As fallback now that Mr. Lise shut down his site, probably not news to anybody, but if you google "Noguchi filing system "there are a few weblogs that discuss it and some even show photos of how they use the system.
Anyone read "The Perfect Mess" book yet? It discusses the Noguchi filing system.
Here's the excerpt from the book with an interesting twist at the end:
"Yukio Naguchi is a Japanese economist revered in his country not only for his intellectual wattage but also for his work in designing and promoting personal organizing systems, or, as he calls the endeavor, "hyperorganization", intended to maximize the efficiency of office workers. Though Noguchi's schemes haven't received much attention outside of Japan, a translator by the name of William Lise took the trouble to post on his normally obscure Web site what may have been the first English language description of Noguchi's filing system and was stunned to receive some forty thousand visitors to that page in a single three week period in 2005.
The gist of the Noguchi scheme is this: every single incoming document, no matter what it is, is placed in a large envelope, which is then placed on its edge on a shelf, so that all the envelopes line up in a horizontal row like books. New envelopes are inserted on the left side of the row, and any envelope that's taken out is put back on the left. After a while, those envelopes that contain the most recent and most often accessed documents will end up on the left side of the row, while the oldest and least used documents will be on the right. In theory, this makes documents easier to access, since they are automatically prioritized by frequency of use.
If something seems vaguely familiar about the arrangement, perhaps it's this: Turn the row of envelopes so that the envelopes are staced vertically instead of horizontally, place the stack on your desktop, and get rid of the envelopes. Now you've got an ordinary pile of papers of the sort that you'd find on any messy desk, where the most recent and most used items tend to end up at the top. So the next time someone tells you your pile-covered desk is messy, you can point out that it's just hyper-organized."
We all seem open-minded to new ideas, myself included, but personally I'm sticking to GTD and it's filing system considering my recent promotion is thanks in large part to implementing GTD. Thanks DA. GTD works for me but I could see others filing ala Noguchi and still staying withing the GTD fold.