Organizing all files - windows xp ?

[brianlg]

Does anyone have a good implementation on how to organize all files on windows xp? Outlook files, with pdf files, spreadsheets, etc?
Tagging them somehow, with easy way to search?

How to you access something quickly?

 

[cfoley]

I use David Allen's paper file system almost verbatim.

I have a project support directory containing one directory for each active project.
And a Reference directory containing a directory for each thing I would normally have a paper file for.

I also write enough code to warrant a separate filing system for it. It all goes under in my development directory, again with a subfolder for each project.

 

[treelike]

The fastest way I've found to retrieve a file I need is to store it in a directory named in such a way as I will remember where I put it. The good thing is that directories are listed A-Z by default. For email it's different for some reason. I keep all archived messages in one folder sorted by date. Since I tend to remember roughly when something happened on email it doesn't usually take much searching to find the message. Separating email messages into folders always seemed to result in me having to do exactly the same as this but in more than one folder, wasting time.