to spark my
fantasy when browsing on the way to new
ideas like that I rediscover always
things I otherwise would have forgotten
using tags and folders is an overkill in
my eyes Albert would not like it I'm
pretty sure keeping the tax clean and
the list short is another task about
every month or two I look for duplicate
tax and tax with only one entry
documents in those tags often can be
retucked and combined with other topics
by the way I use leading exclamation
marks to get the folder and tags at the
beginning of an alphabetical sort tax
with exclamation marks are reading
YouTube's idea and to do maybe I will
later at one after retirement like that
I do know
or lose a lot of information the effort
for filing is small and the chance to
find it is enormous I use a paid version
of Evernote the main reason is that I
use it for four devices otherwise I
think the free-of-charge version would
cover my needs the next information
source is still mail and document
creation in my regular profession I work
with large organizations where Windows
and Office are the standards this is the
main reason I use it for me - and of
course I'm used to it and know some
tricks for efficiency let's start with
Outlook I use the same principles as
shown before in Evernote I also only
have very few folders inbox sent and
read all messages obviously start in the
inbox where they stay until they are
treated I created a so-called quick step
to move the mail from the inbox into
read when I'm done with it
outlook automatically transfers sent
messages to the sent folder like that
the inbox is the open points list and
should not be too long for important
tasks I sometimes create a calendar
entry to be sure I deal with them all so
here I created a quick step I have quite
a few mail accounts some of them even on
the systems of my customers if possible
I auto forward all mails into my primary
mailbox like that it is harder to miss
them and I reduced the number of folders
again every year I archive one year's
worth of documents usually two years
back because the chance
I need a mail is reduced exponentially
with time so I archive every year two
folders sent and read and I try to
archive also the calendar entries mainly
because of nostalgic feelings this is
not so easy because of
during events if I search for an ancient
male I still can mount those archives
and after an hour or so
they are indexed and searchable anyway I
have full-text search enabled at nearly
everything on my PC and now the most
important rule here
I do not delete emails except marketing
stuff
why because like that I'm much more
motivated to search for something if I
would delete a lot I always had an
excuse to stop searching because I could
assume that I deleted it now I know that
I just did not search good enough and
continue searching very motivating my
biggest problem is social media they do
not support proper task management this
is why I often forget to answer or by
chance discover that I should have
answered a long time ago I appreciate
your tricks for platforms like Twitter
Facebook Messenger and YouTube
the next place where I have lots of data
is the file system of my PC here I have
my essential and fast changing files in
one folder and this folder is a Dropbox
folder there are a few exceptions my
YouTube project my music files and my
family videos the main reason for that
is that these files are much much bigger
than the rest and very slow moving from
time to time I add a few files and they
stay forever for example also on Monday
mornings I archive my Sundays YouTube
project on a mechanical hard drive
inside the PC and delete all files from
my SSD after that I start a task in
second copy an ancient but very reliable
program that copies all specified files
to a second hard drive this strife is
usually powered off I only switch it on
for a short time because Windows does
not allow tax
I still use folders most applications
also expect this content
that's it I also pay for the drop box
service like that
I have plenty of space and can store
everything except the files mentioned my
experience with Dropbox was much better
than with Microsoft's or Google's
solutions maybe they are better now but
my decision is already a few years old
an essential advantage of Dropbox is
that it keeps all file versions for 30
days like that I can recover deleted or
overwritten files I need this feature at
least once a week when I forget to
change the file name in one of my
projects and Arduino overrides my old
one because it auto saves when I press
upload or I make lots of changes and
find out that these modifications were
crap then I can return to a previous
version similar to get up
but simpler I do not back up my C Drive
in case of a defect I install my PC
completely new this happens not very
often and helps to keep windows clean I
still have old drawers where I keep
physical documents like diplomas foreign
currencies receipts or manuals of my
newly purchased devices but I have to
confess these days are usually searched
online for a manual or go directly to
youtube if I have a particular problem
the last paper store is one folder with
all accounting documents also organized
in years this helps me to fill out the
tax sheets that's all
maybe you do it similar to me just with
other tools or you have a completely
different system in both cases it might
be an idea to use this extraordinary
time to organize you for the time after
summarized finding is more critical than
searching in the last years I only
bought a few books mainly for reference
most of my information comes via the
browser Evernote and especially its Web
Clipper helps me to save all interesting
links
I use Evernote on all my devices this is
very important because good ideas or
links often appear somewhere on the road
generally I use only a few folders
usually organized along the timeline in
Evernote I have one folder per year plus
a folder called stack which is filled
with untagged resources
tax replace folders and information
usually is found using full-text search
in addition tags are used for searching
and to spark my imagination I use
Microsoft Office for mail and document
creation in Outlook I try to have only
one inbox all other accounts get a auto
forward in Outlook I also only have
three folders inbox sent and read sent
and read are archived every year I keep
two to three years in the current
folders like that I nearly never have to
go to the archives I do not delete mails
to keep the motivation for searching hi
unfortunately I have no concept for
social media other than just use it
especially Twitter is a pain in the in
this respect
Dropbox and the detachable hard drive
protects my PC file system all relevant
files are stored in the Dropbox folder
inside this folder I use a folder
structure applications expected and
windows does not support file tagging
Dropbox keeps all old versions of a file
for a specific time a function left and
often used by me I do not backup program
files or the system Drive I install a
new windows if something happens for
file sharing I either use github Dropbox
and in rare cases Google Drive as always
you find all the relevant links in the
description I hope this video was useful
or at least interesting for you if true
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bye