I have a folder called misc. I also have one called misc 2. Somewhere there's a read-later folder holding one PDF I've never read, and a folder named after a project that lasted one weekend.
If you've used a computer for more than a year, you probably have the same collection.
Saving was never the hard part
I wanted one place to throw things without thinking: a link, a screenshot, a PDF, half an idea typed at 11pm. Every app on earth will let you drop stuff in.
The trouble came one step later. Every time I saved something, I had to decide where it lived, so I made a folder for it and gave the folder a name based on the only thing I knew at the time, which was almost nothing.
When I finally counted, most of my folders held a single file.
Every dead folder was named on day one
This took me years to notice. Each of those one-file folders was named on the day it had exactly one thing in it.
With one file, you can't know what it belongs with yet. It might be the start of a project, a one-off, or something you'll never open again. So you guess, the guess gets a name, and the name sticks around long after the guess turned out wrong. My problem was timing. I was naming things before I knew what they were.
So I stopped making folders myself
Now anything that goes into my notes lands in one flat pile with no folders. It gets a tag instead, which is just a cheap guess about what it's about. A wrong tag doesn't break anything and doesn't hide the note somewhere I'll never look.
A helper goes over the pile with a few rules:
- When five notes share a tag, that tag becomes a folder. Five separate saves agreeing on a topic means the topic is real. One save is a hunch.
- A folder that drops below three notes goes away. The gap between five and three keeps folders from flickering in and out every time I move one file.
- I can't create one by hand. That rule is the whole point.
The helper only suggests the move and I approve it, because moving a note can break links that point to it. Its suggestions have been right a lot more often than my day-one guesses were.
One exception: a brand-new project is one note by definition, so a strict count would delete every project on its first day. Folders can be pinned to say "keep this however empty it looks," and new projects get pinned automatically. The rule is there to stop junk folders, and it would be useless if it fought the stuff I actually care about.
Doing this without any special software
- Stop making a folder for the first file. Put it in one flat Inbox folder and add a tag or a keyword to the filename.
- Make the folder when you notice the fifth file on the same topic. By then you'll know what to call it.
- When a folder shrinks to two files, move them back to the pile.
- Pin the things that deserve a folder from day one, like a new project. Everything else waits.